Category Archives: Cloth Diapering

Our Applecheeks Journey

In 2010 we were expecting our very first baby. We had decided to use cloth diapers and I had bought a few different brands to try out. As soon as we arrived home from the hospital we changed Capri into her first cloth diaper and within the first few days we fell in love with Applecheeks. We sold all of the other brands and slowly our stash became a widely out of control pile of Applecheeks. You see they put magic dust in their diapers which makes you addicted and you must buy ALL OF THE APPLECHEEKS.

I fell in love with their contests and the community that surrounded
Applecheeks. I entered and won as many contests as I could just to build up my stash, and because it was super fun taking wild photos.

As our family grew so did our Applecheeks pile. I talked them up to everyone because of how simple they are to use and how much my husband loves them (yes that is a winning factor when promoting cloth diapers).

In 2012 we added Payson to our family. This meant lots of cute sibling photos of the girls in their Applecheeks. Not only did we love their diapers, we loved their storage sacs, wipes, cleaning solution, and mini zips.

In the Summer of 2013 we were having issues with rashes and we came to the conclusion that our girls had a bad sensitivity to the PUL material that many cloth diapers have. I made the heartbreaking decision to sell my entire stash of Applecheeks which contained many hard to find colours and switch to fitted diapers with wool covers in hopes of clearing up the rashes. For two years we tried fitteds and another brand of diapers, and there was never the love for them like there was for Applecheeks. And we also realized that the girls didn’t have issues with PUL, they just have sensitive skin and terrible teething poops.

So at the end of Summer 2015 I was laying in bed one night and I asked Stefan a simple quesiton. “Hunny of all the cloth diapers we have used what was your favourite?”, and he replied, “Applecheeks”. I took that one word answer as permission to sell the stash of diapers we had been using and to go wild and buy ALL THE APPLECHEEKS!!!

Lyra who was born in 2013 never had the pleasure of wearing Applecheeks from day 1 like her two big sisters. Stefan was the lucky one who got to put her first Applecheeks on (he was kind and sent me photos as I was away).

I jumped back into the Applecheeks world and community. I have loved being a part of the different reveals for new colours and prints over the last few months and am enjoying our Applecheeks again. In October we added Zalah to the family and she was in her Applecheeks diapers right from birth.

To some all of this may sound a little crazy. To those who get it, you will get it. My regret is selling all my pretties two years ago. It is hard seeing the diapers I bought for retail prices or way less going for so much now because I can’t afford them. Yes you are reading that right, things that catch poop not only keep their value but they become more valuable the longer you own certain ones. That is how awesome these diapers are. I am excited that Zalah is little and we will get a few more years out of being a part of the Applecheeks world. Hopefully I can score some of my old favourites for a steal of a deal to relive the early days. And this is our Applecheeks evolution!

Mwana in Cloth Update

Mwana In Cloth

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I want to tell you about an amazing organization called The Children’s Nest Trust.

Children’s Nest Trust is an established non governmental organization in Zambia.

Children’s Nest is in the town of Choma, in the Southern Province of Zambia. It is home to 62 children, ages 2-16. It began in 2006, and in 2013 a Sponsorship Program was established to assist with the financial burden of caring for so many children. There are twelve staff members, divided into two groups to serve day and night shifts.

My friend Amy will be moving from New York to Choma very soon to start assisting the program with a huge list of responsibilities. (seriously the list is long and she will be amazing at all of it)

The other day I asked Amy if there was a need for cloth diapers. She told me that one of the reasons they don’t have younger kids coming in is because of understaffing (as we all know infants take a lot of work), and also they just are not prepared with supplies to take care of the babies if a any come to the home.

Here is a little story about a baby that came to them last August while Amy was visiting:

“This baby is Karen, and her mother passed away at birth. Her father is a pastor and was unable to care for her on his own because he couldn’t afford formula. She spent three weeks at Children’s Nest, and while we were there we found a girl in the states who actually knew Karen’s parents and decided to send money monthly to buy formula for Karen. The picture of her with the two adults is her with her grandparents. On the last day of our trip, they came with the dad to pick her up and take her home.”

It is so wonderful to know that Karen was able to go home with her father and loving Grandparents. Unfortunately there are more babies out there who need a loving place and loving adults. The Children’s Nest Trust is full of love and I would like to help them out by making sure they are prepared when another baby comes their way.

There are two ways that I plan on doing that.

The first is making up a cloth diaper kit for Amy to take with her. This will include snap covers, and a stack of flat diapers or flour sac towels (which is what I use and love). I know there are super fancy diapers out there, but to be honest these will be the best for their situation. Flat diapers wash really easily and dry very fast. Covers can fit multiple size babies and are easy to re-use between wash days. Mwana (Moo-wana) means baby in Tonga in the language spoken by those in Choma. So my little project that I am praying becomes HUGE is “Mwana in Cloth” which means Baby in Cloth.

The second is to help supply a fund that Amy will be able to draw from in order to purchase formula and other needs for an infant. It would be amazing if they could always say YES to a baby in need!

I would love to be able to make a kit of brand new diapers for Amy to take because it would be awesome if these little babies who have very little could have some brand new squishy cloth. And I would love to supply Amy with enough money that they never need to worry about filling those little tummies.

So if you would LOVE to help me with this endeavour you can make a donation with Paypal. I will be using some of the money to build a diaper kit, and sending the rest to Amy to use for formula and baby needs. 100% of your donation goes to this project. I plan to do my best on finding sales so I can stretch the money the farthest. I am including one size covers and newborn size just in case there are some very tiny babies. A little break down on what a cloth diaper kit would cost at full prices:

[paypal-donation]

^{James 2:27}

Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.

Please pray with me for this amazing organization and for their needs to be met in a way that only God can be given glory.

If you want to read more about The Children’s Nest Trust and Amy’s story you can check out these links:

www.childrensnestzambia.wordpress.com and auntieamyt.wordpress.com

Patty Pants Wool Cover

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Patty Pants cloth diapers are one of my favourite fitted and hybrid diaper companies. They are a Mother-Daughter duo set in Metro Detroit and together they make the most fantastic cloth diapers. Patty (Mom), does all of the sewing, and Kate (Daughter) helps put them together, and is in charge of all of the social media. A few weeks ago during one of their stockings (when new diapers go up for sale) it was announced that they were adding a new product to their lineup. I was super excited when I saw that it was a wool cover to go over the fitteds/hybrids for extra dryness. In our house we use fitteds and wool on a daily basis so this made me very excited.

I was very excited when Kate and I chatted about the idea of a blog review on the new wool cover. I have never used this style with snaps before so I was very intrigued.

When I opened the package the first thing I noticed was how very soft this cover is. One thing I think people get in their heads about wool is the scratchy sweaters that were forced over their heads as children. Well let me just say this is the total opposite. The inside of the diaper is made from a lush and soft merino wool interlock, and the outside of the cover is made from organic cotton interlock, which comes in super cute prints.

One question I was asked on my local cloth diaper page was if the outside cotton got gross or sticky when lanolizing it? The answer is NO!! You can use a spray lanolin, or dry lanolize it, or you can soak it in a water/lanolin mixture if that is how you do your other wool.

One of my favourite things is that it fits both my chunky monkey 10 month old, and my super skinny 2 year old because of the snaps. Sometimes it is hard finding wool that fits multiple babies so I really enjoy the snap feature.

It is also SUPER stretchy which makes it so amazing for night time because you know that it is covering the ENTIRE fitted underneath so there is no transfer of pee onto their pjs or bedding. I found this an amazing night time cover, and it worked great under her pjs.

I think the only thing I would add would be cross over snaps on the tabs just so if I had a smaller baby I could get a tighter fit on the waist. But it does have snaps to make the rise shorter for smaller babies which is great.

So do you want one of your own?? Because Patty Pants has offered up a wool cover in the same print that Miss Lyra is wearing. Enter below. Open to USA and Canada. Giveaway ends November 6th, 2014 at 12am Eastern Canada Time. Print Placement will not be the same as below as that is my cover, but it will be the same pattern.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Skinny on Cloth Wipes

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When we started cloth diapering over 4 years ago we started out with disposable wipes because we were given a HUGE pack of them, and we only had a few cloth wipes. What I soon realized was how amazing cloth wipes were over disposable. When people start using cloth diapers there sometimes seems to be a hesitancy in using cloth wipes along with the cloth diapers. So let me give you the skinny on cloth wipes.

We have an assortment of wipes we use, from plush bamboo wipes like our Applecheeks wipes, cotton and flannel wipes (some are just made from old spit up blankets), to dollar store baby facecloths. I find they all do a great job. They are all roughly 8×8 inches in size.

Sometimes people wonder if they can wash their wipes with their diapers…the answer is YES!!! It is so easy, you take the dirty diaper off, you wipe, you put it all in your diaper pail until wash day. Anytime we use disposables for whatever the reason I always hate that I have to sort them and throw the disposable in the garbage, it is seriously an annoying extra step.

Another question I often hear is about how good of a job they actually do. Well let me tell you, they clean up messes so much faster and easier than disposable wipes. We took disposable wipes with us to camp this Summer so I had one less thing to hang out to dry on wash day and I regretted it so much. A poo mess that should have taken maybe two cloth wipes took like six disposable wipes. And I never felt like the girls were clean enough. When it comes to gross poop I will use toilet paper to get the flushable poop parts off and then finish with a cloth wipe.

I keep my wipes dry and dunk them in our water container when I need them. We use Monkey Doodlez wipe cubes that just dissolve in the water. You can also just squirt a bit of baby shampoo in the water. When we are out I keep dry wipes in the diaper bag and wet them in the bathroom while changing, or if we are not in a bathroom we usually have at least one water bottle in our van if not 500. I know other people pre-wet wipes and take them in a baggy. For a while I was using my peri bottle from the hospital to keep water with me.

So that is pretty much all there is to cloth wipes. If you are already cloth diapering and not using cloth wipes go out and buy a package of dollar store facecloths and give it a whirl. It is super easy to add it into your routine AND saves you money AND cleans up better.

As Time Flies

The Stories of a Wife, Mom and Pastor