Question: How many ways can you fold a diaper? Answer: Let me count the ways. . . . There’s the newspaper fold, the bikini fold—the list goes on.

But both Joy and I always just folded a Chinese prefold in thirds, placed it on the diaper cover, and used the Velcro tabs to hold everything in place. (If the previous statement was Greek to you, check out our book, the Eco-nomical Baby Guide, which includes an illustrated guide to putting cloth diapers on babies!)

When we were writing our book, we thought about including the various folding instructions for prefolds and flat diapers—and quickly decided against it. We know that some parents fold the diapers up into complicated patterns and use a Snappi or good ol’ diaper pins to fasten the diapers in place. But we have to admit, this still has us puzzled. Isn’t it more work to bring origami folds and pins into the mix?

Does anyone here do something fancier than the fold-in-thirds-and-place-on-the-cover thing for prefolds? What are the advantages of this mysterious practice? Please enlighten us!

The company that brought us sturdy, sleek strollers has just launched Beginning, a new line of personal care products for babies.  Quality is the one trait that all Maclaren’s products share and their venture into personal care products for baby is no exception. 

The Protecting Nappy Balm is like nothing you’ve ever used before. Unlike thick and sticky diaper creams, this one goes on like whipped chiffon.  It has a wonderful lavender scent and softens baby’s skin on contact.  Made with natural butters and scented with essential oils, you won’t have to worry about finding parabens or phthalates in this product.  My only complaint with the Protecting Nappy Balm is that the title is far too limiting!  I’ve used it as a baby lotion for after bath time and found that it leaves her skin soft and wonderfully scented.

Would you like to try the Maclaren products for yourself?  I set the Delicate Soothing Baby Soap and  Absorbing Dusting Powder aside so that a lucky reader can try them for herself. Try the following ways of entering and get ready to enjoy these lovely quality products!

Nine Ways to Enter the Giveaway

You can enter more than once! (If you’ve participated in our giveaways before, you’ll know this already).  Each way listed below gets you one entry.  All comments have to be posted BEFORE Wednesday the 5th of May to win.

Remember, leave a separate comment on this post for each entry you want.  If applicable, please leave the link to your Facebook/Twitter/Blog in the comment you leave here.

1. Leave us a comment on this post.
2. Visit Maclaren’s web site and then post a comment telling us what caught your eye!
3. Email a friend about this giveaway.
4. Join our Facebook fan club
5. Link to this giveaway post on Facebook or Twitter–tell all your friends to stop by!
6. Link to this post on your blog!
7. Add The Eco-nomical Baby Guide to your “to read” shelf on Goodreads
8. Go read our post on Five Ways to Score a Free Copy of  The Eco-nomical Baby Guide and leave a comment there if you’d like to review our book on your blog.  (Make sure to read the post for more details!) Leave a comment here as well to make sure we can keep track of your entries.
9. Does your library have copies of the Eco-nomical Baby Guide? If not,request a purchase! (Then come back and post your comment to let us know!)

***The contest ends on Tuesday, May 3rd, 2010***

Winner will be randomly selected.

We will notify the winner via email. Please Note: This contest is open only to U.S. readers.   Enjoy!

Strangely, I owned a hand blender before I had a set of dishes or silverware. My aunt and uncle gave one to me one Christmas when I was still in my early twenties, living a carefree existence with minimal possessions. I couldn’t find the exact model, but it looks similar to this Sunny Morning by Kalorik Stick Mixer. I made some great single-serving milk shakes, small batches of pesto, pureed creamy soups right on the stove top, and created many other tasty concoctions over the years.

Flash forward to 2006, when I discovered that an immersion blender was more than an appliance for a free-wheeling single woman. It was perfect for whipping up smaller batches of baby food, when I didn’t want to clean out my entire food processor or food mill. Say I had a cup of black beans or a single sweet potato or two bananas, for example—I just put them in the cup that comes with the appliance and blended them away.

If you don’t do much cooking and therefore don’t want to shell out hundreds of dollars for a food processor you’ll never use, an immersion blender might be all you need. You can buy the Silex Immersion hand blender or the Toastmaster Immersion hand blender for just around $13. The Kitchenaid hand blender or the Cuisinart hand blenders come in different colors and offer more attachments for about $50. If you want to get really fancy, why not try the Robot Coupe Turbo Power mixer for just $760.00? Actually, I am not sure this is even for mixing food. My modest immersion blender has worked just fine for at least fifteen years, so there’s no need to go nuts with the fanciest model on the market!

Thus concludes my series on “gadgets with which to pulverize baby food.” For more exciting reading, check out my posts on using a food processor and food mill. Also, weigh in on the great Green Baby Guide duel of 2010: pro-blender vs. anti-blender.

You can get lots of BPA free teethers these days, but if you want to skip teething toys altogether, try these:

• A frozen wet washcloth. Baby will chew on the icy surface for some quick relief.
• A chunky carrot. But watch baby carefully!  She can bite off a sizable chunk and choke on it.
• A frozen banana. Then let her gnaw at it and quickly become covered in goo.
• A teething biscuit. Baby has to be nine months old at least to enjoy this treat, but enjoy it he will.  Also, remember that he will create quite a mess with this too!
• A large polished agate. Of course you’d need to supervise, but my son loved his agate and the smooth, cold surface was quite soothing to his gums.

Other ideas?  What did your great grandmother do before plastic?  We’d love to hear.

Let’s say you’re stranded on a desert island. You have nothing—nothing except your baby, a high-efficiency washing machine that magically appears to work without electricity, and one type of cloth diaper. That’s right! You can’t have your Fuzzibunz diapers and your bumGenius diapers and your beloved Chinese prefolds with Velcro diaper covers. You have to choose one kind—so what will it be?

It’s Earth Day! And we’re celebrating by thanking our friends—I mean, objective members of the blogging community—who’ve been so kind as to review the Eco-nomical Baby Guide. Back in February we bragged about  our first book reviews. Who has honored us with a review since then? Here they are!

Crunchy Chicken reviewed our book!  Recently, she blogged about the end of high fructose corn syrup. She later got a response from the Corn Refiners Association.

Enviromom reviewed our book! This just came up today–and they’re hosting a giveaway! So head on over there if you want a chance to win a free copy!

Green Baby Green Mama reviewed our book! Learn how she organizes baby’s clothes. Also, here are the signs your child may be ready for potty training.

Green and Clean Mom reviewed our book! It’s even a video review! Here are ten ways to make Earth Day everyday.

Growing a Green Family reviewed our book! Read here for answers to common questions about the USDA “organic” label. Also, do kids really need nature?

Little Home reviewed our book! She has some great ideas for cloth diapering a second child.

Mama Buzz reviewed our book! A recent guest blogger discussed homeschooling and home economics class.

Mom’s Green Shopping List reviewed our book! Here’s how to educate your kids about the environment.

The Oregon Women’s Report reviewed our book! Other articles reveal that even 9-month-old babies choose gendered toys and why teachers don’t like tests.

Outdoor Baby reviewed our book! Read here for tips on staying outdoorsy during pregnancy.

I sincerely hope we haven’t forgotten any reviews in this list! If you don’t see yours on here, please let me know and I’ll remedy the oversight as soon as possible. Are you a blogger interested in reviewing The Eco-nomical Baby Guide? Check out this post for details.

Happy Earth Day!

It’s official. Lately I’ve become an environmental slacker. Yes, I still compost, recycle, cloth diaper, and shop secondhand. Yes, I get a certain thrill out of using cloth grocery bags and buying in bulk. But lately I’ve committed some eco-transgressions that I feel I must acknowledge as Earth Day looms.  It isn’t quite like I’ve taken a match to the planet, (as the dramatic photo would suggest) but it doesn’t feel great to share my shortcomings.  Here goes…

My sin:
We remodeled our kitchen. In a way this seems like a good thing–but it also means that we ate lukewarm microwaved dinners off of paper plates for a few weeks. (Chinet, of course, because they’re 100% recycled!) We tried to salvage what we could of our old kitchen, but most of our built-in cabinets had to go to wood recycling. There are some heaps of stuff in the landfill that we recently added. (Ugh!)

My justification:
Our house is a thousand square feet, which is plenty of room most of the time, but we felt cramped in our old kitchen.  It hadn’t been remodeled since the house was built 51 years ago and it lacked counter space and a dishwasher. Our new kitchen is very neutral and we hope that it will last just as long. (Can you believe the average kitchen remodel happens every seven years?!) Now we have an energy star dishwasher and fridge, lots more functional space, and many more years of being able to leave a smaller carbon footprint because of the size of our home. Also, I LOVE cooking now!

My sin:
Our daughter has eaten lots of jarred baby food. We chose Earth’s Best Organic, but I really wanted to blend up homemade batches.

My justification:
My husband, who’s a stay-at-home Dad, is not overly excited about boiling and pureeing yams.  Also, during the kitchen remodel it was all we could do to get food in her mouth while washing our dishes in the tub. The good news is that now she’s eating table food and we’re done with purees!

My sin:
My children are both wearing disposable diapers at night. This is probably the most atrocious thing on my list, and it makes me feel sick that we haven’t figured out how to use cloth at night for both of them. We had some luck with Jovi in cloth, but then found she woke up more frequently.  We were too desperate for sleep to continue. Roscoe struggled with horrid yeast infections that kept recurring, so we gave up with him too.  In this picture he despairs that his mother hasn’t found an eco-friendly method of diapering him…

My justification:
My only hope is to night-train my son soon! He has been potty trained for over a year, but we have been so tired that we haven’t made a concerted effort to get him out of diapers at night. Please send me any and all advice! Maybe I’ll try cloth again with Jovi and see if she’ll sleep through the night in them. It would make me so happy to be free of disposables altogether!

Do you have transgressions to share?  Do tell!  It relieves all of us to know that we’re focused on progress instead of perfection.

So saving the world isn’t a compelling enough reason to buy The Eco-nomical Baby Guide?  Some of you need a little extra incentive to buy our treatise on diapers, baby food, and other titillating topics. Here are five more reasons:

1. It has a cute cover. And as the saying goes, “You should definitely judge a book by its cover.” Imagine how nice it will look on your coffee table. Picture how cool you will look reading this book in a coffee shop.
   
2. You will impress your guests with our recipes. Avocado delight! Pumpkin pancakes! These recipes will dazzle the taste buds of your guests, particularly if you do a lot of entertaining for the six to eighteen-month-old crowd.
3. We’re hard core! Who needs another tip about sorting recyclables or turning off the water while you brush your teeth? Our book goes beyond the basics. Home composting diapers, anyone? Reusing bath water?
4. But we’re guilt-free. Okay, so you don’t want to home compost your diapers. We get it. Don’t worry—there’s more than one way to skin a cat –and diaper your eco-baby.
5. The Eco-nomical Baby Guide is the next Star Trek. . . In that it boldly goes where no baby guide has gone before. Some books tell you to never, ever, ever put your precious bundle in a secondhand car seat, crib, or even high chair. We go there. Boldly.

As a thrifty, green soul, Shift Your Habit by Elizabeth Rogers seems written just for me. How do I love it? Let me count the ways:

1. It’s infinitely practical. The tips are focused on tiny lifestyle changes that save money and the environment. Each shift is listed along with cost savings, extra positives, and planetary benefits.
2. It’s road tested. Elizabeth Rogers, who also coauthored “the green book” asked dozens of families from across the nation to participate in the shifts. Some were excited about going green, and some just wanted to save money. Everyone benefited from the changes and those stories are featured throughout the book.
3. It’s just a list. For those of us functioning on limited sleep and less time, the book really is just a bulleted list with subtitles. It’s easy to get something out of it just by reading for five minutes.
4. It includes baby. Of course, as authors of The Eco-nomical Baby Guide, we absolutely believe that going green with baby should save you money. Rogers writes about the positives of cloth diapering, making homemade baby food and much more. If you want a brief intro about how to go green with baby, this is a great place to start.
5. It inspires me. We all suffer green fatigue when we take on too much, too soon. This book focuses on so many small, easy changes that suddenly saving money and the planet seems rather simple. It’s a great place to start reducing your impact or to find simple ways to go a bit further.

Here’s a sample tip from the book:

• The SHIFT: Buy motion-sensor outdoor security or porch lighting instead of non-sensor lighting that runs throughout the night.
• Save $$: Up to $160 on electricity bills per year.
• Save the Planet: Conserve 500 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year.
• Good for You: Deters trespassers!

Doesn’t that sound easy!  And that’s the format that most of the book takes––although it’s also sprinkled with intermittent stories of volunteer “shifting” families.  A great and incredibly easy read!

If money is feeling a bit tight, we recommend requesting this little gem at your local library and putting a reserve on it so that you’ll be the first one to check it out. (You can do the same with our book too!) Have you read Shift Your Habit or heard of it? It’s a one to add to your reading list!

Do you keep a worm composter in your kitchen? Or better yet—have a composting toilet? Do you power your toaster with a bicycle? Live in an ice cave all winter long with no heating to speak of? In celebration of Earth day, share your wackiest deeds that help out the planet!

Don’t forget to enter our organic crib mattress giveaway!