Blog Friday August 26
One winner picked Sunday morning 🙂
Link me to the newest and cutest Thirsties print coming next week!
The prize? Well, in honor of Irene who is headed our way tomorrow, let’s give away a prize pack of 3 Joey Bunz regular Hemp inserts (you choose sizes and thread colors), known for their max absorbency, so we may need them to clean up our flooded floors! This is a $16.00 prize value~
cloth diapering while traveling (or during a hurricane!)
Since the hurricane is coming through, we are fielding lots of questions about using disposables, or which cloth options are easy to use, and this can also play into trip planning.
As far as disposables/hurricane issues, this is my response to those customers:
My thinking is, since Irene has such a wide path of possible destruction, if you think you will be out of a washing machine for a few days, a $7.00 pack of disposables will give you one less thing to worry about while you look for shelter, drinking water, etc…If you never use them, your local women’s shelter will be happy to take them off of your hands. If you need them, you will be glad to have them. In no way am I saying disposables trump cloth 😉 But, when mother nature decides to rear her head, you have to protect your resources and time to keep your family safe.
Not related to hurricanes, but for traveling we have been fielding lots of easy cloth options, this is a two part article session, so we will start with some of the all-cloth options. Some of the easiest diapers to use in travel is the system of covers/prefolds or flats. Thick fitteds, thick microfiber inserts, thick hemp inserts will be hard to hand wash in a hotel bathroom. covers hang dry very quickly, and you can hand wash prefolds and flats somewhat easily in a bathtub if you have a way to spray or use liners on the soiled ones.
If you are using a hotel laundromat, I highly advise washing a load of clothes first. If you see a full load of clothing get dry in less than 45 minutes, it is too hot for your diapers. Hotels frequently get industrial machines that can melt diapers, we had one customer a few years ago who had 24 pockets literally melt into one big ball in a a hotel dryer. If your clothes get dry that quickly, hang dry the diapers, and ask your hotel desk if the hot water in their machines is set to 120 or higher. If it is higher, use the warm cycle instead of hot.
Next week we dish more on traveling, be safe this weekend everyone!
keep your cloth diapers looking great!
Last week we posted some how-to’s, this week we are going over some
tried and true tips for keeping those diapers looking great 🙂
-Diapers with elastic, wait until they are cool to stretch/stuff them.
When you take your pocket diapers or stuffable AIOs out of the dryer, give
them a few minutes to cool off, stretching hot elastic will wear it out
faster.
-Laundry Tabs. If you have a tough agitation cycle on your washer (which
can actually help you get them clean easier), you may find your laundry tabs
on your aplix diapers have a hard time staying on. An easy fix, go to a
fabric store and buy a roll of velcro. Cut into 2 inch squares, separate
them so you have a dish full of the “loop” or softer side of the
velcro. Keep these tabs by your diaper pail, before tossing the diapers in
put a loop tab on your diapers, then wash and dry as usual. When you take
them out of the dryer, toss the tabs back in your dish, they will stay on
perfectly through the washer and dryer, and are about $2.00 to buy the roll.
-This really isn’t a “tip” per se, but rather the
Abby’s Lane opinion on “what is worse on diapers, washing them
frequently which wears them out or letting them sit longer and not washing
frequently”. Our opinion from our experience with our 4, and talking
to thousands of customers over the years, is that for best longevity of your
diapers, washing daily or every other day is best for them.
The longer they sit in ammonia and feces, the harder it can be to get them
clean, and usually involves using bleach or vinegar to do so, which is hard
on PUL and the elastic. Also, when you wash every 3-5 days, you have to have
twice as many diapers, so even in the worst case scenario (which we truly
have never seen happen), you are washing every other day and you wear them
all out in 18 months and have to buy a whole new set, you are at exactly the
same cost out as if you had bought double to wash twice as far apart. If you
soak your cleaning rags in pure ammonia you see what it does to them, urine
is hard on fabric when it sits (think cat urine on carpet), cleaning them
more often really does seem to make them last longer. Not using bleach,
vinegar, the sanitary cycle on your diapers, if you can hang things dry even
better, these things are what really can make a difference in longevity.
We wrote an article a little while ago about what to expect life-span wise from
your cloth diapers, worth a read over when considering what to buy 🙂
Let me know if you have any questions!
The Official $50.00 Voucher GIveaway Entry Place
IN addition to the Ergo Giveaways, we are celebrating hitting 2000 fans by giving away two $50.00 vouchers to our lovely customers 🙂
Simply comment below once to enter, we will pick two winners on September 1, 2011~
The Official Ergo No-Buy Entry Place :)
To celebrate 2000 Facebook Fans, we are giving away two Petunia Pickle Bottom Ergo Baby Carriers!
Here is how it works, you may enter one “no-buy” entry below. The no-buy entries will ONLY be open from August 19 through August 27th, comments posted after that will not be entered in the drawing. Just post below with a few words to enter. Watch our facebook, blog and twitter for extra entry methods, some will be via orders, some will be via other ways of promoting Abby’s Lane and Ergo 🙂
We will select two winners on September 15, 2011
Details of the PPB may be found here:
http://www.abbyslane.com/Ergo-Baby-Petunia-Pickle-Bottom-Exclusives_p_380.html
Blog Friday Giveaway August 19th~
Happy Friday, everyone! I can’t believe I am doing this on time 🙂
You are playing for an orange snap little to big velour fitted by Little Beetle:
http://www.abbyslane.com/Little-To-Big-Beetle-Organic-Velour-Fitted_p_96.html
A $28.00 dollar value!
To enter, we need you to comment below with a hyperlink, I need the two most recent fitted lines added/to-be-added in our store. Hint, one is in and was highlighted last week, and one is coming next week due to popular request 🙂 Winner picked Sunday morning!
Blog Friday August 12 :)
The prize up for grabs this week is a 6 pack of Thirsties wipes, your choice girly or neutral:
Comment below with the link back to our store, our newest product line of high-end fitteds that can turn your water bottle into something absorbent 😉
One winner picked Sunday afternoon!
How to get started with cloth diapering
This week we are going to discuss some “how do you do this?” questions we get frequently from families new to cloth 🙂 Sometimes the hardest things to overcome are the little daily steps to making cloth work for your family, so I am going to share a few tips over the years we have loved from our customers and that we have found works well.
-Where to put the diapers?
We see a lot of changing tables set up with the diapers and the pail is in the nursery,since spraying in the newborn stage isn’t always a must, this set up works well until the baby is older and you need to spray. Some will then just take the pail with them to the nearest bathroom and keep that area as is. My preference is to keep the diapers in the bathroom in the main floor of the house, with several children now that is where our time is spent even with a newborn, I have a cabinet mounted above our toilet that is big enough to stack my diapers in, and the doors keep it all concealed. Prior to this, I bought a really cheap “over the toilet” shelf rack similar to this (but not as expensive) that I put the diapers on. For years I kept my pail under the bathroom sink in the cabinet there, but now I keep it in my laundry room, for the diapers that need spraying I just grab the pail and go in there to chuck them in 🙂
In our previous home, we had a condo that the bathroom was SUPER tiny in. I did the same over the toilet rack, but instead of a pail I used a wet/dry bag I hung on a wreath hanger over the door.
Another question we get a lot is how to store diapers in between children? The best way is to put your clean diapers in a place where they aren’t exposed to temperature extremes. Temperature controlled basements or attics are fine, but if they are in a garage and winter cold and summer heat gets to them, the elastic will get brittle much faster.
What kind of pail to use?
The best/cheapest pail we have found over the years is a 13 gallon trash bin with a close top lid (not a swinging lid). You can get these at wal mart or target for around 10 dollars. The one I use I have had for about 8 years, and with the new baby due next month I am finally chucking it for a 13 gallon bin, only because almost every component on it now is broken and it is barely hanging together, but for 16 bucks I sure did get my moneys worth from diapering my 4 previous babies and 2 babies I had in at home day care with me in cloth!
Next week we will continue with some fun diapering tips to make things a little easier 🙂
hybrid diaper systems
This week we are discussing some favorites of ours in the hybrid category of diapering 🙂 I am also going to discuss a little of how these work and what are the pros and cons to this system.
Of all the hybrids we carry, great things can be said of our Gen-Y universal cover system! I have used this with our fourth, and it is very versatile, and Gen-Y makes a fabulous product with some great size ranges. A hybrid usually consists of a cover that is one size, or duo sized, with flaps on the front and back to hold various inserts in place. You can reuse the cover, and change out the inserts during the day.
Flip is another hybrid, they sell Flip stay dry microfiber inserts, organic cotton inserts, and disposable inserts. Flip has a PUL inner, so it can wipe clean and be reused until it gets soiled on the outside. GenY is also a PUL inner, and allows for use with organic inserts/prefolds trifolded like a business letter, microfiber inserts if you have a fleece or flannel liner on top, really just about anything.
Grovia is another hybrid system, the shells are designed to be changed throughout the day, since the mesh backing can retain moisture and odor and is not a “wipe clean” system. The mesh allows for the adhesive backing on the disposable inserts to stay in place. We don’t recommend hybrid systems for newborns, UNLESS you plan on changing the cover very frequently (often at every change), or you use the system but instead of laying inserts in, wrap them around the baby and fasten with a Snappi. Hybrids just are not the best at keeping everything contained just by trifolding, so if you intend to reuse covers, use a snappi around the insert to keep those bowel movements in. Once the baby isn’t as “explosive” around the 3-4 month mark, you can experiment with trifolding and laying in inserts 🙂
Blog Friday August 5th :)
This is good for one winner to get 150 points in your Abby’s Lane Dollars account! Which is *this* close to a $10.00 voucher 😉
Yes, you must have an account for us to add the points~
Link below for your entry, we have two NEW beautiful prints in a very popular carrier coming soon, show me where they are and list them, one winner picked Saturday night 🙂
NOT ERGO! Wrong brand 😉
Mom Rocks Monday: Every Monday when you 
It's The Cloth That Counts. 