Your life as a semi-professional diaper changer may be about to change in the next week if you’re lucky enough to win this week’s Charlie Banana giveaway! In my cloth diapering conversations, whenever a mother has mentioned Charlie Banana Diapers it seems to be followed by a long list of adorations: They fit so wonderfully, are so flexible, and have such lovely designs….Yadda, Yadda, Yadda…

After trying the diaper for myself, I have to say that I have joined the (sometimes fervent) ranks of the Charlie Banana fan club. The Charlie Banana Cloth Diaper itself is adorable but I also love how their pocket diapers are built to work with a cloth or disposable insert. The washable liner fits inside the pocket, just as it would on a standard cloth diaper, but the disposable insert sits on top of the fleece, close to the baby’s skin. It is secured by simply tucking it into a fold in the fabric. (Which means you don’t have to worry about securing it with complicated snaps or elastics.) When you’re traveling or taking baby to daycare, you can still use your cloth diapers along with the disposable inserts.

Charlie Banana’s one size cloth diapers flex to fit babies from 7-40 pounds with a snap system, but also makes size specific hybrid diapers ranging from extra small to large. Their prints and colors are bright and fun and would make a great holiday gift for baby!

Enter the Charlie Banana Goodbye Disposables, Hello Cloth Diaper Giveaway.

What will you win? The diaper pictured above in the size of your choice.

How do you enter? 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 Charlie Banana 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!)

Each thing you do (and comment on) counts as a separate entry.

This contest ends on Wednesday, December 7th and is only open to U.S. Residents.

Great luck!

My darling Jovi has been sniffly for the last four weeks and utterly inconsolable for the last two. A pharmacist strongly recommended against medicinal decongestants for toddlers and small children. But due to her serious pacifier addiction, she’s quite uncomfortable at night since she can’t breath and suck on her binky at the same time. So what is a desperate, sleep deprived mother to do?

We loved Hyland’s teething tablets and decided to opt for some of their homeopathic cough syrup and decongestant. Sadly, we didn’t see big results last night. Have you had more success? There are other products we haven’t tried yet, like Sinupet Kid’s Syrup.

Similasan’s Kid’s Cold and Mucus relief sounds like exactly what my uncomfortable daughter needs, but I’m hesitant to try it unless someone can attest to its effectiveness.

Thanks for weighing in with your homeopathic preferences! (And let me know what works for your cold symptoms as well!)

Have you just finished loading soiled cloth diapers into the washer?   Are you pumping at midnight while surfing the internet?  Are you in your first trimester of pregnancy and polishing off an entire quart of ice cream on a daily basis?  Where exactly are you in your green parenting pursuits?

I just strapped a cloth diaper (Fuzzibunz) on my two year old for her afternoon nap and have settled in to get caught up on writing.  My five year old is currently at preschool and has pulled fully out of the “green baby” stage.  His favorite pastimes include playing with blocks and making binoculars out of cardboard toilet paper rolls, tape, and two feet of white string. Most of the time, my children like each other and share the same sense of humor, as evidenced by the photo below.

At this stage of parenting I’m sleeping far more and changing diapers far less.  But I don’t want to forget all those earlier stages that we went through just a few years back.  Thanks for reminding me by sharing where you are in this journey!

On these bright autumn mornings some of us to strap our babies into the running stroller and tromp our way to an endorphin rush. How do we keep our tots warm when we manage to scoot out of the house and enjoy some cold, bright weather?

Although it can be a bit awkward for diaper changes, bodysuits like this Columbia Unisex-Baby Tiny Bear Bunting Bodysuit, are a great way to keep a baby covered for just under 36 dollars. The sleeves and pant legs come with convenient flip over pockets for tiny hands and feet.

Nothing beats wool for natural warmth and LANACare’s Organic Wool Coverall is a beautiful heirloom piece of gear that would be worth it if you live in a very cold area and want to use it on a daily basis. It costs $133.50 which is quite an investment. But if it allows you to get out of the house and you are able to use it with multiple babies, you may be happy you spent the money. I would buy big and add additional layers so that you could get the most possible use out of it.

If you’d still love a quality wool product, but want a lower price with more flexibility, you may like the LANACare Organic Merino Wool Baby Sweater. It’s a little less than half of the price of the bodysuit at $55 and will work for slightly warmer weather as well.

Those of you who live in mild climates may be able to just get away with a few blankets and a really good hat. iPlay Origins Ecofleece Earwarmer Hat is just thirteen dollars and provides great coverage for baby’s neck and ears.

We must also add that all of these products, (and more) can be found for 50-90% less at consignment shops and thrift stores. As we emphasize in our book, The Eco-nomical Baby Guide, many babies hardly have time to use all the clothing they receive in their first twelve months of life. If you have the time to hit resale shops or even Ebay, you can get top quality items at great prices.

However you end up keeping baby warm, we hope you get a chance to be outside this fall to appreciate the outdoors–and escape from those mounting piles of laundry for a short while.

There are mothers who wear their fingers to the bone making needlepoint pegasus costumes that actually take flight while their kids trick-or-treat. We, on the other hand, advocate a full slacker approach to costuming kids that combines resourcefulness, creativity, and humor. Pictured below are a real life “swimming bear” and “cold weather bandit,” obviously the offspring of genius parents!

If you have spent months crafting a paper mache dinosaur costume for your two year old, more power to you! If you are scrambling around the house for a costume in the few hours before the big event, fear not! We at Green Baby Guide have loads of ideas. Here are some brilliant DIY costume ideas contributed from Rebecca in a past post:

• Hobo. This is a DIY classic, and easy to pull off using Dad’s beloved pilled sweaters and garish ties from 7th grade. With a little ingenuity, “hobo baby” could also be accomplished with the contents of his or her own wardrobe.
• Ragamuffin. Variation of hobo, above.
• Hippie. Another classic. “Hippie baby” would be especially funny if you could find some miniature John Lennon glasses to complete the look. Try tie-dying some baby’s old white onesies using grape juice. (Note: I have not actually tried this, but I am only partially kidding.)
• Swimming bear. All you need for this ensemble is a bear hat and swimming suit, which can be pulled over several layers of warm clothing. My cousin thought this one up herself in her younger years.
• Cold-weather bandit. As you can see from the photo, you will need a parka, some patterned pants, a Zorro mask, and a cape.
• Robot. Dress your child in gray clothes and affix a metal colander or sieve on his head. Voila!
• Glad bag. This same ingenious cousin who invented the “swimming bear” decided to masquerade as a garbage bag one year. In this day and age, it may be better to go as a canvas bag instead.

We also have family costume ideas, Last minute DIY costume ideas for babies and kids, and last minute maternity costume ideas.

But perhaps our favorite green, diaper-less costume of all time is utterly simple, utterly adorable, and utterly impractical. Just toss your naked baby into a carved pumpkin! It’s a compostable diaper that’s really quite festive… Happy Halloween!

Cloth Diapering Kits usually help parents save money by buying in bulk, but are they worth it? It depends. I would never recommend buying a kit without the chance to actually hold the diapers and see how they work on your baby. Every brand is unique and each child’s body wears a diaper differently. Still, if you have tried a company’s cloth diapering system and absolutely love it, cloth diapering starter kits are a good way to save money while stocking up.

Bummis Organic Cotton Diaper Kit is currently on sale for $152.10 and comes in either the infant or the baby size. The baby size includes 18 organic cotton prefold diapers, two Super Whisper Wraps and many more handy pieces of cloth diapering gear.

Grovia’s Hybrid Diapering System Starter Kit is about $200 and includes six cloth diapers along with 150 eco-friendly disposable inserts. It’s a nice choice for a family that wants a greener option than disposables but doesn’t want to exclusively use cloth.

The Trend Lab Cloth Diaper Starter Pack for boys comes in at just under a hundred dollars and is one of the top selling cloth diapering kits. It includes five cloth diaper shells with liners along with an additional pack of blue diaper liners, a matching changing pad, and a “dirty duds” zippered pouch.

CuteyBaby’s Modern Cloth Diaper Starter Kit is just $139 and offers diapers that adjust for babies between 20 and 40 pounds. The kit includes six diapers, two rolls of flushable diaper liners, and a magnetic closure to keep velcro tabs safe while you launder the diapers.

The Sprout Change Cloth Diaper Super Saver Starter Kit isn’t exactly a kit, since it just includes one diaper, but it is incredibly reasonable at just 37 bucks. Not a bad baby shower gift! It includes just one diaper that fits babies from five to 40 pounds with an organic cotton sleeve and an organic hemp/cotton fleece insert.

Did you end up investing in a cloth diapering kit? How satisfied were you with the product? Would you do it again?

By the way, if you find yourself completely lost in cloth diaper lingo, check out our book The Eco-nomical Baby Guide. It includes plenty of visuals, cost comparisons, and references to guide you through the vast vocabulary of greener diapering options.

We welcomed herds of relatives all weekend for reunions in our new home. The next day we found out that one of my cousins had gotten lice. A few days later we heard that five other family members were carrying little colonies on their heads as well. Yuck!

That was eight days ago. Since we found out late last week, we’ve neurotically done head checks every day–and luckily, we haven’t contracted it. Yet. We’ve lathered up with tea tree oil shampoo, sprayed our furniture with tea tree oil and water, and sat under shower caps while our hair was saturated with Lysterine and vinegar. (Tea tree oil is supposedly a natural deterrent for lice. Let’s hope it’s working!) In the meantime we’ve been crawling with paranoia about every little tingle on our scalps.

The above picture captures just how alluring I felt with my shower cap on and minty-pickle scented Lysterine/vinegar mixed on my head.

Although the Lysterine and vinegar remedy is somewhat homemade, it still smelled utterly toxic. I’ve also read you can sleep with your head saturated in mayonnaise or olive oil, with a shower cap on top so that the bugs actually suffocate. Still, the thought of trying to sleep with my head saturating in mayonnaise made me feel nauseous–maybe even more nauseous than the idea of a head lice infestation!

Instead I prophylactically treated me and the kids with LiceMD. It’s pesticide free, odorless, kills lice and nits, and works in just ten minutes. (And because it’s non-toxic, you can reapply it as many times as you like.) It also comes with a nit comb which helped convince me to shell out a whopping ten bucks on the purchase. I wanted real evidence if I did have lice, and the ability to individually comb every hair on my head if I didn’t.

I don’t! Yahoo! One four ounce bottle was enough for my medium length hair and my son and daughter’s little heads as well. Does it work? I’ll tell you in a few more days if we’re still lice-free!

What else did we do to limit the family reunion lice epidemic? We put all bedding in sealed plastic bags for two weeks or threw it into the dryer for at least 20 minutes on high heat. We vacuumed throughly and deposited the contents directly into the trash. The room where my poor relatives passed it to each other is off limits to the kids, although I’m typing this post from there at this very moment. Ew….

Have you encountered lice in your family? What remedies did you try? Did you also feel just a little more grossed out about it than you logically should? (Why is there a weird stigma about something that affects all people equally? ) Did you know that lice are especially attracted to clean hair?

Do you really need a whole slew of products to successfully breastfeed your baby? Absolutely not! But what items are a good support to breastfeeding women?

Some moms and babies gracefully make it through the first few months of breastfeeding without a hitch, but many of us suffer from cracked skin and even bleeding in the early weeks. The purple tube of Lansinoh Lanolin that my midwife brought on her first visit was a huge help. Between feedings it eased sore skin and I didn’t worry about my baby consuming it since it’s an all natural product. (I suppose if you have wool allergies in your family you may want to consider an alternative.) You can also later use it as a diaper cream for baby or an ointment for cuts or abrasions.

Many women swear by their Boppy Pillows, but I can honestly say that I didn’t use mine all that often. I wadded up nearby bedding or couch pillows most of the time. Later on my son loved sitting up in his Boppy, but it wasn’t an essential piece of breastfeeding gear for me.

When me sister-in-law gave me a Hooter Hider, I thought it was an extravagance I didn’t really need. It ended up being one of my favorite pieces of gear! For early breastfeeding, the Hooter Hider had a wire in the top that arced out from my chest, allowing me to see well enough to get her latched on without feeling so stressed out that my milk wouldn’t come down. It was especially handy when my eight-month-old started pulling every single blanket off while nursing in public.

Since I worked with both of my babies, our breast pump was an essential piece of gear that served me well. I borrowed a Medela Pump from relatives, but would have bought a Hygeia Pump if I didn’t have that option.

I bought just a few Born Free glass bottles for my babies, but they each had their own opinions about which nipples they liked best. In the end, they both drank from BPA-free plastic baby bottles simply because they refused all other brands. In the end I spent a tremendous amount of money on bottles they never used!

When my milk supply suddenly plummeted during stressful transitions to work with both babies, I depended on Fenugreek to help get my production back up. The very nice side effect is that I smelled slightly like maple syrup for weeks!

What are your favorite pieces of breastfeeding gear? Have we missed something that hadn’t even been invented a few years ago? Thanks for sharing your comments with other breastfeeding moms!

Packing up everything we own and shlepping it to a new address isn’t usually an orderly process for us, and it will be less so now that we’re moving with kids. It can become hugely wasteful as we could end up buying items that we can’t find, eating meals on paper plates, and just feeling overwhelmed by the quantity of stuff we have acquired over the years. We’re now four weeks away from our actual moving day and I think I should probably get packing soon. Do you have any tips that make moving with kids easier and maybe even greener? Have you been able to stay rooted in one spot for the last several years? If so, do you dread the potential of a future move?

A friend of ours is in the thick of early parenthood.  The sleeplessness, the stress, the wonder, the trauma and the sheer depth of love.  There is really no way to describe it to those on the brink of this huge shift, so I always feel such compassion for new parents.  My advice?

• Laugh at yourself.  Because minor failures can seem so catastrophic in those early days.   Errors won’t be so powerful if you can manage a chuckle now and then.
• Progress not perfection.  (I had to repeat that at certain challenging points–like when I dropped a poopy diaper face down on the carpet at 3am.)
• Also, each day is a new ride on a roller coaster that will have huge shifts.  They may seem endless but it will be gone before you know it.  (I know that everyone says this to new moms–and I know it can be annoying, but it is so amazingly true! )
• Hmmm..  On a less philosophical and more practical plane, request meals from everyone you know.
• Beg favors for free babysitting so that you can take showers and maybe even venture out to the grocery store on your own now and then.

What would your best advice be to new parents?  What do you wish you would have known when you started in this humbling and rewarding career?