Strange Machines

Today while flipping through a copy of Reader’s Digest, I came across a comment by Reese Witherspoon about respecting your kids.

That evening I tried it out with Wolf. When he misbehaved, I took him aside and told him not to do it again and amazingly he obeyed!

He went back and apologised and promised not to do it again very contritely.

The point was to not humiliate him in front of others and he really appreciated that.

Thanks Reese for the helpful advice!

Not quite. We’d have to get out of Earth first. In a billion years, our Earth would no longer be habitable.

Our best option, according to Ray Villard, news director for the Hubble Space Telescope, is for us to

… come up with a strategy to build artificial mini-planets – essentially flying city-states — that would modify their orbits to migrate along with the petulant Sun’s expanding and shrinking habitable zone. As the white dwarf cools, the wagon train of space habitats would move inward. Raw materials would be harvested from in-falling comets and asteroids. Explorers would be free to travel outward to visit surviving planets and moons. Given our passion for survival, bolstered by super-technology, the future for mankind could truly stretch on indefinitely, beyond even the life of the Sun.

That’s hope for you.

(Source: Living in a Dying Solar System)

Yes it is possible.

Kitten got a recurrent rash which came back after her all night pee party using the BumGenius + Hemp Doubler + Loveybums fleece liner.

I was pleased to find out online that our California Baby Diaper Rash Cream can be used with cloth.

Hope that helps. We’ll find out tomorrow morning.

No leaks last night!

I learnt that boys need more padding in the front; girls centre. Yes, logical but to a sleep deprived mother, sometimes it is easier to have it all written down.

Wolf’s night diapering solution:

1 Loveybums XL organic cloth diaper
1 hemp soaker doubled in the front
1 Loveybums XL organic wool cover

Kitten’s night diapering solution:

1 Loveybums organic fleece top layer (taken from the L diaper)
1 hemp soaker laid flat
1 BumGenius organic all-in-one diaper

Yay!

And more diapers are on the way so Wolf can go cloth during the day too.

This morning Wolf woke me around 6 telling me he was wet. He’d slept on his tummy and there was leakage from the front because I keep the diaper and cover loose for more air.

He didn’t sleep again till 9ish and I was beat, having fallen asleep only at 3. Thankfully he dozed for another 2 hours but during which Kitten woke and kept me up too.

She’d also leaked from the back of her BumGenius which had the Loveybums fleece layer inside it. The diaper was completely soaked through so I knew she needed more padding.

Tonight she wears the same combo but with the hemp soaker inside. I tried the L Loveybums diaper with soaker and the Loveybums wool cover or BumGenius over it but there was just too much gap between the leg and diaper that I abandoned both ideas.

Wolf wears the same Loveybums diaper, hemp soaker, and wool cover over. This time I flattened the whole soaker instead of folding it. Let’s see how that goes.

Meanwhile, I seriously need sleep… Can feel my system shutting down…

Remarkably, Kitten can wear her brother’s L sized Loveybums diaper already. The NB/S barely fits her and M just right. L is comfy with room to grow…

I put her next to Wolf this morning and noted with amazement that they have the same waist size! So I wrote back to Pam, who had kindly written back last night, that I would go for the large size instead.

As for last night’s experiment, the BumGenius diaper (it is a diaper with 2 layers of organic cotton inside covered with a cover with organic cotton on one side and a PUL – polyurethane laminate – cover – breathable – on the outside) held it in and there was only a slight leakage where the Loveybums diaper was not covered by the BumGenius.

Tonight I am trying her with the Loveybums organic fleece cover and the BumGenius and see how that goes.

She went cloth all day today – 3 all day, and also cloth (albeit with PUL) at night. Wolf had to go disposable during the day since I only have one L and one XL. But we’ll try day too when the XLs come. I’d use the BumGeniuses but they take 2 days to dry. I don’t want to shorten their lifespan by putting them in the dryer.

Which is one reason why I prefer the Loveybums – I can blast them with hot water and the smell is gone, wash them and dry them and have them ready for use in 2 hours. But the BumGeniuses, as pretty and leak-proof as they are, take 2 days to be usable again.

So far I’ve only cloth diapered Wolf at night. A nifty combo of an XL or L Loveybums organic cloth diaper, with a super soaker hemp insert under the organic cotton fleece layer, and an organic Loveybums wool cover over. No leaks on day 3!

Kitten is the tricky one to diaper. Her M diapers fit perfectly so not much space to stuff any insert, plus she is so small that she’d have to sleep doing a split if I put an insert in her diaper. And her wool cover is NB/S and it is super snug already.

Sooooo looking at the rest of my arsenal, I had the brainwave (okay, look, for sleep deprived mothers, it is revolutionary already!) to let her wear her M cloth diaper and use the BumGenius over. Perfect and no worries of leakage at night. It fit her to a tee, except her legs are a little stretched out. :p

I’m thinking maybe I should order the L sized diaper and wool cover for her to use at night. I’ve emailed Pam from Loveybums to ask her opinion. Let’s see what she advises.

Kitten wore her Loveybums diaper set (cloth with wool cover) this morning after a wake-the-household poop. She’s almost outgrowing her newborn/small diaper and cover so I’d bought some mediums from Loveybums, which incidentally fit perfectly. She was 7kg at 2 months.

Suddenly after her nap and feed I heard that unmistakable sound – the prat sound that could only mean a second poop.

I gamely opened her wool cover. No stain. Her cloth diaper… Yellow poop concentrated on the fleece cover. I covered her back and brought her to the bathroom, took off the diaper and put it on the ground, washed her bottom then carried her.

I rinsed all the poop out but the fleece still looked a little yellow. In it went into the washing machine with Wolf’s Loveybums diaper from last night.

Yes… I can do this again.

Update: She pooped again this evening before her bath. Like a pro, I brought her to the bathroom, removed her cloth diaper and hosed it down with hot water while we both bathed, and then put it in the laundry with the rest of the wash. Yay!

Hubby’s taken the kids out (Kitten in the Ergo and Wolf in the pram) for a walk. This is the second time and he’s confident to do it after Kitten’s had her milk and is ready for a nap, and Wolf is ready for his nap too so he really does the walking himself. Good exercise.

Yesterday I decided it was time to be brave or not at all. I confess my fears about cloth diapering was the awful handwashing, the smell, the potential poop, and leakage. Still it didn’t stop me from buying all the below cloth diapers and accessories while pregnant with Kitten. I did cloth diaper Wolf when I was pregnant but when Kitten was born, handwashing single diapers became too much of a chore.

My thought was, now with so much laundry to do every day, it would be less of a chore putting them all in cloth and washing the diapers and accessories together. But of course to ease my eww factor, I’d rinse them first then put them in the diaper bin.

Kitten is now 3 months old. I am feeling strong. I can do this.

So here I was, armed with 3 organic BumGeniuses, 2 Loveybums organic wool covers, and 6 organic cloth diapers for the kids, a wonderful new washer and dryer from my Mom, a covered plastic PP container I bought from Ikea as a diaper bin, and nowhere to go. It was time.

I would put the kids in their cloth diapers and when it was time to change it, I would rinse them as best as I could and put them in the diaper bin, wet. When all the diapers were used, they would be washed in the machine with 2 tablespoons of Seventh Generation washing powder I use.

Wolf wore a BumGenius for 6 hours and no leakage. In fact, it didn’t even feel terribly full. Yay! Success. Night time was the tricky one.

My friend Phoebe and I were comparing notes on why the Mame Poko disposables we were using before were now leaking at night. Because it is a new design to make it thinner. And apparently not more absorbent, she snorted.

So that night I was determined to try another option.

I have these 4 layer brick-sized hemp inserts I’d bought from Whoopeekiddies, incidentally based in Singapore but ships worldwide. I’ve bought tons of organic stuff from them, including the BumGeniuses.

Anyway, I put the Loveybums (from the US but ships internationally too – yay!) organic cloth diaper on Wolf (love the organic cotton fleece that would be touching his skin – something the BumGenius SHOULD have put in their design but didn’t), stuffed a hemp insert under the cotton fleece, and then wrapped his bum up (excuse pun) with the Loveybums organic wool cover. He looked so cute in it! I must remember to take a photo tonight. And… for good measure, had him sleep on the rubber mat just in case.

In the morning, NO LEAKAGE! I almost wept with joy. I had my doubts about wool being waterproof but this has buoyed my confidence in using this combo. Now, when I opened up the layers, the cloth diaper and inserts were soaked through the front (cos he has boy parts). But the wool contained them. His pyjamas were dry. His wool cover was dry! I almost wept with joy. Did I just say that again? Ok, it smelled slightly but airing it is supposed to help.

I was so thrilled that I put both kids in the remaining 2 BumGeniuses and they’re both colourful and happy today. Looks like I’ll have to stock up on more diapers. I’d love to try the Gro Baby^TM which is also in organic cotton, a new system of diapering which has earned quite a bit of rave reviews recently, and I think will be great for going out in the day since that is what we do every day anyway.

Tonight both kids go in their cloth+wool combos and we’ll see what the morning brings.

Cloth Diaper + Accessories Count for Wolf and Kitten:

3 organic BumGeniuses
2 organic Loveybums wool covers
2 large organic Loveybums cloth diapers
1 NB/S organic Loveybums cloth diaper
3 medium organic Loveybums cloth diapers
4 hemp supersoaker inserts