Back in May, in what seemed to be the month of babies and bellies, we had the chance to meet so many fabulous new and expecting parents at the (fittingly named) Bellies to Babies Celebration.  We offered up a FREE Cloth Diapers 101 E-Course which many parents signed up for and are now well versed in the “how to” of cloth diapering.  We handed out lots of advice, showed many dads how much money they could save and how to deal with poop and showed moms how absolutely cute their sweet little babes would looked wrapped up in a cloth diaper. We also spoke to a great group of parents during our mini Cloth Diaper 101 session at the show.

We are pleased to announce that Mom-to-Be Amanda R. is the winner of our “Sign up for our Gift Registry” Contest and has won a great Cloth Diaper Starter Kit!

Amanda, we have put together a fabulous starter kit for you!

What’s in your cloth diaper starter kit?

• 2 Registrations to a Cloth Diaper 101 Workshop (in case you have a partner that needs convincing!)
• 1 AMP Duo Pocket Diaper
• 1 Organic Hemp/Cotton Flat Insert
• 1 Bamboo Fitted Diaper
• 1 Bummis Diaper Cover
• 1 Monkey Doodlez All-in-One Diaper
• 1 Wet Bag
• 6 Cloth Wipes
• Wipes Solution

Value of more than $150
Amanda, we have sent you an email.  Please contact us by June 19th at 5pm to claim your prize.  If we do not hear from you, we’ll randomly select another winner.

Thanks for playing everyone!  And enjoy your new babies!!

PS – The next show is in September.  Register now for early bird benefits!

I just had a question posed to me by one of my fellow “tweeps”.

What IS this EC that you’ve been referring to on Twitter?

There are plenty of great resources out there (which I’ll list below) but here is my take on it.  EC is an acronym for Elimination Communication.  The other names for this practice include Diaper Free, Infant Potty Training and Natural Infant Hygiene.

I don’t remember the exact time when I first read about it but I am sure it was during my mad research phase when I was pregnant with our first daughter.

These are a couple of the beliefs around practicing EC that struck a chord with me:

1. Babies are born knowing when they need to pee and poo; they just don’t communicate it in a “conventional” way (ie say “mama I need to pee”).  They communicate it with signals such as body language or sounds.
2. Babies can learn to voluntarily “release” their pee or poo when given the opportunity.

And these are a few of the spin offs of EC that struck a chord with me:

1. I will develop a keen sense of my child’s needs by becoming aware of her elimination needs and responding to them (just like I learned about when to feed her and when to put her to sleep).
2. My child will learn that her efforts at communication are effective when I respond appropriately thus making her a more settled child.
3. My child will learn that going pee and poo in the potty is a normal behaviour and may be less likely to “unlearn” that her diaper is her portapotty.
4. My child will not be scared of the potty or have any shame/embarrassment about using the potty.

When I potty our children, its about communication, not training and certainly not diaper free.  Like most things, EC is not black and white.  You do not have to give up diapering your child and live in the bathroom.  Far from it.  You can use diapers (though you may use less as you become more in tune with your child’s rhythms) and choose to give your child the opportunity to go on the potty as many times a day as reasonably works for you and your family.

So what does it look like for us?

Here is a typical EC day in the New & Green household:

Clare wakes up and I take her to the living room, gathering her clothes for the day, the potty and my MCU.  I undress her, take her diaper off and wash her bottom.  Then she sits on the potty.  Most of the time, she’ll do a reasonable sized pee and a poo.  She gets her bottom wiped again, has some airing out time on the floor while I go and rinse and clean the potty.

Time to change the diaper again and have a snack before morning nap.  Diaper off, wash, onto the potty, maybe a pee.  If no pee, then the diaper stays off while I feed her and when she starts to pull off and on we try the potty again.  Usually this is a signal that she needs to pee.

Up from nap, diaper off, wash and potty.  Mid-day feeding.

And you get the picture.  We typically time our potty time with diaper change time and feeding time.  It’s great to capitalize on a phenomenon called the gastro-colic reflex where babies tend to poop after they’ve eaten. We sometimes rely on her behavioural cues, but mostly its an event like feeding or waking that precedes the potty.

I can happily report that we rarely have a poo in her diaper and yesterday, we only used 2 diapers from morning until late afternoon as she did most of her pees and all her poos on the potty.

RESOURCES:

• Diaper Free Baby
• Mothering Magazine

What is your routine, EC’ing parents?

Parents choose to use cloth diapers for a variety of reasons.  Saving money is becoming one of the top reasons and it’s not hard to see why.  You can save more than 2K per child by choosing cloth.

In the world of cloth there are many many options (as I’m sure you’ve become keenly aware of!) and each option has its own merits and serves different purposes.  For the families that are choosing cloth with their budget in mind, here is your solution.  It’s cheap, it works well & its ORGANIC!

Here is what you need for your basic budget cloth diapering system:

Everything you’ll need from day one to potty:

• 24 Organic Cotton Prefold Diapers (8-15lbs)
• 24 Organic Cotton Prefold Diapers (15-30lbs)
• 4 Small White Bummis Super Whisper Wrap Diaper Covers
• 4 Medium White Bummis Super Whisper Wrap Diaper Covers
• 2 Snappi Diaper Fasteners
• 1 Diaper Pail Liner
• 1 Out and about tote bag
• 36 Cloth Reusable Wipes

That’ll take you to a total of just over $400.  Add about $530 for washing costs for three years.  That’s it.  Simple system, small budget, even smaller footprint! (Quick comparison – this’ll do for siblings later on as well.  Mid-range disposables will rack up a bill of about $3300.  Yep – and that is for each one in diapers!)

Check out our Prefold Tutorial to learn how to effectively use these diapers.

For those of you who didn’t know…we were blessed with a daughter mid November.  We are two whole months into this adventure.  Some nights, it feels like it’s been forever and some days, I look into those two month old eyes and it’s like it’s the first time…ever.

I seem to have forgotten so much about the intensity and the sheer wonder of having a newborn in the house.  I sure forgot about how many diapers there were!  Though I say it over and over again at workshops and to clients over the phone and email, you really do change diapers every couple of hours…all day long!

So what have we learned?

• You can start cloth from day one!  Our little one entered the world and landed on a soft cotton diaper.
• There are some diapers that work better than others for those first weeks when you are contending with a baby that has a healing umbilical cord and is still all curled up like they are still confined to the walls of a uterus
• They poop a lot and it can be runny but lo and behold, we have not had leaks (with cloth, that is!)

So having a store FULL of product to choose from, what did we love?

1. A Hemp/organic cotton flat with a Snappi and a Bummis Super Brite in Newborn (love the notch at the front) and the diaper’s ability to fold down the front to make it ride under the umbilical cord stump
2. A Kissaluv size 0 was fantastic with respect to fit, ease of use and it’s ability to hold in the poop.  The umbilical fold down in the front is a bonus.  These were paired with the Bummis Super Brites.
3. A good ol’ cotton prefold – I could adjust it right down and with the folding technique we show you at the workshops, it really does work.  I loved that there was no elastic squishing those sweet little thighs.  So cost effective too, though a little bulkier of the options.
4. Monkey Doodlez Newborn All-in-Ones.  A super trim fit with super cute colours.  My favourite night time solution along with…
5. AMP All-in-Ones as they required one step and no thinking which is perfect at 3am!
6. And lastly a new product that we have been trialling for you…to be announced soon.

In celebration of our new learnings, we have put together a “Cloth from Day One” sampler kit for you to trial.  Our mistakes and successes passed on to you.  Check it out – we only made a limited amount of these kits and when they are gone, they are gone…!

Here’s to all you parents diapering and feeding at 3am – I’m right there with ya!