eLeMeNO-Pee July 4th Sale

Extra! Extra! Read All About It…

There are seriously some great deals to be had! Sale goes through July 6th…

*15% off selected cloth diapers, potty pants, chewbeads, colic calm, swim diapers, swim hats and swim shirts.
*Free pack of wipes at checkout with $25 purchase (coupon code GWIPE at checkout).
*Free Honest Co. Sunscreen ($13.95 value) with Honest Co. purchase of $35 or more.  If you are need of disposable diapers theirs are great and the only ones I will use!  This is a great deal even for those who don't have babies!  So many great products… if you have not tried them you need to! (coupon code Honestly Sunny at checkout)
*Select clothing up to 50% off. 
*Some awesome diaper stash options with free wet bags and/or diaper sprayers (this will continue after the 6th)
*Free shipping on orders over $59
Need help call me, email me, message me, text me!  I love helping families with their baby needs! :)

A year of cloth diapering…

We've made it a year in cloth diapers… and still going strong!!!  I even get the privilege of helping other families get started with cloth on a regular basis.  Feel free to be in touch if you have any cloth diapering questions. A while back I wrote a post about our first 6 months using cloth, thought it was about time for an update!  

Here are my suggestions for a successful first year in cloth...

1. Establish support...

Cloth is easy… but there is still a lot to learn.  Try to find a couple friends (or you could always contact me ;)) that you can call or text as you go.

2. Start with a simple stash and then add to it...

Pick a system or two and go with it.  This keeps things easy in the beginning.  You will probably add to it here and there, as you find out what you like best.  For us, we love pockets, but I have other friends that don't, so you just have to see what works for you!

3. Don't let others get you down...

When we were babies, almost nobody cloth diapered… it just wasn't the thing to do.  As friends of mine are choosing cloth more and more, it is there parents that tend to be most opposed to the idea.  My suggestion- show them how easy the new cloth diapers are, show them how much money it will save and show them how much waste it saves.   As for others that think I am crazy, I see it as a time to educate!  And for you working mamas out there, there are many daycares that take cloth diapers now, we just have to start asking and insisting!

4. Trouble shoot...

 There will probably be a time that the washing doesn't go quite as planned, your diapers aren't fitting quite right, or your diapers are not working for night time.  That's what the support is for, there is help out there for figuring things out!

5. Enjoy all the benefits of cloth... 

*Cuter than disposables *Work as bloomers *Save tons of money *Save tons of waste *Never emergency trips to the store to pick up diapers *Better for your baby's skin

What have you learned about cloth diapering?  What do you still want to know? 

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5 on Friday...

one

Planning our first garage sale... and really excited!  I am on the hunt for pointers!  Let me know if you have any!

two

Read this great post about the benefits of cloth diapering! If you want to check out some great cloth diapering products, look here.  If you have questions, or want me to help you get started let me know!

three

The "snow storm" that hit Statesboro, if you can call it that left us with out power... and unprepared. BD HATES hats and gloves and can take them off in less than half the time it takes me to get them on her :).

 We decided to head out to Florida to see my grandparents early so we wouldn't get to cold in our house.  We are also going to DISNEY Monday... we are excited!

four

The interesting thing about being at my grandparents is the lack of internet they have. I thought it would be free, but it feels frustrating... I never realized that almost any work I have to get done it almost always  requires internet.  School work, diaper consulting, blogging.  I can't decide if it is a negative thing that I feel frustrated about the lack of internet or just an understandable thing in light of the necessity of it with the nature of work today.  

five 

Did our first full week of 7 focused one food... here is some of what we learned...

our new cloth diaper adventure...

One of the biggest surprises about myself as a mom is how "crunchy/granola" I have ended up being.  Natural child birth? Really? Cosleeping? Uh-uh? But the icing on the cake is really cloth diapering… that was just going to be too much.  
But being that our blog is entitled "Our Life on a Budget," once I realized how cost effective cloth diapering was… I knew I had to do it… whether I liked it or not.
What I didn't realize was how much I was going to like it.  How not that difficult… dare I say easy it was. How I was going to prefer cloth diapers to disposables.

I attribute a huge part of my success to meeting with a cloth diaper consultant with a company called elemeno-pee.  I met with this consultant when I was 8 months pregnant at a coffee shop.  See, after doing a ton of research I knew a lot, but I did not have much cloth diaper wisdom and I had no experience. She set me up with what I needed.  But then the best part was,  I was able to call her when I actually started using them!   Text her when I had a question! Email her when I was not sure how to wash them! The personal touch was what got my cloth diapering to such an awesome start!

My original stash my element-pee consultant helped me choose!

So now-a-days, I get a cloth diapering email, text, message or call at least once a week.  I love talking fluff with people.  So, I start thinking- what if I just became a consultant?  What if I still talked cloth diapers and then if my friends wanted to buy... I could set them up? Andrew and I talked and prayed about it for a few months and then over Christmas we took the leap.  I said I would never do sales, but I feel like this is different, this is educating people about cloth diapering, sharing my experience and getting them set up if they want!   All that said, check out my new little business! Tell your friends that are having babies where to get their cloth diapering and natural parenting supplies. Meet with me, call me, text me, message me if you want to know about cloth diapers!  I want to to talk… even if you are not really interested in buying!  I want to help you get set up on your cloth diapering adventure!

Just some of the some of the fun products I have to share :)

Cloth diapering... So far

Since Bailey is soon to be 6 months (what?!?!) I think it is high time we give an update on our cloth diapering so far. I hear thing get, ahem, a little messy once solid foods come along, so I figure it would be good to get our first 6 month perspective!

1. We started simple.  

That to say, my over worked 8 month pregnant self met with a cloth diapering consultant. I had dipped my toes into the vast sea of options for cloth diapering.  She showed us some of our options and I said give me your easiest. So I bought a stock of one type of diaper (bum genius 4.0 some snap, some Velcro, some all in one). Honestly, for us this has been good place to start. We had to learn one system and we were ready to go; this was especially good for the hubs. The only downfall of doing it this way is that now I am interested in trying different things, but don't really need to (except for nighttime, but that is a whole different story).

2. We looked for support. 

Cloth is becoming more popular again, but it is my no means mainstream. I have had to really search out answers when I needed them because none of my closest friends with babies cloth diaper.... yet :).  Honestly, this is where social media is an AMAZING tool!  When you post a question on Facebook, people who have an opinion want to answer. And it is better than a random Internet discussion board because you most likely know the person responding and if their values match yours. It is also nice because I can do a follow up message to someone who had a response I was interested in.  

3. We were/are still confused by acronyms. 

I get on a website about cloth diapering or get a message from a friend about it and they are almost always filled with CD, WAHM, AIO, Hybrids and the like. It is hard to know what to do when you don't even know the lingo. I am still learning, but I often still google these!

4. We strongly dislike disposable.

 In our time CDing we have bought one pack of disposables.  We were on a long weekend trip and thought we had enough cloth to make it... we did not. We then used them and on our next weekend trip to Andrew's parents. Maybe it is just because we had gotten so used to cloth diapers, but we did not like using the disposables. It was the blowouts, the multiple necessary  nighttime changes, and the shear cost (36 diapers in 4 days ). Maybe BD is a heavy wetter but I easily had to change her twice as often in disposables.

5. We are still figuring out nighttime. 

This has been the one big struggle area for us, but have heard it is hard for a lot of parent no matter what type of diaper they use.  When she started leaking through the double stuffed bum geniuses, we tried triple stuffing, but this just caused gaps. We tried disposables,  it had to change her the most using those.  We are currently playing with wool covers and seeing which insert combination does the trick. It also helps when I don't let her eat more than once during the night. The past couple of nights I have used a fitted stuffed with TWO hemp inserts and used a wool cover... and she has been dry!  But her bottom is the size of Texas :)!

6. We don't think washing is that bad. 

Seriously, I just throw them in the wash every other day. I wake up early, so I put them in first thing in the morning. Wash on cold with lost of water to rinse them, do a hot/cold cycle with detergent to clan and sanitize and an extra rinse. Usually I have started all the cycles before I leave in the morning, so Andrew just gets them out. Side note, our washer/ dryer is super small, super old ( I am thinking as 20 years or so?) and not even in our apartment, but it still works.

7. Cloth diapers are super cute and even look like bloomers. 

No bloomer neccesary or you can even coordinate the diaper with the outfit :)! All in all, it is not easier, but it is worth it. Any cloth diapering mama that says its easier, well they are lying. You have to invest time at the very least to wash to make it work. But it is minimal time and easy work. I recommend cloth diapering to all my friends!

Cloth diapers...

First responses... from almost everyone...

You are not really going to do that?

Are you really going to wash them?

You want to mess with all of that?

Are there going to be safety pins involved?

Do we have to use them when we see Bailey?

Everyone has been skeptical
... and honestly I was skeptical at first too.  But after talking to some cloth diapering mamas I got some confidence that cloth diapers are not the package of safety pins and burp clothes that they used to be.  They told me about the lack of diaper rash, children potty training earlier, the green implications, and how much money you can save. Those that know me, know that I am frugal (blog titled- our life on a budget.... guess that's a duh).   So the excitement is shown in this chart below borrowed from the fuzzibunz website. Now this is not actually the brand we are using, and we have not spent even as much as it says on the chart, but I feel like it provides a pretty good picture of the price difference.

The scary thing is we have invested so I feel like there is no turing back now... we're invested.   Here is our stock so far... Seriously... these are cuter than disposable :)  right now we are going with mainly pocket diapers by Bum Genius.  We have a couple of all in ones for relatives and in case she has to go to daycare. Up close picture... The wipes... they are on back order now, so hopefully they will come soon! Maybe I will try making my own at some point... but I will start with this.  I will keep yall updated as to how this goes!