Is it too hot to cloth diaper? One complaint we’ve heard about cloth diapers is that they’re just too bulky and warm for babies, especially in the warmer months. Here in Portland, Oregon, our heat waves don’t last too long, and I never switched over to disposables because I was worried about overheating my baby.

A quick search for “summer diapers” yielded only one result: the Blueberry Deluxe diaper in “blue summer.” While the pattern is nice and summery, it doesn’t appear to have any magical properties that make it more appropriate for the hotter months.

I’ve also heard of parents using Chinese prefold diapers with old-fashioned diaper pins in hot weather–without a diaper cover. This approach would make the diaper more breathable but would require vigilant parental attention. And it probably isn’t the most practical solution when you’re out and about!


Have you given up cloth diapering in the warmer months? Or do you have any tips for keeping with cloth no matter what mother nature brings? Let us know!

Of the more than a thousand entries for FuzziBunz One Size Cloth Diapers, the FuzziBunz In and Out Mess Free Hanging Diaper Pail, and the Rockin’ Green Laundry Soap, we had to pick just two winners.  (Insert dramatic pause…..and possibly drumroll here….)

Amanda H. will get to choose whichever vivid colors she wants for her  three FuzziBunz One Size Cloth Diapers and Aleia is soon to be the lucky owner of a bag of Rockin’ Green Laundry Soap and the FuzziBunz No Mess Hanging Diaper Pail.

If for some reason I don’t hear back from either of them in the next few days, I may just pick another number so you may still have a very, very small chance of winning.

And check back next Wednesday for another great giveaway that I think you’ll enjoy!

(My apologies for my tardiness in reporting our winners but we just moved this weekend. I’m just feeling lucky to have the computer unpacked at this point!)

One of my very first posts on the Green Baby Guide was Baby Rules I Violate in order to Save the Planet. I confessed to very infrequent baby-bathing. Now my daughter is five, and we’re proud to say we’ve kept up with this filthy, earth-friendly practice. My daughter has never been very messy–she doesn’t roll around in mud or fling food all over the place when she eats.

A rare moment of cleanliness

Also, we’re lazy. Neither of us wants to incorporate daily bathing into our daughter’s routine. She is almost at the age where she can bathe or shower without parental assistance. Until then, we will continue to save the twenty gallons it takes to fill the bathtub.

BPA-free Rubber Duck!

Now I’m wondering if we are the only parents with this dirty little secret! Any more infrequent baby bathers out there?

This recipe is absolutely fantastic, not just as a salad but as a colorful addition to your weekly meal plan. It’s perfect as a filling for burritos along with cheese and refried beans, and also makes a fabulous topping for taco salad, nachos or baked potatoes.  Or if you want to be really creative, you could make southwestern style fried rice.  It’s colorful, nutritious and delicious.  I made a double batch and filled it into various meals for days!

 



• 2  15 oz cans black beans (or approximately 7 cups cooked homemade beans)
• 7 cups fresh or frozen corn
• 8 chopped green onions
• 1 cup chopped red onion
• 3 chopped red peppers
• 4 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 cup balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing

Optional:

• 1 finely chopped avocado
• 3 chopped tomatoes

(If you’re going to make a huge batch of this recipe and use it in other things, the tomato and avocado may not keep quite as well as the other ingredients)

Toss everything together and refrigerate overnight. Then enjoy it all week!

Last Monday we huddled under blankets, warming our hands on cups of tea and hot chocolate. Rain pattered against the windows. Audrey and I sat outside, under our covered patio, and I read the last one-hundred pages of A Little Princess to her in one sitting. This took one and a half hours. After that, I let her watch television for what seemed like the rest of the afternoon.

Obviously I am in need of some inspiration for indoor summer activities! Is anyone else forced indoors due to inclement weather? How do you keep everyone from going stir-crazy?

Our pantry purge has yielded some fantastic recipes, but this one is my absolute favorite.  My kids declared that these were the best popsicles they’ve ever eaten.  Little did they know there was a secret vegetable lurking within them! The pumpkin really brings out the peach flavor and augments the color beautifully.  Give this a try and your kids will never know!

• 2 Cups fresh or canned peaches
• 2 bananas (throw brown bananas in!  Overripe fruit will add the most sweetness)
• ½ C. apple juice concentrate
• ½ C. canned pumpkin
• 1 Cup ice
• 1 Cup water

Blend it up and add more fruit or juice until you like the taste and consistency.   Serve the first round as smoothies and pour the leftovers into popsicle molds for later.  It truly is delicious!

If you like this recipe, you might enjoy some of the others tucked between the covers of The Eco-nomical Baby Guide. Homemade teething cookies, pumpkin pancakes, or pear tofu pudding are just a few of the recipes for your young tot that we’ve enclosed in the book. (Of course it’s also packed with tips on buying new green gear, safe used gear, and every detail you can imagine about cloth diapering.) The book is still on sale for less than eight bucks on Amazon, which is a whopping 61% off. We’re not sure how long the crazy sale will last, but as eco-nomical souls ourselves, we hope that you get to take advantage of it!
 

Yesterday was quite a day for Joy and me. As we pounded the pavement in Portland, Oregon, knocking on the doors of prenatal massage clinics and baby shops to spread the word about our book, The Eco-nomical Baby Guide, we stumbled into Eco-baby Gear. Imagine our surprise and delight when we spotted our book on display right in the middle of the store!

But it gets even better. There, before our eyes, was an entire rack of soft, adorable GroVia hybrid diapers. Unfortunately for us–dedicated cloth diaper enthusiasts since 2006–we never had a chance to try GroVia on our own babies. Joy did write a post about them last year: GroVia vs. gDiapers.

We learned a bit more about these diapers. At Eco-baby Gear, they say customers prefer GroVia to gDiapers for a few reasons: 1. Unlike gDiapers, GroVia diapers have snaps so they adjust to fit babies as they grow. 2. GroVia uses all snaps–no Velcro. 3. The cloth inserts snap in place, and the disposable inserts stick on with adhesive. This works better than the gDiaper system.

If you’ve had a chance to try GroVia diapers, let us know what you think. How to they compare to gDiapers–or regular old cloth diapers? Those of you who weighed in on this subject last November, if you are still reading, we’d like to hear an update!

Three cups of wheat germ have been sitting in my pantry for the last six months.  In my desperate efforts to clean out my cupboards before we move, I found a wheat germ cookie recipe and then tweaked it into utter deliciousness.

Now I shall make these on a regular basis and confidently stride past the granola bars in the grocery store.  These are far less expensive, more nutritious and utterly delicious.

• ½ Cup butter
• ½ Cup peanut butter
• 1/3 Cup cooking oil
• 1 Cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 1.5 Cups rolled oats
• 1 Cup wheat germ
• ½ Cup wheat flour
• ½ Cup white flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 Cup coconut flakes
• 2 cups chopped nuts (I used almond flour from Trader Joe’s)
• ½ cup raisins or chocolate chips (or both!)

Cream the butters and sugars together.  Then add the eggs.  Then dump in the other ingredients and blend. Drop by rounded tablespoons onto a lightly greased cookie sheet.

Bake for about ten minutes at 350 degrees.  Let them solidify on the pan a bit before you move them to the cooling rack.  My kids ate the entire batch in less than two days without realizing they were healthy.  Victory!

What were we blogging about three years ago, in the dark ages of July, 2008? I had a two-year-old, Joy had just one baby, and we were one month away from signing a publishing contract for the Eco-nomical Baby Guide. Dipping into Green Baby Guide’s archives, I found a delightful assortment of posts (if I do say so myself), including our most popular post of all time: Flushable Diapers (gDiapers)–What Do You Think?

Some posts helped our readers settle into summer: Finding Free Organic Produce, Simple Steps to Fight Summer Heat and Limit Air Conditioning, A Thrifty Green Favorite: Cloth Swim Diapers, Disguise Vegetables in Fruity Popsicles (another one of our all-time favorites!), and Green Olympic Trials. But then, for some reason, I wrote about making Easy Oats for Two: A Cheap and Nutritious Breakfast for Mother and Child. I’m not sure I’d totally latched on to the idea of making my posts seasonally relevant!

We had our regular smattering of product reviews: Borax: A Budget Friendly, Eco-Friendly Wonder Product (alternate title: a million and one things to do with Borax);

Book Review: The Tightwad Gazette; Save Water with BPA and Phthalate-free Baby Bathtubs; and the Isabooties Product Review.

The rest of our July 2008 posts fit under a category I will describe as “eco-friendly lifestyle” posts: Easy Organic Cloth Diaper Stain Removal Techniques, Should Pregnant and Breastfeeding Women Avoid Eating Nuts?, Life with a Baby . . . and No Paper Towels, Sleep vs. The Planet, Save Some Trees–Never Buy Children’s Books, and What’s Your Walk Score?

I hope you enjoyed this little stroll down memory lane. Here’s to our fourth summer of blogging!

Two lucky readers are going to have a very, very good week! One of them will receive three One Size Fuzzibunz cloth diapers and the other will score a Fuzzibunz In and out Mess Free Hanging Diaper Pail and a bag of Rockin’ Green Laundry Soap. What great supplies for all your cloth diapering adventures!

Prize #1
Three One Size FuzziBunz Pocket Diapers
If you aren’t yet a FuzziBunz fanatic, you may soon be converted. They are soft, absorbent, easy care pocket diapers that work wonderfully. The FuzziBunz One Size cloth diapers are built to take babies from birth to potty training, with sturdy adjustable snaps that older tots can’t open. So even though there is an initial investment, once you get a set of these diapers you will never have to buy a different size again!

The soft layer of polyester in Fuzzibunz wicks moisture from baby’s skin while the inner pad absorbs the bulk of the wetness. Because the pad is removable, it dries far more quickly than an All-in-One Diaper or a Prefold Diaper. (In my opinion, FuzziBunz are the best cloth diapers for line drying.) You can also double up the inner pads for naptime or heavy wetters. Check out this FuzziBunz One Size Diaper Tutorial Video to see how to adjust the FuzziBunz One Size Diaper and get a better idea of how a pocket diaper works.

I’ve had a set of FuzziBunz diapers for the last three years and can attest to their durability and effectiveness. Our Velcro diapers have all aged horribly after hundreds of washings with two children, but the vivid colors and quality fabrics of our FuzziBunz are holding up beautifully.
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Prize #2
FuzziBunz In and out Mess Free Hanging Diaper Pail and 1 Bag Rockin’ Green Laundry Soap
FuzziBunz In and out Mess Free Hanging Diaper Pail is an ingenious fabric contraption that you can perch on a doorknob or hook for a portable diaper pail. Dirty cloth diapers are deposited in the top opening and when the pail is full, you simply unzip the bottom to drop the diapers into the washing machine. (Which means less hands-on dirty diaper contact!) Toss the diaper pail in along with the load and you’re all set. When your babies are potty trained, use it as a handy little laundry bag.

My favorite part of Rockin’ Green Laundry Soap is that it  makes doing the wash seem rebellious and exciting. It’s also the first detergent I’ve discovered that is customized for different water types. Hard Rock Rockin’ Green is the toughest detergent formula for hard water; Soft Rock Rockin’ Green is for soft water and sensitive skin; and Classic Rock Rockin’ Green is for those in the middle. It’s eco-friendly, but works hard to get out stains, spills and stink and has recently been “remixed” to work even better. Its ingredients are safe and free from phosphate, fillers, enzymes or optical brighteners. Rockin’ Green comes in seven natural scents, all made with 1000% essential oils, including, Mighty, Mighty Marshmallow, Smashing Watermelons, Rage Against the Raspberry, Motley Clean, and Lavender Mint Revival.

Enter the Fuzzibunz Cloth Diapers, Fuzzibunz Cloth Diaper Pail, and Rockin’ Green Laundry Soap Giveaway!

Each comment counts as an entry. You can enter up to four times. Here’s how:

1. Simply post a comment

2. Like Greenbabyguide.com on Facebook (then tell us you did it in a separate comment)

3. Visit the Fuzzibunz website or the Rockin’ Green Laundry Soap website and comment on what you learned.

4. Spread the news about the giveaway! Email someone, post it on Facebook, tweet it, blog it, or send someone a message about it via carrier pigeon. (And again, don’t forget to tell us all about it in the comments!)

This contest ends on Thursday July 21th and is only open to U.S. Residents.

Great luck!