Time for gDiapers Again!

Oliver wears his first gDiaper!

Yesterday, I officially switched Oliver from disposable diapers to cloth diapers. We used gDiapers with Miss A for about 7 months total. Now we will be using the same set for Oliver! Sounds gross but it's really not bad. I thoroughly cleaned them and got rid of most stains. I have changed about 8 gDiapers already and am pleased to see that they retain absorbency. Oliver set his own personal sleep record last night too! Sleeping for 3 hours and 50 minutes, which is also my sleep record since he was born. His gDiapers held up without pee soaking through. Success!

I am happy to truly be saving money on diapers! (And helping the environment by reducing waste) ;)

gDiaper Changing Station

I am also finishing multiple sets of cloth wipes so I don't have to have an extra garbage bag only for disposable wipes. I will be making a cloth wipe solution of baby oil, baby wash, and chamomile water for the cloth wipes. Then I will be washing the cloth wipes with the diapers. Breastfed babies' stools are water soluble so all the diapers and wipes can go directly into the washer without needing to be rinsed. The diapers and the washer, both end up clean! I did this with Miss A problem free. The true mess comes when the baby starts eating solid foods or is introduced to formula. Then I will have to place a liner in the diaper and either throw it in the garbage or flush it down the toilet because those stools are not water soluble. (Note: I do NOT plan on using formula!) My ultimate goal this time around is to save even more money! Diapers, wipes, or formula savings will be HUGE for us! Oliver will basically be a free baby... Almost. :)

I made a special homemade soap free detergent for our cloth diapers too. It consists of 1 cup Borax, 1 cup washing soda, and 1 cup Oxyclean Free. It only requires 1 tablespoon per load. I made a homemade detergent for our clothes too by substituting the Oxyclean for Fels Naptha soap but I hate it. The clothes come out clean but they don't smell fresh. I might try adding some drops of essential oils in the future.

Our Planet Wise wet bag for dirty diaper storage

We changed our dirty diaper laundering system this time. Last time I used a Fuzzibunz wet bag and was not happy with it. It did not keep the smells at bay so the nursery smelled bad. I ended up placing it in a sealed contained and that helped with the smell, but it was inconvenient. This time, we are using a Planet Wise wet bag. It is a thicker, more durable wet bag sealed by a water proof zipper. It also has a dry storage compartment for holding clean diapers if we were to go on vacation or camping. The bag can be flipped inside out and thrown in the washer with the dirty diapers. I pretty much slept next to this bag last night and did not smell anything. When I unzip the bag to place more diapers inside, it does not smell because the bag is so large and the diapers are so far down. I have a matching medium sized bag for the diaper bag too.

[Once again, I am ecstatic about a bag that holds baby shit. Go me for being excited about ALL parts of life!]

Who does Oliver look like in this picture? Am I seeing some Nicklas family resemblance here? Not sure.

Oliver's tiny baby feet! <3

Blahhh!

Husband got forced to work three 12 hour days in a row.
I never see him anymore.
Baby did NOT sleep well last night... woke up every hour crying.
Turns out baby is sick. Running Nose. Cough. Red Cheeks. The Whole Works.
Husband comes home at 5am again tonight.  (Started work at 5pm.)
I work tomorrow at 8am.
Grandma can't watch baby til 12:30pm tomorrow.
Can't bring baby else where because she is sick and we don't have a formal babysitter to pay. 
I'm forced to call off work for the first half of my day tomorrow. LAST NOTICE. Can't call in til morning.
[Probably contributing to the reason women are discriminated against in the workforce.]
Been only partially successful cuddly & comforting my crying baby all day and night.
Bought a pack of disposable diapers for $40 today, accidentally. [Thought they were only $20.]
Too late to return them because we broke open the box & changed baby's diaper before paying.
Feeling guilty for not using cloth diapers for an entire month.
Disposables make her poor little bum bright red from diaper rash. gDiapers are much better with that issue.
Feeling guilty for giving up baby sign language.
[I still sign bottle, diaper, clean, dirty, more, I Love You, Water, and All Done... but what's the point if no one else does.]
Barely have time to reflect on how my own life is not going in the direction I want it to.
I'm stuck, feeling hopeless, and giving up on my own life.
Praying for sick baby to sleep through the night tonight.
Praying she is all better by morning and that I'm not sick.
Unlikely. 

2 Months of gDiaper Experience

GDIAPERS ROCK! I am a big fan thus far. Miss A is 10 weeks old yesterday and while I can't say that I've been using gDiapers the whole time, I've definitely been using them over a month and a half.  She was born 7lbs3oz so at first they were too small. Then I was visiting my grandma in the hospital for a week. So for all the babysitters, we used disposables since we received some as gifts from the baby showers.

Here is my pros/cons list for using gDiapers. [Besides the normal sustainability reasons!]

PROS

• Very easy to use!! 
• Very easy to launder. I'm on a two/three day schedule with 6 gPants & 24 gCloths & 12 gLiners. I wash them with an eco-friendly detergent and hot water on a regular cycle and rinse. Then I dry all but the liners and wetbags.
• Very easy to travel with. I just use the gWetbag, however any wetbag will do to store soiled diapers. I've even used a plastic bag but that's not very sustainable to use every time!
• No complaints with leaks. The only time they have leaked is when I forgot to change her after feeding her and she pees "A LOT" and twice or more... [My Bad!]
• All the poop stays in the liner for the most part. If it doesn't it's because she created a "Diaper BOMB" and it all went up her back... this happens with disposables too. It's life!
• Product is made well with one exception below.
• I feel like my baby is trendy with her gDiapers... however I may be biased! 

CONS

• I pulled a string on one of the gLiners and it unraveled near the orange snap. [I should NOT have pulled the string. Ha..] No complaints with any other liners though.
• It takes my dryer two cycles to fully dry the gCloths.
• For some reason, other people complain about me using them... why? They are just jealous and wish they could wear gDiapers! 

I can say that I am happy we actually committed to these diapers. It is worth the money, especially since we plan to use these diapers for our next baby as well. Miss A will probably outgrow the small size soon and they are in awesome condition. I wish I could afford better gender neutral colors but for now green and orange are what we have.

Her diaper is on backwards!

To my embarrassment, I have shamefully been putting Miss A's gDiapers on backwards. Obviously she is not happy and crying because her diapers are on wrong! OOPS! The embarrassing part is that I JUST NOW REALIZED IT WHILE WRITING THIS BLOG POST... Hmm... Good news is that gDiapers can be worn two ways and successfully hold in all liquids! From now on all diaper photos will look like the first two above! :D

Why I'm Using Cloth Diapers- specifically, the gDiaper

gCloths (still needing to be washed!) on left & gPants on right

My gDiapers have finally arrived in the mail! After thinking and dreaming about using these hybrid, cloth diapers for over a year now [yes, before I even knew I would be pregnant so soon], I finally get to hold them in my hand!! I never even considered using cloth diapers until I took a Sustainability course at MSU. I did an entire research project on the gDiaper products and fell in love with the idea of using a safer, more earth-friendly product. I plan to write several posts related to my gDiaper experience. I have no doubt that it will be a positive one, but I will be sure to give an accurate account of my experiences, good and bad. Until a few days ago, I've only talked to one other person who uses cloth diapers. Everyone else absolutely despises the idea and complains to me saying I will change my mind... [Seriously people? I am highly dedicated & even more motivated by people who say I will fail. Just a quick FYI.] Anyways, I want to tell you why I am so addicted to these diapers without ever having used them yet.

Cloth Reduces Ecological Footprint
To begin, cloth diapers are much, MUCH more sustainable than disposable diapers. If you don't know anything about disposable diapers know this concept. Disposables produce too much garbage. One child alone can go through up to 8,000 diapers. This produces around 1 ton of garbage per child. In 2004, the United States alone sold between 18-24 billion disposable diapers which all ended up in landfills. Only 18 billion diapers alone use 82,000 tons of plastic a year and 1.3 million tons of wood pulp -- 250,000 trees. It takes one disposable diaper 500 years to decompose! It has been said that diapers are the 3rd largest consumer waste product in our landfills... The statistics go on forever. [I have not forgot about the whole debate on filling up landfills vs laundering energy expenses... but I will not go into much detail. I have a energy efficient washer and plan to use an eco-friendly detergent. I personally believe cloth is STILL better for the environment than disposables.]

So, with that being said, my main driver to using cloth is to reduce my ecological footprint. gDiapers are not created with plastic, which is non-renewable. gRefills [the disposable option of the gDiaper] are 100% biodegradable and take 50-150 days to fully compost. COOL HUH? When I have my own house with a yard and a place to create a compost... that is what I will be doing. Another important reason I plan to use gDiapers is that the company is constantly working towards becoming more and more sustainable. Their focus is to become Cradle to Cradle certified [Good book. Read Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things]. Currently only their gRefills, the disposable option of gDiapers, are certified. This certification means to take into account all the costs of a product's lifetime. This includes the raw materials needed to create the product, how it affects the consumer, and how it is disposed of and returned back to Earth. It takes into account both human and environmental health concerns.

Cloth is Less Toxic
Disposable diapers are created with harmful chemicals and gels that are needed for the extra absorbency. They contain Dioxin, which is a highly toxic by-product of the bleaching process. Sodium Polyacrylate is the gel that makes the disposable diapers super absorbent. Just an FYI, this gel was banned from being used to create tampons in 1985 due to the increased risk of Toxic Shock Syndrome. I still don't understand why disposable diaper companies are allowed to use this in an essential BABY product. Blows my mind. Also in these diapers there is the biocide, Tributylin, which is used in killing and preventing the growth of bacteria. The World Health Organization ranked this chemical as one of the most toxic substances in consumer products today. CRAZY.

There is a pitfall to using cloth too. If you are using cotton cloth diapers, you have to careful with where and how the cotton was grown. Cotton uses A LOT of pesticides to maintain and you don't want those on your baby. However, this is difficult to overcome because most of our clothing is made with cotton. It's almost a lose-lose situation unless you use only organic cotton, which is a good goal to have. I know gDiapers are made with a combination of cotton and hemp. [I am pretty sure they are organic. Anyone know for sure?] If you don't buy organic hemp, hemp alone does not require many pesticides to grow well.

Cloth is More Comfortable 
Cloth diapers are much more comfortable for babies to wear! Don't believe me? How about you wear a disposable diaper for a week straight and let me know how you like the diaper rash and itchy plastic between your legs. Next wear a cloth diaper, or a gDiaper for a week. It's made of cloth... it's softer.

Cheaper- More $$$ For the Fun Things in Life!
While gDiapers are not the cheapest method of cloth diapering, they are definitely more affordable than using disposable diapers. At one point I calculated out all the savings we will have using gDiapers and it's AMAZING. We will save around $1000 in diapering costs for one child. We plan on having 2 children total [though you never know what will happen]. But the awesome thing is that we won't have to buy diapers for our second child because we have already purchased them for the first! So really we are saving between $2500-$3000.

Cloth Helps Potty Train Toddlers Faster
Cloth diapers allow children to potty train faster because the child will be able to feel the wetness and bowel movements better. If they are more aware of their icky diaper, they will become more uncomfortable, which gives them incentive to potty train faster. This may sound a bit cruel but regardless on whether you use cloth or disposable diapers, babies do not like sitting around in a messy diaper... It's gross.

While each child varies in the time it takes to be fully potty trained, cloth diapers can help a child potty train up to 6 months earlier! This factor alone gives me motivation to use cloth diapers! Why volunteer to change diapers for more months than you have to???? Silly parents.

gDiapers are Cute
These diapers are just so fricken' adorable! I plan on having my baby girl wear these with only a little shirt on this summer. No one will ever know she doesn't have bottoms on because it will look like a complete outfit.

I purchased the green and orange gDiapers because they come in a 6-pack, which makes them cheaper and gender neutral [in case our 2nd child is a boy]. But gDiapers come in many different colors and prints if you don't like those colors. I MIGHT end up buying a cute purple one just for the fun of it... but for now I am content with the ones I have and can't wait to use them!

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Keep checking in for more updates with my gDiaper experience. For now, all I can say is that I really like the idea of them and they seem like a very convenient introduction to cloth diapering. I will post more on this subject once my baby is born and she begins wearing them!

♥ 3 Weeks & 2 Days Until My Due Date! ♥