Cloth from birth!

Well everyone, my EXTREME delay in posting can only mean one thing. Baby K is here!  He was welcomed into the world by Polish Prince, B, and myself one month ago today and it's been crazy ever since! I'm happy to say I was able to achieve my completely un-medicated VBAC when it came to his delivery. (It didn't help that by the time we got to the hospital I was already at a 9.5! No time for meds now!).  Anyway, I thankfully had packed our hospital bags a couple days before and had plenty of fluff for our new little man! 

Very first diaper! Rumparooz Lil Joey!

Polish Prince getting in on the action

Welcome Baby K! 9lbs 13oz!

 I'll be doing a post on my experience with the various diapers we've tried. But just to give you an idea, we have: 

Lil Joey's AIO

GroVia newborn AIO

One Sweet Pea Newborn AIO

Thirsties AIO size 1

BumGenius XS AIO

Bumkins Snap In One OS

Oh Katy pocket OS

Geffen Baby prefold size Small

Rumparooz and One Sweet Pea covers

Such a good big brother!

We were only in the hospital for about 26 hours, so there weren't many shift changes in the staff, but all of the nurses and the on-call pediatrician loved little man's fluffy bum! One was shocked at how easy they were to change on top of how cute they were! Plus, he looked so awesome rocking the colorful diapers with the little half shirt the hospital provides. I had no issues with the mecomium coming out of the diapers when I washed them and all of the diapers we brought fit into a medium wet bag so there was no need to worry about the laundry until a couple days after we were home. Overall, it was such a great success and I'm so happy we did it (and are continuing)!

Cake! Everybody loves cake!

As many of you know I've started my own business recently. I've created a maternity conceirge service for naturally-minded parents. Those that question the "must-haves" that big-box baby stores tell you "need" for having a baby,  parents that want to be a little more green and eco-friendly but don't really know where to start. Sure, you've heard of a doula, but what do they do? What's a midwife? What's a birthing center? How can I successfully breastfeed? The internet can be an intimidating place for first time parents; not to mention first-time CLOTH parents. There's almost too much information out there, that it's hard to know where to start. That's where I come in.:) I'll tailor (primarily local) resources for your based on your concerns/needs and then help guide you through the unknown.

Anyway, enough about that, here's the fun part. As part of my services, I want to offer diaper cakes for baby showers. Showers inevitably bring an abundance of diapers, wipes, and cute little outfits. Why not make those reusable, and into a fun cake! Buying an entire diaper stash can be expensive, but if you register for one, and have it presented in a fun way, it becomes a great way to introduce others to modern cloth and help steer them away from bringing boxes of disposable products!

This is my quest. I'm still learning and needing to play around a little bit with different shapes and sizes, but I think I'm off to a great start! Here's my first attempt at a cloth diaper cake!

This little beaut is a great first-time cloth option for a parent planning to start cloth in the newborn stage. It contains 23 diapers total! Primarly indian cotton prefolds, but also has 4  Bumkins AIO diapers, 3 Fuzzibunz pocket diapers, a receiving blanket, a t-shirt and a onesie! Oh, and one lonley Thirsties Fab Wipe, but hey, it's just a start! I plan to tailor the cake to what is on the new parent's registry, but thought this could be a good "generic" start!

Any tips from those of you that have made your own? What would you look for in giving/receiving a cloth/green diaper cake?

Cloth Diapering a Newborn

One of my few life regrets is not starting B in cloth sooner. I've already admitted my shortcomings and my "pre-mom" judgements and I'll admit, the idea of cloth diapering was very intimidating. But, I now get to live vicariously through my cousin. She is due with her own little "bean" on Christmas of this year and is planning to cloth diaper from day one! I know it's hard to believe but, I'm in her corner 100%! The only issue is she lives cross country :(. So, I'm doing this all via mail, Skype, and letters. 

Not being able to be hands on and show her all the different types of systems that are out there, I figured she should just start with a little of eveything. I wanted her to be able to find out what diapering system she prefers and what's going to fit her little guy best so here's what we're starting with: 

3 BumGenius Newborn AIO's

1 GroVia Newborn AIO

1 BottomBumper Size Small AI2

4 Bumkins newborn covers

2 Rump-A-Rooz lil joey covers

6 Bumkins Infant Contours

12 Indian Cotton Bumkin Prefolds

3 Thirsties Duo Fab Fitteds size one

3 Bumkins OS AIO's (new fit which has been known to fit a 7.5 pounder!)

I think that's it, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that covers everything for the newborn part at least. I'd love to hear your comments or advice for those of you that have used cloth since day one!!