Category Archives: Cloth Diapers

I am no seamstress

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I’ve been wanting to sew a cloth diaper and a fleece diaper cover for the longest time. They looked SO simple and I read through the patterns a million times! However, I chickened out every time I would look at my sewing machine, at the fabric and then at the dreaded elastic. I’d never in my life sewn elastic on to something before! A couple of nights ago I took the plunge and this is what the end result was:

First try at sewing a cloth diaper

It’s made up of a fleece outer layer (to keep baby’s clothes dry!) and a flannel inner layer. I stuffed it with a Microfiber and a Hemp insert and she was dry 2 hours later. We love it! I couldn’t get a good enough fit with pins so I ended up just using a Snappi to fasten it. I am still in the process of learning how to pin a diaper on a wiggly 11 month old.

First try at sewing a cloth diaper

Overall, I love it! I totally forgot to cut extra around my pattern for seam allowances so I think next time I make this, it will be bigger and a better fit. This one is kind of on the smallish side. I also need to practice sewing the elastic. I didn’t pull the elastic hard enough to create a really hard tension so it isn’t quite as tight fitting around the legs as I would like it to be.

Btw, I used the Free RRP diaper pattern from this website!

The next night I sewed up a Fleece Soaker from the Katrina Soaker pattern and I absolutely LOVE it! It was sooo unbelievably easy and I think with some more practice it wont take very long at all to whip one of these bad boys out. I accidentally cut the body fleece (the print) the wrong way so it doesn’t have the waist-to-waist stretch that I needed it to but luckily I cut out the waist and leg cuffs out the right way so those are perfectly stretchy. This soaker fits AWESOME over her prefold and fitted diapers. I can’t wait to make more!

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I really wish I had a serger so that I could make the edges / seams look all nice and finished on the inside but for now my wimpy little zigzag stitch will have to do. Oh and I wish I had an endless supply of cute flannel and fleece material so that I could make a million of these cute things! Next I would like to try making some Fleece Longies (the same thing but basically pants) for her as well.

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Now that I have this cute soaker, I have been putting my daughter in prefolds or fitteds more often. I hardly ever reach for my pocket all-in-ones anymore! I need to make a few more to have on hand.

Zoey: 33 Weeks Old!

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:)

Notice anything different?

It’s the ears! This morning we took Zoey to the doctor’s office to have her ears pierced. The doctor we saw was really nice and explained everything about the procedure in great detail. Gene held some little cotton swabs of some kind of liquid on her ear lobes for a few minutes, this was numbing the surface of her ears. I realize this wasn’t going to really take all of the pain away but I figured my job as a parent was to do whatever I could to make it as painless as possible. She came in, cleaned her ears, marked them with a marker, I checked the markings to make sure they were even and then we proceeded.

I figured Zoey would be more comfortable in our arms than with a nurse holding her down so I held her on my lap while Gene held her head in place. She started to cry before we even started, I think from being held down. The doctor did one ear at a time and it was over. She cried briefly and by time we were leaving the office she was happy and smiling. She just looks so precious :)

Playing with faux candy canes

The earrings are a new kind of earring that is made from plastic so it’s completely non-allergenic. You don’t have to turn the earrings all of the time and you don’t have to put peroxide on them anymore. Great!! Less maintenance. All she said was to wash them with soap when you give her a bath and turn it a little when you do that. After 6 weeks we will need to change out the earrings into regular ones as the post on these are a little bigger than regular ones. She is doing GREAT and has been a gem all day today.

She has been acting her normal self but I noticed her face was warm today so I took her temperature and it was 100.5! She has been trying to eat EVERYTHING today, drooling a bit more than usual and she has had a really awful diaper rash the last few days so I am guessing that maybe she is teething. Her gums have been swollen for months now but I haven’t felt anything popping through so who knows! Gene slathered her poor red bottom up with Eucerin and put her in a disposable diaper for the night. I’ll put her back in cloth tomorrow morning and try to change her diaper every hour so that she isn’t sitting in a wet diaper for a long period of time. She cried so hard when I was wiping her bottom tonight. That totally broke my heart and I felt so awful :( It was a worse cry than when she had her ears pierced this morning!

Zoey has been drinking four 7oz bottles a day for a few months now but this last week has gone down to about three 6oz bottles a day. So crazy. She is still only eating 2 solids a day but I am starting to incorporate bananas and cheerios into her diet. Yesterday she ate almost an entire small banana!

Well.. I better get to bed. I need to work on some knitting and try to get mentally prepared for the next couple of days. I am going to be trying to clean my house in the next couple of days as we will be having family visiting this weekend for our family Christmas. I’m so excited to see everyone that I haven’t seen in so long!

The Ultimate Catch-Up List

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  • We had fun in California. Zoey did AMAZING on the flights and never really cried.
  • Zoey rolled over from back to front, found her feet, began grabbing things more precisely, her squawks got louder and her hair got a little more thick while in California
  • We went to see The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien and we got GREAT seats.. and on camera! Crazy. Didn’t wanna be on camera but was happy to see Conan live. Was on my “To do before I die” list.
  • Astro didn’t eat for the 10 days that we were gone and was practically emaciated when Gene picked him up from the vet’s office. I’m still confused as to why they didn’t TREAT him or something when he had gone that long without eating in their care??? He has been eating wonderfully since he has been home and has gained his weight back.
  • Someone e-mailed me to tell me that they found a spam e-mail in their inbox and when they clicked on it, it sent them to a PHP file on my domain that was showing a porn site. I found the PHP file that was importing the header/footer information from an external porn site. They were using my domain to host their porn site!! I have no idea how it happened but I still feel really violated. I cleaned up my domain, changed file permissions, changed passwords, got rid of unnecessary stuff, etc. Hoping I am all secure now.
  • My right foot has been causing great pain for a few months now so I finally went to the doctor for it on Monday. She said I have Plantar Fascitis and that I need to get special shoes and insoles and start doing exercises on that foot. She also gave me a tetanus shot because a couple days prior I had cut my leg pretty bad with rusted chicken wire.
  • Tuesday I had a root canal and my jaw has been in horrible pain ever since. I still can’t eat anything that requires chewing. I think it’s either an infection or the shots. For some reason I have major issues with the numbing shots that dentists give..I’m always in awful pain for DAYS afterwards, even for something easy like a filling.
  • Yesterday I somehow threw my lower back out. I don’t remember doing anything specifically to cause the pain but today I can barely lift Zoey and barely walk without excruciating pain. I’m wondering how exactly I’m supposed to take care of a baby when I can barely lift her?? Ugh :(
  • This morning I woke up and I felt yucky (foot, back, jaw) and I went in to say Good Morning Sunshine to Zoey and my voice sounded really raspy and my throat was hurting pretty badly. If I’m getting sick I will be sooooo mad!! That is all I need on top of everything else. Needless to say, I am downing the Emergen-C.
  • And last but not least, about an hour ago I started getting some pretty bad lower abdominal cramp. I guess to warn me of what is in store for me this weekend. And to make it worst, those cramps are causing me to have some pretty bad lower back pain, ON TOP of the already pulled muscle or whatever it is that I’m already experiencing in my lower back. Not fun at all.
  • So today I am going to my dentist office to have my permanent crown put on and my teeth cleaned.
  • Zoey? She is doing wonderful. She can sit up on her own for a minute or so.. She’s getting there! Her favorite position to be in is standing up with your help. She loooooves standing and has super strong legs. I will help her stand by holding her waist and say “Look at you big girl!” and she will just arch her back to stand more up-right and grin from ear to ear like she is SOOOO proud of herself!

Sorry for the lame list but I had no idea how else to catch up from all the time I’ve been gone. I’m wanting to get this place back in order and start writing more regularly again. We are still cloth diapering and LOVE LOVE LOVE it! I’ve got a few cloth diapers and accessories that I would love to write some reviews on so expect that in the near future!

A milestone and A Fail, how typical!

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Her Grin

A couple of nights ago I think Z had her first nightmare. It was only about 10:30 PM but she had been down for about a good hour and all of a sudden I heard these really sad sounding wails. I waited to see if she would fall back asleep but they began to sound more and more pitiful. It wasn’t your normal hungry, gassy or upset cry. It was the most sad sounding cry I have ever heard! When I went in there, her top lip was tucked under and she was making the saddest face while crying, as if she was scared for her life. I gave her a paci and rubbed her belly until she fell back asleep. I have no idea how my heart is going to handle it when she first falls and hurts herself. Haha.. Oh boy am I in for it.

So Gene gave Z a bath last night, as it is tradition in our house and afterwards he put her in a prefold with a cover. I mentioned that we would just have to change her into an All In One diaper (they hold more & don’t leak as bad.. she usually sleeps in these kind) before she went to bed. Well, to our surprise she finished her bottle and went to bed really early (9:30 PM). Gene put her in bed and we didn’t think anything of it. This morning I went in to get her when I heard her making noise at 9 AM and all I could smell was URINE. I gave her a few ounces of formula and then went to change her diaper and that is when it hit me… We totally forgot to change her into an AIO diaper! Parenting FAIL! I went in and took her jimjams and her diaper off and it was soaked and her jimjams were soaked. Who knows how long this little baby had been laying in a soaked diaper and jimjams? All 11 1/2 hours that she was asleep?!?! Wow.. She really DOES like her sleep if she wont even wake up for that.

I let her bottom air out for a while on the changing table before putting another diaper on her. See, if you aren’t familiar with cloth diapers, prefolds are absorbent but the cloth is touching the baby’s skin, which is why you have to change diapers more frequently with this system. All In Ones are made so that the fabric touching the baby’s skin will wick away the moisture onto the doubler underneath it, keeping the baby feeling dry. Ick. My poor girl had pee touching her skin ALL night long! I put some diaper cream on just to be safe and let her air out and I think she’s fine. Apparently she didn’t care or she would not have slept for 11 1/2 hours straight.

Mostly non-baby related stuff

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Just checking in real quick before I put my laptop up for the night. I haven’t taken very many pictures this week. I think because it has been a really rough week for us. With Zoey getting her shots on Wednesday and then getting her tongue clipped on Thursday, it has been a very fussy end to the week! Tonight she has been pretty fussy too but I think it’s related to her just being hungry and tired. She is laying in the bouncy seat right now, trying to fight off the sleep. I can see the exhaustion in her eyes. Poor girl.

Tonight we had pizza for dinner. My plan is to write up a menu for next week and get a shopping list together and get what I need so I can be better organized. No more eating out for us! I read an article in a magazine about how if you get up early every morning and exercise, you are more likely to lose weight and keep it off. I’m trying to convince myself to do this but I just don’t know if I can. For one, I am a huge wuss and too scared to go walking the neighborhood by myself before the sun comes up. For two, I don’t think I can convince myself to get up at 5 AM! I am just not a morning person. Actually, I don’t even consider 5 AM morning. I don’t know what it is but I think it’s entirely too early to be considered morning.

I had my shower this morning and we gave Zoey a bath this evening and now Gene is in the shower. We’re going to have one good smellin’ family here in the next few minutes. You’d think with Gene’s help I could go to bed freshly showered every night but it just doesn’t always work out that way. I try to get a lot done when he gets home in the evenings like dishes, washing bottles, laundry, etc. and I just can’t seem to find the time before midnight to take a shower! Ugh. I’ll get a routine down.. someday :P

Tonight I decided to break out my sewing machine and get back into sewing. I miss it. I sewed up 4 cloth wipes. I’m washing them now to see how they turned out. I’m hoping to keep practicing and maybe eventually put some stuff up for sale on Etsy. It’s been a huge dream of mine for a long time now, I just haven’t ever had time to really focus on it. I am going to spend the next week trying to clean up my sewing area and get things in order. I’d even love to order my own labels some day.

Cloth Diapers: Day 3

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Cloth Dipes

I really need to do some general housecleaning on this blog. I need to upgrade WordPress, install a new theme, maybe even install some new plugins. I just haven’t had time to sit down and really mess with it. Upgrading WordPress is probably something I need to do one evening when Gene is home to watch the munchkin.

Speaking of Zoey, she is tryin to wake up now from a whopping 30 minute nap!

Well, I’ll make it quick. I just wanted to report that we are on day 3 of cloth diapers. So far so good! I’m using mostly prefolds with covers during the day and at night I use an AIO. She can completely saturate a prefold in 1-2 hours so at night the AIOs seem to keep her feeling dry for longer.

I’ll write more later when Screamy McScreamerson calms down :D