Melalueca Oil and Diapering (especially Cloth Diapering)

Melalueca has top quality grade oil which means it has a maximum of 5% cineole (which gives it, it's smell) and a 35-40% Terpenin-4-ol (which is what gives it the germicidal properties).

My husband likes that it helps with the smell of our diaper pail because I put it with my dirty diapers after I use them. This also can help disinfect the laundry when I wash them. When there is a poopy diaper I will spray a mix of melaleuca oil and water on the diaper too.

I've been using Melaleuca Oil for several months now as a disinfectant in my laundry. I have been using cloth diapers, so it has been nice to have the Melaleuca oil to use as a disinfectant in my cloth diaper load especially.

Melaleuca oil can also be used for treating minor cuts, scrapes, bug bites, and burns. It naturally fights bacteria, and naturally penetrates and cleans to help with the healing process, and gently soothing "ouches". I have been using Melaleuca oil and water in a spray bottle for when my baby has a sore diaper bum and it seems to be helping it get better quite quickly and I don't have to worry about it messing up my cloth diapers either.

The Melaleuca Oil last quite awhile too because it doesn't take much to work which is nice.

There are certainly many uses for Melaleuca oil, especially for cloth diapering individuals.

I also use it with my cloth wipes. 

T36-C5® Melaleuca Oil—1 fl.oz.

*Reg. Price $17.00 (Discounted $11.59)+ Shipping and Taxes Points: 10

T36-C5® Melaleuca Oil—0.5 fl.oz.

*Reg. Price $10.00 (Discounted $6.99)+ Shipping and Taxes Points: 6

T40-C3® Melaleuca Oil—rare quality Tea Tree Oil

*Reg. Price $24.50 (Discounted $16.99)+ Shipping and Taxes Points: 15

Go to the link at the top for product discounts if you are interesting in using Melaleuca oil. Thanks :)

PRE-MOISTENED CLOTH BABY WIPES (Could be used with Disposable or Cloth Diapers)

I recently have made some cloth wipes using some Gerber Flat Fold Birdseye Cloth Diapers I got from several people at my baby showers. I had a lot of these flat diapers and they aren't very expensive.

What's really nice about that, is that I could make 6 wipes out of one diaper, so it can be really inexpensive to use them for wipes. It's also really easy to make them out of these diapers. I just folded them, cut them, and then sewed the edges with a serger. It was very simple.

After I made the wipes, I put them in a disposable wipes plastic box where I had mixed some Melalueca Oil with a mild soap and water. This moistened the wipes so they are a lot like disposable wipes and that makes it really easy and simple to use them. After I use them I can throw them in the diaper pail.

My husband brought up the fact that by putting the used one in the diaper pail, it makes it smell better. That was a advantage of using them I hadn't thought about but it is nice. Also by using the Melalueca oil it can help disinfect the inserts, diapers, and wipes when I wash them, and because it is a disinfectant it will help any sores on my baby's bum.

Adding baking soda to the solution can also help with smell.


**To learn more about getting Melaleuca oil go to my blog about Melaleuca products. It's at http://behomeyou.blogspot.com/ or go to the link above called Learn about Melaleuca Products.

Thanks! I hope you find it helpful :)

Losing the Bulk in Cloth Diapering

Some people aren't interested in cloth diapering because cloth diapers can be big and bulky. I have found that there are some options for less or non bulky cloth diapers. 

Here is what I have discovered:

1.) GroVia Shells or Alternative Shell with GroVia Disposable Insert

GroVia Shell Outside

GroVia Shell Inside

Kawaii Baby Diaper Cover Outside

Kawaii Baby Diaper Cover inside

GroVia Disposable Insert

2.) Bamboo Diapers and Bamboo Inserts

Kawaii Baby Bamboo Diaper Outside

Kawaii Baby Bamboo Diaper Inside

Kawaii Baby Newborn Bamboo Diaper Outside

Kawaii Baby Newborn Bamboo Diaper Inside

Kawaii Baby Bamboo Inserts

Alva Baby 4.0 Diaper Outside

Alva Baby 4.0 Diaper Inside

Alva Baby 4.0 Bamboo Snap-in Insert

These are diapers and inserts I have found take out the bulk in cloth diapering.

Innovative Ideas:
What have you tried to lose the bulk in your cloth diapering stash? 

Innovative Idea: Fitted Diaper Liner (Disposable or Cloth)

This idea is similar to the Diaper Underliner idea. It would be a liner that was like a fitted diaper, kind of like this fitted diaper shown below.

This Fitted diaper is made of fleece and I am not sure what the sewn-in insert is made of, but it is thin and quite absorbant so it may be hemp or bamboo. It has a snap closure to fit it on the baby. The diaper cover or shell goes over this, because this is not waterproof.

Front view of fitted fleece diaper

Inside of fitted fleece diaper

Outside of Fitted Fleece Diaper

Back View of fitted fleece diaper

Up Close View of Snaps (though hard to differentiate among the pocka dots)

Front view with snaps closure shut

Up close of leg gussets 

Back View with snap closure shut

This fitted diaper works nice, because it can hold a regular flat liner close to the baby, which helps keep the mess pretty well contained. 

If this was a disposable fitted liner made with a material about the thickness of a paper towel, it would probably work quite well. However, it wouldn't have the same stay dry feel the fleece does, which could be done if it was a fitted cloth liner. Also, finding a way to fit the disposable liner on to a baby would need to be figured out. 

An alternative way of making a disposable fitted liner, would be to make it similar to underwear, kind of like a pull up, and then make the sides tearable so it can be torn off after use. 

How do you think this would work? Any Suggestions? 

Thank You!

Cloth Diapering: Liner Options

I am still fairly new to cloth diapering, but one area I can see large improvements possible, would be in diaper liners. Disposable and cloth ones. 

As a breastfed baby, my baby's dirty diapers were quite liquidy when I first started cloth diapering. 

Because of this I wanted and needed a good liner to keep the mess off the interior of the diaper. However, I mostly found thin liners, much like a dryer sheet, such as this: 

GroVia Disposable Liner
vs

Dryer sheet
If you want to be resourceful you can wash dryer sheets a few times and use them as liners.

Liners like these work fine once the baby gets thicker and more solid stools, however, if the stool is liguidy these are too thin and the stool leaks through to the diaper. 

I found a Youtube movie by a woman who had taken Parent's Choice baby wipes, washed them and dried them to use as liners. So I tried it and they worked pretty good, since they are thicker. They look like this, after prepped: 

Parent's Choice Baby Wipes after washed and dried

After trying these, I found a big box of paper towels that look like this:

Paper Towel

The paper towels work good because they are about the same thickness as the baby wipes, but they are a lot longer and wider, which helps cover almost the whole interior of the diaper or insert.

I also made some fleece liners to see how they worked. They look like this:

Cloth Fleece Liner cut out of a fleece receiving blanket

Fleece liners wash out well usually and they give the baby a stay dry feel. Using a fleece liner under a disposable liner can be useful.

The last things I've experimented with for liners has been disposable hairnets and beard nets. A beard net can go on the bottom and the top of a insert, or two hairnets can be used, or a beard net and a hairnet. They work pretty good with inserts that go in a cover, like the snap-in inserts for Best Bottom, or GroVia Covers or a Bamboo insert like you would get with a Kawaii pocket diaper. When the baby's stools were liquidy I liked to put a baby wipe or dryer sheet, or something under the Beard or hairnet to make sure it didn't leak through. 

A HoneyComb Hairnet can be used or the kind like this beard net below.

Spun Bonded Beard Net

I hope some of these ideas were useful. There will be more to come. What are some innovative liner ideas you have used that has helped?

Getting Dad and Others Involved with Diapering

When our baby was first born, my husband was really great to help change diapers. Before the baby was born we both had agreed we didn't want to do cloth diapering. With disposables there are less steps involved with changing a diaper, so it can be easier to have others help.

I didn't notice my husband's lack of helping with changing diapers until after doing cloth diapers for awhile. I am not sure if it was that he felt overwhelmed by having such a variety of diapers to choose from since I had begun accumulating quite a variety of diapers, or if he was worried about putting the diapers on wrong because I had begun experimenting with liners which made it a little more complicated to help. He also hasn't helped with washing them possibly because he thinks it is gross, and/or complicated or too much work.

Anyhow, I am trying to simplify diapering at this time, since my husband is still showing hesitation to help. My advice would be to keep things as simple as you can when cloth diapering, at least for the sake of those helping with diaper changes. This is where hybrid diapers can be nice, especially with the disposable inserts.

Innovative Idea: I am interested in coming up with a more effective and easier to use disposable diaper liner. In later posts I plan to share some of the ideas I have come up with for this. So stay tuned!

Please Share:
In your experience, what have you found helps make diapering easier for others to help?

How do you Take the Stink out of Cloth Diapering?

One reason people may not be interested in cloth diapering, could have something to do with the smell.

A wet or dirty diaper can be smelly no matter if it is cloth or a disposable one, but the idea of keeping it around to clean later instead of taking it out of the house can definitely be cause for concern.

With disposables, a person can get a diaper pail, such as a diaper genie, where the diapers are stored and smells contained until taken out, but cloth diapering is a bit different.

When cloth diapering, it is harder to contain the smell. Cloth diapers can sit in a pail wet and/or dirty for days.

 So how does one take the stink out of cloth diapering, (or lessen it at least)?

Here are a few ideas:

*Baking soda helps absorb smells. If put with diapers it can help with that.

-Innovative Idea: A person could make a kind of diaper litter box in a way. The diapers could be put in a pail with some kind of solution (powder or liquid) that would help absorb the smells until washed, without damaging the diapers. I am not sure what the mixture would be (maybe some detergent along with baking soda). This idea needs some experimentation or insight from others.

I've been using a spray bottle with a solution of water and Melalueca oil to spray on dirty diapers. This can help with the smell as well as help with staining.

*A good diaper pail or diaper liner can help. There are some liners that are suppose to be anti-bacterial, etc. and that's suppose to help with the smell. There may even be a diaper pail and liner system out there that works kind of like the disposable diaper's diaper genie. A system like this would make it possible for a cloth diaper to be put in a pail that had a lid that could tightly conceal the diapers and smell in a strong leak free liner and pail.  

What do you think or have you done?

On A Budget Hybrid Cloth Diapering

Many people who choose to cloth diaper, do so in hopes of saving some money. I had hopes of doing that when I first began and that's what attracted my attention to hybrid diapers. The idea was that I would save money by only having to get a certain amount of shells because I only had to change out the inserts and could reuse the shells.

I decided to purchase 7 GroVia shells with snap-in inserts and 7 Best Bottom covers with a few snap-in inserts.

They look like this:

GroVia Shell with Mesh interior and snaps for snap in inserts
The Shell is waterproof

GroVia Stay Dry Snap in insert and Booster pad
The insert is waterproofed on the backside.

Best Bottom Cover with PUL interior  and snaps for snap in inserts

Best Bottom medium and large snap-in inserts

I found that I wasn't very impressed by the cloth inserts, but really liked the GroVia disposable insert.

It looks like this:

GroVia Disposable Insert

The GroVia Shell with it's mesh interior and fleece top on it's Stay Dry cloth inserts wash out pretty nicely after getting dirty, but I found that I had to change the shell often enough that I didn't feel it was worth it. If I had to change the whole diaper anyways, therefore needing to buy more of shells, then my hope for saving money wasn't really being met.

Now, The Best Bottom shell is great. I can wipe it out and use it again, because of it having the PUL (waterproof) interior.  Occasionally, it gets dirty on the trim when my baby poops (so I like the ones with dark Trim, though the lighter trim wash out fine). Therefore, the Best Bottom shells met my hope for saving money because the shells could be used over again, and I could get by with 7 or less. [note: I do my laundry Mon, Weds, and then Fri or Sat, unless I have a messy diaper that needs to soak right away-rarely a Best Bottom, if ever.] The Stay dry inserts wash out fine also. I feel like they are a bit bulky though, and I didn't notice a huge advantage to having it snap-in, so I have used alternative inserts, such as:

Charcoal Bamboo Insert

Charcoal Bamboo Insert with gussets 

Kawaii Baby Bamboo Insert

Pre-fold 

Flats

I've used two hair nets or a hair net and a

Beard net around a folded flat or pre-fold diaper to make it in the shape of  other inserts.

These alternative combinations for inserts seem to work fine, especially for the money they can save a person.  

I also found that the much less expensive Kawaii Baby diaper Covers worked as pretty good alternatives for GroVia Shells and Best Bottom Covers. They are less fancy, but if you are on a budget and want to try hybrid diapering it's not a bad route. 

The Diaper Covers with white trim have a waterproof interior that is a little less wipeable but it washes out well, and it works great with the GroVia Disposable inserts. They look like this:

White Trimmed Kawaii Baby Diaper Cover

The Minky Kawaii Baby Diaper Covers with dark trim wipe out well and I like the dark trim.

Minky Exterior and Dark Trimmed, wipeable interior Kawaii Baby Diaper Cover

If you are wanting to save money, the Kawaii Baby Diaper Covers are really inexpensive, can be used with lots of different inserts, and are wipeable. I would suggest that you could get by with these alone, if you were really tight on money. However, you could also save money by simply using them to supplement your hybrid diaper stash.  

Another diaper cover, I recently used with a GroVia disposable insert is shown below.  It has a fleece interior which worked really well with the insert and I liked that it was soft. From what I have experienced fleece seems to wash out well also. This diaper cover was less expensive, and I noticed it has wing droop-age because of how the snaps are, but I like the gussets on the legs.

  

WeeGro Diaper Cover with fleece interior

Last of all, I tried recently a diaper similar to the gdiaper. It looks like this:

Shell similar to a Gdiaper shell with cotton interior and snaps to snap in a pouch

and is used with a pouch, like this:

Snap-in pouch with PUL interior

The Shell to this diaper also can be used with the GroVia Disposable insert or when used with the pouch can be used with the Flip or Gdiaper disposable insert. 

Innovative Idea (I have not tried this yet, but): Another way to save money, could be to use pouches like this with other diapers, such as pocket diapers -just put the pouch on top, then you should be able to reuse the pocket diaper shell over again.

On last Innovative Idea: A person can use pocket diapers that leak with Grovia Disposable inserts since the inserts have waterproofing on the back side.

Now what have you done to save money diapering?  

Cloth Diapering Options: Pocket Diapers

When I was looking into my cloth diaper options, I didn't think I'd like pocket diapers. Having to stuff a diaper with inserts and then take those inserts out after they've been used seemed gross to me. However, after I got a few I realized they were pretty nice to use and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be to stuff and take out inserts. Cleaning out poop is still not that fun however. I'll cover liners to help with that in a later post. 

Below are some different types and brands of pocket diapers I have tried. They are all one size diapers, which have rows of snaps in the front that can be adjusted to fit different sized babies. I will be doing individual reviews on each type of these diapers in a later post. 

Kawaii Baby Goodnight Heavy Wetter Diaper

Fleece inside for Stay Dry feel

Kawaii Baby Snazzy Minky

Suede Cloth inside

Kawaii Baby Heavy Duty HD2 Diaper with Velcro closure

Suede Cloth inside

Alva Baby Love in Black Diaper

Suede Cloth inside

Modia Diaper

Suede Cloth inside

Alva 4.0 Diaper

Suede Cloth inside. Opening in front and back. Double Gusset. Curled fitted back gathering.

Kawaii Mom Label OS Bamboo Minky Diaper

Bamboo fabric inside

Kawaii Little Green Baby Bamboo Diaper with Velcro Closure

Bamboo fabric inside

Kawaii Newborn Bamboo Diaper with Velcro Closure

Bambo Fabric inside

Sunbaby

Micro fleece inside

Sunbaby

Snake Microfiber Insert

Alva Snap in Bamboo Insert

Kawaii Bamboo Inserts

Microfiber Inserts

Innovative Ideas: I have some ideas for liners to help make using pocket diapers easier to clean up when they are pooped in. One could also try using a gdiaper or flip disposable insert with a pocket diaper. 

What has been your experience with pocket diapers?