We love getting email here at the Green Baby Guide.  One of our readers is planning to switch over to cloth diapers and wrote in with the following questions:

I really want to switch to cloth diapers and have been doing a lot of research on the different kinds out there and it is really overwhelming!  I think I am leaning towards prefolds and/or flats with a Dappi cover for the most inexpensive option.  What kinds do you gals use?  Any specific brands of diapers and covers that you like?  Any helpful tips for someone just starting out??  Thanks for your time, I know you are busy mommies! -Amber

I wrote back to tell her about my experience.

Hi Amber,

Both Joy and I use prefolds with covers, although we have tried other types, too.  You are right that they are the least expensive option.  Starting out, I bought three dozen prefolds (the small size with green stitching) and about five newborn sized covers.  I have tried Proraps, Imse Vimse, and Diaperaps covers and they all work well.  You could get a couple different types, and then when it’s time to buy the next size up, you will know what types work for you and your baby.  I have actually gotten away with just one set of prefolds for over two years (my daughter is very small), so my cloth diaper supplies have cost me about $100 total!

Check out Sunshine Diapers for a Prefold Tutorial

So, all you cloth diapering parents out there–what would you recommend?  Does anyone have any experience with flat diapers?  I have never tried them myself, as they seem to require intricate folding and pinning.  With a prefold I can just fold a diaper in thirds and place on the diaper cover that has Velcro or snap closures (pictured).  Then I put it on as I would a disposable.

Thanks for writing in, Amber.  And thanks in advance to everyone who responds with tips, recommendations, or anti-recommendations for a first-time cloth diaper user!

As soon as my daughter turned one, I wanted to introduce her to whole milk.  Like many other parents, I wanted her to have hormone-free milk, so that meant paying more and buying organic.  Right?  I like to save money, but organic milk costs a lot more than conventional milk–sometimes up to twice as much.  There was also something else I wondered about: all the organic milk I found on the shelves came from other states–some as far as Ohio!  Part of the reason I tried to buy organic foods was that I wanted to help the environment, but buying something that needed to be ultra-pasteurized and taken on a thousand-mile road trip wouldn’t be any better for planet Earth than buying conventional milk from a local dairy.  In fact, it would probably be worse.

Ideally, I’d be able to find milk that was both organic and local.  At the time, this was not an option.  I had to choose, and I ended up deciding that supporting a local, non-organic dairy was a better choice than buying organic milk that came from far away, considering my local dairy did not use hormones.  Plus, at under $3 a gallon, it was more affordable than many of the other brands on the supermarket shelves.  Now, just one year later, Alpenrose dairy has gone organic, so it’s possible to have local organic milk here in Portland.

Of course, not everyone plans to introduce cow’s milk to baby’s diet.  Joy’s son, Roscoe, has some food allergies and intolerances.  She continued to breast feed him after a year and offered him soymilk as an additional beverage.  Now that he’s older, he can tolerate cow’s milk, which Joy buys from an organic dairy.  Because Audrey is so small, I was glad she took to whole milk, which comes packed with vitamins, fat, and calories. (Read my “Fattening Baby, Naturally” post for more baby-fattening ideas.)  Although cow’s milk is not an environmentally or nutritionally perfect food, I opted to introduce it to my baby’s diet over alternatives such as soy or almond milk.

Some questions for our readers: Do you plan to introduce cow’s milk when your baby turns one?  What alternatives to cow’s milk, if any, have you tried?  What are your thoughts on conventional, organic, and local milk products?

Our old clunker of a washing machine came with our house.  A typical top-loader from the 1970s or ‘80s, it probably used about forty gallons of water per load.  Another downside of this appliance is that it did not even get the clothes clean.  Dark clothes (i.e., all my clothes) came out with streaks of lint, clumps of detergent, and the dirt and grime they had before “washing” them.

A positive pregnancy test motivated me to replace my washing machine.  I wanted to try cloth diapers and figured pre-baby was the ideal time to switch.  I knew a good front loader used just ten gallons of water per load, but I was disappointed that they cost so much more than top-loaders.  The cheapest one I saw advertised was $800.  Knowing I could save hundreds of gallons of water, not to mention all the energy used to heat the water, I convinced myself it would be worth it.

Then a weird thing happened: we got the washer for far less than we’d budgeted.  First, we just so happened to show up on a store-wide 10% discount day.  Also, the washer in question turned out to be on sale.  And, we got a tax credit and some sort of energy credit.  Ask around–someone may want to pay you for selecting an energy-conscious option.  To top it all off, the store offered a rebate on the delivery charge.  The strangest thing was, we did not ask about any of this stuff–the guy at Sears just kept handing us forms and coupons.  Our Kenmore washer–listed at $800 in the Sunday paper–cost us just $350 including delivery!  That’s about the same price as a standard water-guzzling top-loader.

I love my front-loading machine.  All of my clothes come out clean and fresh-smelling and take less time to dry due to the extra-fast spin cycle.  This machine has made cloth-diapering much more efficient.  I wash diapers every four days on the heavy cycle–no extra rinses and no wet pail.  This means I am able to use just 900 gallons of water a year washing cloth diapers.  I also use a third of the detergent I’d use with a top-loader.  Compare that to someone who uses a top-loader every four days: they’ll use 3600 gallons a year!  Add in extra rinse cycles, more frequent washes, and wet pails and they could be wasting as much as 10,000 gallons of water a year on their cloth diaper laundry alone.

My washer has already paid for itself and will continue to save water and energy years after my daughter is out of diapers.  If you are in the market for a new machine, hunt around for special discounts and tax credits.  You may find, as I did, that a new high efficiency machine is well within your reach.

For more Works for Me Wednesday tips, head on over to Rocks in My Dryer.

Like some cloth diaper users, I assumed that disposables were the best option for nights, but felt conflicted about chucking them into the trash just to buy us a bit of rest.  I posted about the battle between my exhaustion and my eco-guilt here.

A few weeks ago Roscoe solved the problem himself by wetting through his disposables two nights in a row.  Erin, Wendy, and Alissa all submitted comments to my “Nighttime Diaper Dilemma” post that recommended using a pocket diaper with extra inserts.  In sleepy desperation we gave it a try.  The result was blissful slumber and a clear conscience!

Although I was originally a staunch supporter of prefolds with covers, I have come to love our pocket diapers for their convenience and aesthetic appeal. A pocket diaper consists of a diaper cover lined in a moisture wicking layer.  There is a pocket between the outer cover and the liner where you insert a long terry cloth pad to soak up moisture.  Since you insert the pads while you’re folding the laundry, it makes for a more convenient diaper change than prefolds. 

The only downside is that you have to wash the entire diaper every time.  With prefolds you can often just rinse the cover so that it can be used again.  Since we’re trying to lighten the laundry loads we do around here, we use prefolds during the day and save our pocket diapers for nighttime use.

We use three main brands of pocket diapers, all of which I love for varying reasons.

Fuzzibunz: These are legendary among cloth diaper users and have gained increasing popularity in recent years.  My favorite features of Fuzzibunz diapers are their snaps.  Roscoe can’t pull them open himself and they adjust for a variety of waist sizes.  These are a hot item at resale shops and can earn up to half their retail price when sold used.

Happy Heiny’s:  This innovative diaper design adjusts with snaps in the front so that it fits baby for a variety of ages.  You can use the same diaper for babies from eight to thirty pounds and the Velcro is tough enough to prevent my son from being able to take off his own diaper. Happy Heiny’s pocket diaper in cow print is beyond cute!

Bum Genius:  These diapers also adjust for babies from 8-30 pounds and use Velcro for the waistband.  They are great quality and would have a high resale value. They come with two inserts: one for daytime and thicker one for nighttime use.

There are many, many more pocket diapers out there but these three are the only ones I’ve tried so far.  I’ve been impressed with their effectiveness, but mainly I’m just happy to be getting a bit more sleep and feeling a bit less guilt.  We’d love to hear about your nighttime cloth diaper victories!

The “Dirty Duds Bag” by Bumkins was an impulse purchase for me.  I was tired of packing plastic sacks into Roscoe’s daycare bag and relieved to see that someone else had thought of an easy solution.  After I bought it I almost headed back to the store.  $12.95 for a bag that I could easily sew myself?  (If I had a sewing machine and any extra time.) Plastic is free!  Still, it seemed unsanitary to recycle plastic bags after they had been filled with Roscoe’s poopy diapers and I didn’t want to take the time to wash them out and wait for them to dry. 

I’ve actually found our wet bag to be incredibly helpful.  We rinse it out in Roscoe’s leftover bathwater each night, hang it up in the bathroom and find that its extremely lightweight, waterproof fabric is dry by morning.  It never smells and its fun print is easy to find in the depths of his diaper bag.  The bag can hold about ten cloth large cloth diapers, which is just right for our needs. 

The only complaint we have about our “Dirty Duds Bag” is that the drawstring doesn’t close as tightly as I’d like.  I’m not sure if this is unique to the bag we have or if it’s a design flaw.  We end up cinching it as tightly as it will go and then wrapping the string around the top to ensure that it stays completely shut.

Rebecca came up with a thriftier solution by using a dry bag that she found at REI for less than ten dollars.  Her bag is waterproof, holds over a weekend’s worth of diapers, and closes shut by rolling the top over and clasping it with a buckle. She takes this bag to her daycare and even on weekend trips, easily storing her daughter’s diapers without stinking up the car.  The dry bags at my small, local REI were all around $30, but you can find the cheaper versions at larger stores or online.  If you can, check out fabulous used outdoor gear shops like Next Adventure in Portland, Oregon, to find pre-owned dry bags.

Whatever solution you choose, don’t do what I’ve done on more than one occasion.  It’s no fun discovering that you’ve forgotten to empty the bag the night before, leaving the diapers to “ripen” overnight.  Pew!  Please let us know what eco-friendly solutions you’ve found for storing soiled cloth diapers on the go. 

Ever since Audrey started on solid foods at six months, she’s loved oatmeal. We spoon-fed oatmeal to her for months, and now she asks for her “oats” and feeds herself. I was happy to find a cheaper, more nutritious alternative to the typical rice cereal, which many parents are now avoiding as a first food. (Read an article about how to choose baby and kid cereals here. Learn more about the oat porridge I made Audrey in the early months here.)

I had a harder time finding a dry cereal that Audrey could enjoy as finger food. Cheerios, a common baby finger food, contain both wheat and sugar–two ingredients doctors say to avoid during baby’s first year. Plus, they’re not organic. My neighborhood stores offered plenty of organic Cheerio-like cereals, but almost all of them also contained wheat and sugar (sometimes disguised as organic cane syrup). 

Finally I found the perfect solution: puffs. Both Nature Valley and Arrowhead Mills make puffed grain cereals that are perfect for babies. The only ingredient is the grain itself–no sugar, no salt, no additives or preservatives. I’ve seen puffed corn, rice, millet, wheat, and kamut. Kamut is the preferred puff in our household. Although it is a larger relative of wheat, many people with wheat allergies or intolerances can digest kamut. If you are really worried about introducing wheat or its cousins, I’d recommend the corn puffs instead.

What about the price? I try to buy the six-ounce bags when they are on sale for $1.50 ($4/pound), but the regular price is $1.90 ($5.06/pound). Yes, this is more expensive than a jumbo-box of Cheerios, which can be had for 22.2 cents an ounce ($3.55/pound). However, I think the extra price for an organic, whole-grain cereal is worth it. And most importantly, kamut puffs are one of Audrey’s favorite foods!

This week’s Works for Me Wednesday is all about what doesn’t work for you.  Cheerios weren’t working for me, so I’m glad I found an alternative.  For more Works for Me Wednesday ideas, head over to Rocks in My Dryer.

Right around when Joy wrote her post about diaper-friendly detergent I was in the process of phasing out my conventional laundry soap. I hadn’t switched over to an eco-friendly brand because I kept getting hung up on the price. Imagine my shock when I discovered that eco-friendly detergent can be cheaper than conventional detergent! I no longer have any reason to use a mainstream brand.

Laundry Detergent–from cheapest to most expensive

T.J.’s powder  / $5.49 / 40 loads / $.137 per load

Biokleen powder  / $13.99 / 100 loads / $.139 per load  BEST DEAL

T.J.’s liquid HE  / $8.99 / 64 loads / $.14 per load

All (not eco-friendly)  / $14.00 / 96 loads / $.145 per load

Biokleen liquid  / $9.49 / 64 loads /$.148 per load

T.J.’s powder  / $10.00 / 64 loads / $.156 per load

Biokleen powder / $8.29 / 50 loads / $.165 per load

Planet  / $10.00 / 32 loads /  $.31 per load

Ecover  / $9.00 / 20 loads / $.45 per load

7^th Generation  / $8.00 / 16 loads / $.50 per load

Some Notes on the Eco-friendly Detergents

• Even though T.J.’s 40-load box is cheaper than Biokleen’s 100-load box, Biokleen gets the “Best Deal” award because it uses less packaging.
• Trader Joe’s larger box of detergent (64 loads) is a worse deal than their small box (40 loads).
• Biokleen is often on sale. I got my ten-pound box for $11.99 (.119 per load). Trader Joe’s prices stay constant.
• If you read the text on the Biokleen box, it says you’ll get 100 loads by using three-quarters of the scoop provided. With a high efficiency machine, the box recommends using just half a scoop. That means I’ll actually get 160 loads out of my Biokleen box. The actual price per load on my $11.99 sale box will be just $.074. That’s half the price of many other eco-friendly brands and the cheap conventional brand.
• The Ecover and 7^th Generation are bad deals. Not only do they cost a lot, they also come in plastic bottles that would have to be replaced frequently. (1 box of Biokleen = 10 plastic bottles of 7^th Generation!)

Some Notes on the Conventional Detergent

I wanted to see how eco-friendly brands compared to the cheapest conventional brand and was pleased to find that Biokleen powder is actually cheaper than All. Now, I’m sure you can find cheaper detergent at a big warehouse store, but I was looking only in the stores within walking distance of my house. One huge plastic container of All costs $14 ($.145/load). That’s almost twice as expensive as the Biokleen.

My frugal friend (we’ll call him Thrifty Bob) told me that he’d just found a container of All on sale for $9 ($.093/load). Not bad, Thrifty Bob! However, if you read the fine print on the container, it says you’ll get 96 loads if you fill the cup half-way full. If you have a top-loader, you may be filling the cup to the top, so you’d actually get just 48 loads out of the container. Thrifty Bob has a front-loader and admitted that he often filled the cup more than halfway full. Not only does this waste detergent, it may ruin a front-loading machine. The guy who delivered our front-loader warned me to never, ever, ever use more than a third-cup of detergent.

I will admit that before I found Biokleen, I was using All detergent, too. Now I’m kicking myself, because not only was I paying more, I was polluting the Earth with toxins and adding a huge hunk of plastic to the recycling bin. Even worse, I had to throw away three non-recyclable plastic parts of the container: the plastic cup, spout, and cap.

Another big advantage to green detergent is that it doesn’t contain chemicals that can cling to skin or petroleum-based oils that coat diapers and cause unpleasant smells. Thanks to Biokleen, I’ll be saving money, keeping toxins away from our bodies, and helping the planet.

When my belly was bulging with baby, I imagined my newborn gulping breast milk from the clearest, most rigid plastic bottles that I chose, thinking that the ones that appeared closest to glass would certainly be the safest.  Months later as I read through the latest research, I was surprised to find out that my instincts were wrong. 

In fact, the rigid plastics used to make some baby bottles and almost all Nalgene bottles have the highest risks of leaching toxins.  (Nalgene will be pulling their BPA-laden bottles soon.)  On Friday, Canada’s health and environmental ministries announced that it will ban the use of bisphenol-a (BPA) in plastic products because of health concerns.  Read here for further details on Canada’s landmark decision. 

Since BPA actually mimics hormones, its use has been linked to possible neural and other health disorders.  The risk goes up if the plastic is repeatedly being exposed to very hot water.  Luckily we don’t have a dishwasher (never thought I would say that!) but we were repeatedly putting hot milk into the bottle and washing it in scalding water.   

After trying more flexible plastic bottles that are supposedly safer, I became concerned when they began to cloud.  Since clouding can be another indication of leaching, I finally switched to a Born Free glass bottle. 

It took awhile for my son to adapt to the new nipple shape, but he now loves it.  The cost is a bit more than other options (around $16.00 each) and the manufacturer recommends replacing the nipple every three months. Since a two pack of nipples cost around $7.00 each, I have to admit that I haven’t been able to bring my frugal self to make the investment in regular replacements.  Roscoe just has a small bottle once a day before bed, so I think he’ll be fine.   (One side-note: Many people wean babies from bottles altogether at one year.  We’re still breastfeeding here and doing a bit of bottle feeding.)

There are, thankfully, far more plastic and glass options out there now than I ever realized that are all BPA, PVC, and Phthalate free. This link has a wonderful array of mainstream and niche brand bottles that are safe for baby with links to the companies’ websites.  Our favorite source for the latest on other non-toxic baby products such as sippy cups and pacifiers is The Soft Landing Blog. 

Ironically, now that I’ve finally figured out a solution to our bottle-feeding woes, I’m about to start weaning.  Knowing what I know now, I would have bought the glass bottles in the first place and avoided several unnecessary purchases. What BPA-free bottles do you use, where did you find them, and how do you like them?  Thanks for filling us in on the best bottles for green babies.  For more tips from Rocks in My Dryer’s Works for Me Wednesday blog carnival, click here. 

Green Babies, Sage Moms will appeal to eco-curious types living on the Upper East Side in their Jimmy Choos rather than the canning-mung beans-in-their-Birks set.  Author Lynda Fassa takes readers through pregnancy, the baby’s arrival, and the subsequent years with baby, identifying harmful toxins and replacing them with organic products.  So while there isn’t much on reducing your baby’s carbon footprint, there are many great product recommendations for getting started on your household detox mission.

Fassa looks at pregnancy and early motherhood as times when we have a heightened awareness about our bodies and the world around us.  We all know we should watch what we eat when pregnant.  But what about the toxins lurking everywhere, ready to taint the very world we live in?  Page after page we learn about the toxins in everything around us.  Toxins in cigarettes, soft cheeses, sushi.  Nail polish, nail polish remover, hair products, pesticides, milk, fruit, vegetables, grains, wine, blush, mascara, foundation, lipstick, hair dye, perfume, drain cleaners, air fresheners, antibacterial soap, oven cleaners, furniture polish, rubber duckies, plastic toys, teethers, baby wipes, lotions, creams, crib mattresses, disposable diapers, conventional cotton, fertilizers, ground water, fish, deodorant, vaccines, drawer pulls, paint, floors, school buses, park benches, and playground equipment.

Despite this rather daunting and exhaustive list of no-nos, Fassa maintains a cheerful tone, somehow avoiding fear-mongering or paranoia.  Perhaps it’s the liberal use of exclamation marks or the disclaimers she adds before some of the more terrifying discussions: “Warning! Scary Information to Follow.”

At times I longed for less reminiscing on Fassa’s career as a model or her husband’s childhood Alpine ski trips and more advice relevant to my life as a mother trying to make greener choices.  Case in point: She includes just six pages discussing diapers but devotes thirty-six pages to organic beauty treatments we can enjoy during pregnancy without harming ourselves or our “beautiful baby bump.”

Still, Green Babies, Sage Moms is an excellent resource for eco-friendly products.  As the founder of Green Babies, an organic cotton clothing company, Fassa has years of experience with organic baby gear.  The end of each chapter contains “Evergreen,” “Pea Green,” and “Spring Green” options for greening your life in baby steps.  There is a small list of “Green Goods” at the end of the book, but no index, which makes using this book as a resource guide difficult.

I remember the day we made our first eco-friendly Trader Joe’s detergent purchase. We loved the smell of our fresh laundry and basked in the green glow of our new standby.  While the large plastic container was an environmental downside, the price was reasonable and the lavender essential oils gave it a crisp, clean scent.

 Roscoe helps with the laundry

We wanted to switch to a greener detergent for our family’s health and the environment. Green brands don’t contain optical brighteners, chemicals which bond to the skin with traditional detergents. We also liked the fact that scents are often plant-based rather than petroleum-based, which tends to cause less skin irritation. As if that weren’t enough to convince us, natural detergents biodegrade easily in water and don’t contain phosphates, which are very harmful to aquatic wildlife.

Overall, we were utterly thrilled with ourselves for our ethical and thrifty laundry detergent decision.  But that was until we noticed the smell. Even when Roscoe had wet diapers, they reeked of rotten garbage.  At first we thought he had been sneaking asparagus in at snack-time, but then our daycare provider noticed as well.  She recommended stripping our diapers by washing them in several loads of hot water without laundry soap to remove the residue causing the foul odor.

After further research, I found that eco-friendly detergents with essential oils or mainstream brands with petroleum-based scents can coat cloth diapers, making them non-absorbent and causing them to smell, even when wet.  There are several suggested remedies for this stinky conundrum, including using vinegar in the rinse cycle, adding baking soda to the laundry soap, and doing an additional hot rinse after each load.

The problem with all of these options is that they require more time and/or effort from our already busy family.  Instead, we’ve looked into switching to a diaper-friendly detergent and saving the rest of our Trader Joe’s stuff for our non-diaper laundry.  The list below includes some recommended choices. 

I’ve heard that Charlie’s Soap is the ideal diaper laundering product. According to the company, each load of laundry requires just one tablespoon of soap and leaves no deposits on clothes.  Many cloth diaper aficionados have informed me that there is no stripping required with Charlie’s Soap and you can buy it at some natural baby stores, such as Mother Nature’s in Portland, Oregon. 

Since Portland is two vast hours away and I’m too swamped to order Charlie’s Soap online, I opted for Biokleen’s Free and Clear Laundry Powder.  There’s no plastic container, it’s safe for high efficiency washers, it’s fragrance-free, and it’s available at my local grocery store, a mere five minutes from home. 

It’s amazing how something as simple as laundry soap can be such a challenge for a busy family trying to go green.  Then again, solving that dilemma has been a huge triumph and relief.  We’ll keep you posted as we set our eyes on future eco-friendly hurdles.  They may not be overcome with grace, but we’ll keep stumbling greenward!  For more Works for Me Wednesday tips, go to the blog carnival at rocksinmydryer.com.