It’s not that easy being green…

But it sure is fun to try!

I took a little plunge into cloth diapering this week.  A pretty good deal at diapers.com combined with a little wiggle room in the grocery budget allowed me to purchase two pocket diapers.

They came yesterday and I was so excited!  I ordered one Fuzzi Bunz and one Bum Genius in neutralish colors.  The bumgenius is a one size, meaning it could actually fit an 8 pound newborn and a 35 pound potty trainer.  I may just have to see that to believe it.  :)  The Fuzzi Bunz is a medium, which fits about 15-30lbs I think (although the company does make a one-size).  These brands both get excellent reviews by the cloth diapering community, although people often prefer one or the other (or a different brand).  But all pocket diapers are pretty similar, I think.  I ordered one of each of these brands to see if I preferred one over the other before I made a huge investment in a stash of diapers.  These are not cheap.  At Amazon (often the best price around) they run $18 or $19… each.  So it will take a while before they start to save us money.

I forgot to take pictures of what they look like inside, and now they’re dirty so I’m not going to.  :)  They’re called pocket diapers because they have a pocket that you slip an absorbent liner into.  The outside of the diaper is water proof so even if something gets past the liner it won’t end up on the couch.

I’ve only used them one day but I’m in love.  :)  Natalie doesn’t seem to have any issues with them.  They’re so cute and soft!  They are more bulky than disposables, but since she’s always in a dress, that’s not really an issue right now.  If I can manage to build up a nice stash, I really see myself using them.  We’ll still use disposables at church and we’ll see about days that we’re running around.  I haven’t really tackled the laundry yet, but it doesn’t seem too daunting. 

Now, I’m a little embarrassed to say it, but I only changed Natalie’s diaper twice today.  So these two cloth diapers are all she wore.  No leaks.  These are way better than the gdiapers I’ve used before.  I think I’ll still use some of those, but more as backups for these (like when I’m behind on laundry) and with a washable liner versus the flushable ones.  I think I can even use a prefold in it (read: your momma’s cloth diaper).  I’m going to try anyway.  So I put the BumGenius on Natalie when she woke up this morning, and she wore it until after lunch.  She had poop, which fortunately went easily into the toilet, and it was very full, but there was no wetness on her or her clothes.  I then put her in the FuzziBunz (which I didn’t get pictures of), and she had a nap and wore it through dinner.  Again, pretty full but no leaks. 

My other recent green adventure (which is sort of related to the cloth diapering) is homemade laundry soap.  I, like my friend Shaun, used the recipe from the Duggars website.

Here are the ingredients, plus water.  They’re all available at Alspaugh’s, FYI, which is nice, and local.

First you grate the Fels-Naptha bar of soap.  Most recipes call for this, although I’ve seen that you can use ivory or kirk’s castille soap.  I’ve actually got a bar of the kirk’s, but I opted for the Fels-Naptha.  I think the kirk’s may be more friendly for sensitive skin (or I could be making that up), but we don’t have too much of that around here.

Anyway, I grated about 2/3s of the bar then turned it over to my husband.  I’m a weenie! 

 

Looks like cheese, doesn’t it?

Then you add it to hot water and stir until melted.  This took longer than I thought.  I was a little bored.  I ate M&Ms.

Then you fill a 5 gallon bucket halfway with hot water.

And you add the melted fels naptha, 1 cup of Arm and Hammer super washing soda and 1/2 cup of Borax.  I had the Borax, but I had to go buy the washing soda.  Turns out I also had the bucket, but I needed a lid.  So it was nice not to have to invest in all these things at once.  Although they’re weren’t pricey.

Stir until everything is dissolved.

 

Then fill it the rest of the way with hot water.

Now I just have to wait overnight for it to thicken.  I think I’ll sleep while I wait.

I’ve been thinking about making the laundry soap for a while.  The reason I went ahead and did it is for the cloth diapers.  I think this is going to be good stuff to wash them in.  You’re supposed to be careful not to use detergents with additives or brighteners in them.  Like I can even read the language printed on the back of detergent bottles!  Actually I use a “free and clear” detergent that would probably be fine.

This was fun though.  :)  And as you can see by the pink dress in most of the pictures, I had help.

And if my kitchen looks dirty in any of these pictures, I have no idea what you’re talking about and I blame my camera.

And on an unrelated note, I’m really feeling Baby Brother bounce around right now!