We love the forward thinking of the folks at bumGenius and we love that they listen to you, too. With a desire to make cloth diapering as easy and accessible to all families as possible, they have made some very functional improvements to their keystone diaper, the bumGenius Stay Dry Cloth Diaper. These diapers will continue to fit babies from 8-35lbs, provide a stay dry environment for your baby’s bum and now have these awesome benefits, too:

• More generous sizing so more 35lb babies can easily fit into these diapers
• Improved velcro fasteners that look better, longer
• The option of snap fasteners for a no-fuss, perennially sturdy option
• Slight stitching re-design with the leg elastics to make elastic replacement very easy

These diapers continue to be backed with a one year warranty, excellent customer service and a smile, if you need one! Have a watch of video above which features Jenn, the owner of CottonBabies talk about the release of these new diapers.  And, yes, Jenn is that lovely – we’ve met her.  She is a real mom, just like you and me with an amazing vision of a world with many, many more babies in cloth diapers. The bumGenius 4.0s are available now for pre-order at N&G and will begin shipping week of August 3, 2010.

When we ask new parents what they rank number one as the most important feature of a cloth diaper, they almost always say "Easy to use!" or "Convenient".   I believe this comes from the fear rooted in the notion that cloth diapering is hard, not user friendly and terribly inconvenient. While prefolds do require a bit of learning to get you to the stage of "Hey, that's not difficult..at all!", they are really a do-able diaper option.  And they have lots of great benefits. Here is a short list of our top 5:

1. Organic Cotton -  one of the greenest, healthiest choice in textiles from production to end user
2. Very absorbent
3. Easy to wash and fast to dry
4. Simplicity means no technology problems (ie nothing to break on it)
5. Durable - many many babies can have these diapers grace their bottom and then they can be upcylced to cleaning cloths

So with all this behind us, lets take three minutes to look at Prefold Cloth Diapers in the Learning Series Video above.  This is your intro to get you into your prefold zone. Enjoy and email us at customercare@blog.newandgreen.com if you have questions.  And remember, prefolds are the diaper that come in the ultra affordable Bummis Organic Diapering Kit.

I know, I know.  We've been talking a LOT about this stuff.

But it works, it really works!

Want some, don't you? Click here to grab a coupon code.  It's only valid until Sunday and our stock will go fast.

Try it and then come back to us and tell us how much you love it.

“Does it matter what kind of detergent I use?” This is one of the most common questions asked at our Cloth Diaper 101 workshops by new and expectant parents. The answer is “yes,” but that doesn’t mean you’re specifically limited to a specific detergent. You just need to know what’s in the detergents you buy to determine their long-term effectiveness on your diapers. Since detergents that have fabric softeners, enzymes, or other additives can lead to residue build-up and leakage issues, it’s both helpful and necessary to know what ingredients make up your favorite laundry products. While we wholeheartedly vote for Rockin Green as THE detergent to use for cloth diapers, there are others that may work for you, too. Enter the Detergent Determinator. This is a handy little tool put out by the Real Diaper Industry Association and for the most part, it’s quite helpful. The strongest feature of this database is the customizable search function. You can search either by detergent name (e.g. Tide) or by detergent type. For example, you can search for a detergent that doesn’t have fragrance, is in liquid form, is suited for high efficiency washers, and is available in Canada. Once you receive your search functions, you can scroll through the list to compare and contrast the results according to their additives.

The only downside we’ve been able to find is that it’s not always easy to get search results by a name search. For example, we typed in “7th Generation” with no results, then “Seventh Generation” with no results, and finally just “Generation,” which finally populated a list and we realized that their exact spelling of the name is “Seventh (7th) Generation.” It also didn’t find every detergent we searched for, but overall we were very pleased with the thoroughness of the dozens upon dozens of detergents it does include in its database. If you’d like to know what’s in your detergent or if you’d like to figure out which detergents will work best for you, check out the Detergent Decision Tool!

As part of our Earth Day 2010 Contest, Rachel  shares her {rather suprising} finding when switching to home laundered cloth diapers: I am going to put myself in the new mom category. While my son is 6 months old now, we used a diaper service for the first 3 months and then I switched to doing it on my own. The most surprising thing I have learned in the last 3 months of cloth diapering has been that it can be fun! There were many people that told me not to bother, that I would give up, that it would be so much work.... and I have proved them all wrong. Not only is cloth diapering easy, I spend maybe 30 minutes every 2-3 days on laundry, it is also a lot of fun. There are now so many options for cloth diapering, different brands and styles, cute printed covers and pocket diapers, and I have had a lot of fun trying out different diapers to find the ones we love and that work for our baby. I wish everyone knew that it is no longer plastic pants and diaper pins. It is cute prints, easy to stuff pockets, all-in-one diapers that are just as easy to put on as a disposable and beautiful wool covers for night that let a baby's bottom breath. These are not the cloth diapers our mothers used - these are our cloth diapers! Along with the fun is a huge desire to tell other moms how easy it can be. How good it feels to not take out bags of diaper garbage every day. How running a load of late night diaper laundry is a lot easier than going to a store. And how cute a baby bottom looks in a cloth diaper! *The opinions expressed in this blog post are those of the contest entrant and do not necessarily reflect that of New & Green Baby Co.  We wish to thank all of our contest entrants who graciously shared their stories to help further the education and support of families wishing to cloth diaper their children.  Read more about our Earth Day 2010 Contest.