Flexible.  Organic. One Size. Durable.

And now a cloth system with a disposable option…for the times when you just need it!

Come on over, and read about what could easily become our new favourite diaper, the Flip!

We ran a short contest for the folks that joined us at the Bellies to Babies Celebration at the end of September.  As a thank you for sharing your thoughts, we offered up a $20 Gift Certificate to New & Green.

iamrobinpeirce@yahoo.com – you are our Winner!

Thanks everyone who participated.  We got some great feedback.  Watch for exciting new additions to our show booth at next year’s round of shows, the first one being Birth Fest on April 10th!

rahannavu at hotmail.com!

Congratulations, you are our latest subscriber winner and you have won a 2 pack of Kissaluvs Fitted Diapers with matching boosters.  A made in the USA product that has been tested over time and proven to be a favourite.

Contact us within 10 days to claim your winnings!

Want to read more about Kissaluvs?

With all the concern brought to light about what we are exposing ourselves and our children to when using personal care products, it’s refreshing to have a product that is safe and effective to use and offer up to you.  Wiping baby skin is a repetitive job which means repetitive exposure if using something a on the little less healthy end of the spectrum.

So have a read and see how easy it is to start using cloth wipes.  Less waste, more health concious.

There are several methods that can be used but this is what we’ve been doing lately.  It’s easy and quick and really convenient at diaper changing time.

Needed: container for wipes, cloth wipes, wipes cubes, jar to mix the solution and HOT water.

We used an upcycled Seventh Generation Wipes tub for our container.  Cloth wipes conveniently fit in here.

The cubes dissolve really well in boiled water and after giving it a few swirls around.  Please remember that HOT boiled water is NOT a good thing to clean your baby with.  Let it cool down.

Pour solution over wipes in container and, voila, wipes at the ready to use.  We used to have a stack of dry wipes and a squirt bottle but I am finding that this is quicker and more convenient.  With a practicing crawler, we need to do quick pit stops for diaper changes.

Wipes are ready to use (and explore by irresistibly chubby little hands).  They will stay moist longer if you put a lid on.  We suggest not leaving them for more than 1.5-2 days before making fresh wipes up.

Fuzzi Bunz is a great company and they would like to say thank you!

If you have purchased One Size Fuzzi Bunz since September 10th or plan on purchasing some through to October 30th, 2009, take note.  Fuzzi Bunz has launched a Rewards Program that sets you up with $40 in free products.

Read the details at New & Green Baby Co.

Velcro versus Snaps?  An oft asked question.  Here are some things to consider.

On the snap side of things:

• Snaps are very durable and will not wear out over the long run.  Most manufacturers will guarantee their snaps and repair or replace broken snaps.
• Snaps are great for “don’t want to think about it” launderers.  No laundry tabs to remember to fold back.
• Snap front diapers tend to be a bit more flexible at the tummy – great for sitting babies and babies in slings or carriers.
• Snaps are more difficult for babies and/or toddlers to undo which may be a good thing, depending on the personality of your child.
• Snaps can be a bit more intimidating to learn and do take a bit more time to fasten.
• Snaps tend to be less “caregiver/daddy/daycare” friendly as they either are perceived to be more difficult and/or perceived to take more time to use.

On the velcro side of things:

• Velcro is easy and intuitive to use; you can gain a customized fit with infinite adjustability.
• Velcro will last through one child and will do best if not put up against high heat in the dryer
• Velcro does not fare well with repeated exposure to bleaching agents
• Velcro does best if you remember to fold back the laundry tabs before washing them.
• Velcro works best if it is not clogged with lint, hair or other miscellaneous washer and dryer bits.
• Velcro will require periodic de-linting/maintenance (see above) to keep it clear and well functioning.

So after three years of cloth diapering, I have found a great solution to make velcro maintenance less painful.  I’ve had famlies tell me that they spend some quality time with daddy sittin gon the couch de-linting or that they use tweezers to de-lint their velcro.  Let me tell you, this is much, much easier and faster! .

Step one – Grab a Snappi

Step two – Grab your clogged up velcro tabs.

Step three – Use your Snappi to “comb” the hook (scratchy) velcro and pull out all the bits.  Be careful not to catch any stitching.

And you are done.  Clean, clear well functioning velcro.  Next time you think your velcro isn’t as sticky as it should be, get out that Snappi and do some velcro maintenance.

So,  before you give up on diapers that aren’t staying on or seem to have lost their holding power, check your velcro.  If it’s all clogged with bits of lint it won’t be able to do it’s job!

We get asked a LOT about how much a diaper pail will stink.  And we tell the truth.  Use a lid!  Your home will NOT, I repeat, will not smell like an outhouse when you use cloth diapers but let’s face it.  Your diaper pail is a receptacle for pee (poop is flushed, remember) and it’s not going to smell like roses in there.

There are lots of ideas floating around about how to deodorize and manage the stinkiness that greets you when you open the pail to toss in that last diaper before your wash load (on day 2.5).  But the plea we got that really hit home was – “Can you recommend something so my eyes won’t water when I open the lid?”.

YES we can!  And here is our newest, unscented, natural and effective solution for you!

Let us introduce the Bamboo Charcoal Diaper Pail Deodorizer!

Brought to us by Ever Bamboo, a Canadian company, this product is totally natural, arriving to you in biodegradable packaging, has the ability to recharge and compost at the end of it’s use and is functional for upwards of 6 months!

Check out what folks have been saying about this fabulous new innovation.  We know you’ll be pleased!

Watch the blogs for upcoming “action shots” of the bamboo charcoal doing what it does best – hanging out in diaper pails.

Are you coming to the Bellies to Babies Celebration this weekend?

Well be there demonstrating all our gear and introducing new families to the world of cloth diapers.  Be one of the first 100 people through the door and you’ll be sporting a fab New & Green Diaper bag!

And, for you, our New & Green Community – we have some fabulous deals at the show.  We’ve worked with our suppliers to put together some great packages and accessories, including limited edition items and a brand new product you are sure to love!  Here is a Menu of our Show Specials:

Our Most Popular Cloth Diaper Kits

Fuzzi Bunz Newborn Kit (including diapers, wipes, wipes solution, wet bag + bum bum balm):  This kit is an exclusive offer at the B2B show.  If you are not in Vancouver, check out New & Green’s Newborn Fuzzi Bunz Kit which puts together a half dozen XS diapers, perfect for your newborn, right from day 1!

Complete Organic Cotton Diapering Kit:  By our friends at Bummis.  A complete off the shelf, “don’t have to think about it” kit.  We’ll have the infant sized kits (8lbs+) at the show for a great price and will give you a live demonstration of how to effectively and simply use an organic cotton prefold diaper + cover combo.  If you are not coming to the show, check out our diaper folding picture tutorial.  PS – Did you know that Bummis has been in the Cloth Diaper Industry for more than 20 years?!

3 Pack Fuzzi Bunz Toddler Diapers:  Tried and true diapers, designed for your growing toddler.  Already discounted at New & Green and will be further discounted at the show.  We have some great colour combos for you!

Our Most Useful Cloth Diaper Accessories

3 Pack Organic Hemp + Cotton Baby Wipes – Double sided, ever so soft and just the right thickness to be absorbent to do a great job at cleaning up cheeks while keeping your hands clean, too!  Special edition, just for this show.  If we have any leftover, we’ll offer them up to everyone following the show.

Reusable Swim Diapers: Head into swimming lesson season with a reusable option.  Easy to use and effective.  And discounted for the show, too!

NEW! Bamboo Charcoal Diaper Pail Deodorizer - This is something we are so very excited about.  We’ve partnered with another Canadian company to bring you an effective way to manage diaper pail odors, naturally.  Nothing synthetic, no fragrance, rechargeable, biodegradable and compostable.  We’ll be launching our diaper pail deodorizers at the show and they will soon be available at New & Green.  Our tester families love them and you will, too!

And we are clearing out our shelves.  Cloth Diaper Clearance Bin All items ONLY $10

We’ll see you there!  Sunday September 27th, 11-4, Croation Cultural Centre, Vancouver.

Well it seems fitting to have someone win something after we arrived home from Vegas.  The ABC Kids show was fabulous and we had a good opportunity to meet some of our great suppliers and see what is in store in the near future.

Thanks to everyone who made suggestions about new products.

Congratulations to Liesel who was randomly selected as our winner!

Liesel says:  I’d love to see New & Green offer some nursing pads. I just ordered some bamboo pads and am hoping they do the trick. Seems like it’s up New & Green’s alley! Oooh! And other pocket diaper options that are anything close to Monkey Doodlez.

Please contact us to arrange for your prize delivery!

Watch for some new great products arriving on the shelves of N&G over the next few months.  Based on what you have told us you’d like, I know you’ll be pleased!

I recently had a mom ask if our bamboo flats would be compatible with our newborn covers.

In short the answer is: YES!

For newborns, the best choice for a snug fitting diaper cover is a newborn sized cover.  We are particularly fond of the Newborn Super Brite covers for three reasons:

1. They ARE tiny rated from 4-9lbs!
2. They have an umbilical notch in the front to accommodate for a newborn’s healing belly button
3. They have leg gussets (extra material around the leg) that helps to form a snug seal around skinny newborn legs
4. Okay ONE more – they have a wipe clean laminated interior that makes for easy poop clean (for those of us that have had a newborn, you know they can deliver!).  Rest assured this poopy-wonder stays inside the diaper cover!

Let’s have a look at the diaper covers and the bamboo flats:

This is a Celery Dot Super Whisper Wrap in Newborn (7-10lbs) and a Blue Super Brite in Newborn (4-9lbs) beside an AMP Organic Bamboo Flat Diaper/Insert.  The bamboo flat is folded into thirds, like a brochure.

This is the Celery Dot Super Whisper Wrap opened up with the bamboo flat laid inside.

This is a Blue Super Brite opened up with an Organic Bamboo Flat tri-folded inside of it.  Notice the shiny, laminated interior.  It makes for a really easy clean up and a light, pliable diaper cover.  You can also see the extra leg material on the edges, referred to in the diaper-verse as gussets.

This is the same combo, closed.  You can see that there are no bits sticking out, which is the goal.

Our Best Tips for success:

1. Take care not to tuck the flat inside the flap at the front of the diaper cover.  It is designed like this to cover the stitching where the velcro is attached to ensure waterproof-ness.  All of the flat should fit neatly inside the diaper cover when put on the baby.  If there are any bits sticking out, gently tuck them in once the diaper cover is fastened.
2. Make sure that you do the diaper up reasonably snugly.  Check for gaps.  If you see them, tighten the cover up.  You will find that you are more likely to get leaks if the diaper cover is loose and there are gaps around the waist or legs.

So if you want to go with this type of system for your newborn, what do you need?

• 24 Organic Bamboo Flats
• 6 Organic Bamboo Doublers
• 6 Newborn Diaper Covers

And you are good to go, right from day one!

PS – All this gear is proudly made in Canada, too.

We’ve been really lucky to be able to get away this summer a few times with the girls.  They are now 9 months and 2.75 which means we need diapers for the day and night for one and trainers for the day and diapers for the night for the other.  That also means a potential mother load of laundry.  But, we proved to ourselves, with some planning, it can be done.  Here is what laundry day looked like on one of our little holidays this summer:

We brought enough diapers to last 1.5 days.  We chose to bring diapers that would dry the quickest to avoid spending loads of coinage on the dryer (notice those coin-op machines?) and because we didn’t have the luxury of waiting for line drying.  So mostly pockets came along with us on our vacation.  Sorry you easy AIOs.  I do have a special place in my heart for your ability to come out of the dryer ready to go and so easily and quickly get fastened on, but your longer drying time just cut you from the line up this time.

Here are our 1.5 days worth of diapers, stored in a Fabulous Wet Bag from Bummis (only available bundled in our Organic Cotton Diaper Kits).  We really love this storage bag because it has a zipper!  Wonder wash laundry detergent sits on the top of the washer in the baggie.

We’re set to go.  I forgo the first cold soak cycle (this time) as there isn’t any poop in these diapers (my little EC champion!) so we go right for a hot wash/cold rinse with a full tub of water plus 1 tablespoon of Wonder Wash.

All clean.  A smell test confirms it.  Ready for the dryer.

Everything into the dryer, select medium heat and off I go to play with the girls.  Because we have pockets in there only, they come out nice and dry.  Back to the room to restuff the diapers and we are good to go.

And that, my friends, is as easy as it gets taking your diapers on vacation.  Not really a lot of extra work and rather satisfying to not have had to buy disposables.

One of our long time customers, Callie, sent in her photo of her Fuzzi Bunz on a sailing trip.  Now, who had a question about doing cloth diaper laundry in the comfort of your own home??

Way to go Callie!  I bet those were the freshest smelling diapers around after being sunned and blown in the sea air.

This year the ABC Kids Expo is in Vegas and New & Green will be there next week, scouting out the best cloth diapering gear for you.

We’ll have our warehouse and shipping crew continuing to receive and ship orders while we are gone.  If you have a diapering question, give us a few days and we’ll get right back to you.

We are making room on our shelves for some exciting new gear this fall and would like to know what you’d like to see here at New & Green.

Leave us a comment about what new diapering gear would make your life easier and we’ll keep an eye out when we are researching new products.

To thank you for your time, we’ll randomly one comment to win a Clean Up Kit – including a Small Bummis Tote for out and about, a Large Bummis Storage bag, three Reusable Wipes and a Sample Size Wipes solution!

Looking forward to hearing what your heart desires!

Comments will close on September 15th. Open to Canadian Residents only.

A very common question from New-to-Cloth Parents is:

Do cloth diapers stink? After further discussion, it comes out…parents don’t want their homes to smell like an outhouse because of their diaper pail.  Valid concern, we think.

Here is our take on it and some solutions we have found.

1. Please remember that a diaper is a diaper.  What goes into it may smell.  Cloth diapers do not have all the (really bad for you) fragrances embedded in them, so you get what you get, in all it’s glory.
2. What a newborn puts out is not offensive, in any way.  They are too cute to make stinky poop!
3. When poop is at the stage that it gets aromatic, you are most likely into solids.  This poop should be flushed and should not sit in your diaper pail.
4. When children start to eat a more “grown up” diet, their urine gets stronger.  The smell that you get from a diaper pail is largely the ammonia that has metabolized from the pee in the diapers.

Okay, enough observations about pee and poop.  Here are some solutions for you.

1. Use a pail with a LID
2. Use a diaper pail liner (it keeps the pail cleaner over time)
3. Each time you take a load of diapers out to launder, wipe down the inside of your pail with a 50/50 water/vinegar mix. We keep a sprayer with this handy (useful for the potty clean up, too).  This will sanitize and freshen.
4. Wash your diapers at a reasonable frequency; we suggest 3 days as the longest interval to leave them
5. Use a diaper pail deodorizer.  At New & Green, we have Pail pals to offer you and coming very soon – Bamboo Charcoal!

We will be launching the Bamboo Charcoal Diaper Pail Deodorizer at the Bellies to Babies Celebration on September 27th.  Come on down and be one of the first families to use this eco-concious, budget friendly, effective deodorizer for your pail.

Watch for an upcoming post as we take the two deodorizers head to head with 10 families to see what works for them.

I have a question.  Where did the summer go? September has already slipped onto the calendar and here we are, announcing the July winner of our subscriber contest.

After a very busy summer, indeed, we are pleased to announce that our winner is:

felicia at raincitybooks dot com

Congratulations, Felicia.  You have won a Dimpleskins Naturals Baby Bundle which has all of their fabulous products.  Inside you’ll find trial sizes of Sweet Cheeks, Bum Bum Balm, Cradle me and a full size tube of Kiss Me Baby Lip Balm.

Bum Bum Balm is a favourite among parents who use cloth diapers.  It is an organic, effective and cloth diaper friendly diaper salve made right here in the Vancouver area.  And it smells great, too!

Felicia, you have until Friday September 18th to be in contact with us to claim your prize.

…up next – a 2 pack of another favourite product, Kissaluvs Cotton Fitted Diapers.  We have a Size One and Size Two along with matching boosters to increase their absorbency.  These are the diapers that we have hand selected to be in our Newborn Rental Kit for their effectiveness and ease of use for parents new-to-cloth.

How to enter? Become a subscriber to our blog.  Already subscribe? Then you are automatically entered.