I know bringing someone diapers is not very exciting, but boy is it helpful. Diapers are expensive and a newborn blows through them (pun intended) faster than you can imagine. You might want to ask what size the baby is wearing first. You can see our favorite diapers reviewed here and here. As I mentioned in the first review, I loved Huggies in the red package best for newborns before moving on to Seventh Generation and Fuzzi Bunz.
Want to make the gift a little more personal?
Throw in a Diapees and Wipees case to add to the cute factor in the diaper bag.
This review just in from my pal AJ, mother of two, soon to be three (brave woman!). Thanks, AJ!
I embarked on the cloth diapering train to lessen the environmental impact we are making with our third kid on the way. We still don’t know what we will drive to fit three car seats, we have no idea how to pay for college for three…but, this seemed surmountable. The only flaw in my plan: I am trying out cloth diapering on my 37 lb, 21 month old boy who is old enough to complain, but not with actual words. He is the test project for G3, as we call the next installment baby.
I only know two girlfriends who use cloth diapers. When I queried my group of mom-pals after reading about Fuzzi Bunz on this site, I received some hilarious emails asking if that was something ‘special’ my husband and I were looking into.
Here is the answer for the curious and hesitant: Babyworks. This is a family owned company started by a mom of three, 18 years ago. They have an exhaustive downloadable catalog that covers everything from cloth diaper brands, cost breakdown as well as health, environmental and economic reasons for choosing cloth diaper systems. They have detailed instructions on how to handle your diapers at home, even specifics for those of us with front loading washers. You read this and you too will know the difference between Fuzzi Bunz and the ultimate Birdseye.
The best part is the Diapering Sample Kit. Each item in the kit is sold at it’s lowest discount price (e.g., the Bumkin is at the 6-or-more price), and each item is individually returnable. They choose the correct size of each product based on the weight and build of your baby (or newborn size if not here yet). The kit contains: 1 Fuzzi Bunz or Bum Genius pocket diaper with microterry insert, 1 Bumkin all in one, 1 Kissaluv fitted diaper, 1 Hemp Fleece Diaper Doubler, 3 Prefolds (1 Chinese, 1 Birdseye, 1 Hemp), 1 contour diaper, 1 Bummi Super Whisper Wrap, and 1 Poly Nikky or Niji diaper cover. As far as sizing goes, you can choose “Expecting/unknown size”, or within each weight range, choose petite (slim/smaller than average); “average”, or large (larger than average). They won’t send “girl” colors or prints unless requested. If you prefer girlier prints, all you have to do is call or email and they’ll be on it like ants on candy.
OK, so after this review, I really think I’ve covered my potty-training bases.
Sy is pretty good at holding it if we are in the car. She loathes having accidents and more importantly, loathes getting her outfit dirty. It’s times like this when I wonder if she is really my kid. We have emergency diapers in the car and the piddle pad in place, but sometimes when you gotta go, you gotta go. Like at our favorite park that has no bathroom. Enter the Fisher-Price Potty On-the-Go (F-P doesn’t seem to have the illustrious commode on their own site).
I’ll keep this short and sweet because this product is a total uni-tasker, but definitely one I’m glad I have. I meant to write about this when I was reviewing potties.
The Piddle Pad, made by the geniuses at Kiddopotamus, is a waterproof seat liner that is completely worth its modest price tag. The liquid absorbing, soft pad is a unobtrusive receptacle for pee, vomit, blowouts, you name it. The backside of the product is coated with vinyl to help keep the product in place and the liquid where it should be, not on your car. You just place it on the base of your child’s car seat (or stroller) and your days of washing the car seat cover are numbered. It doesn’t snap or slide into to anything, it just sits there, ready to catch whatever rain may fall.
Ed. Note: Since I don’t have a son, I begged my pal Andie to write this review. Thanks, Andie!
Name aside, this Peter Potty is pretty hilarious--I get laughs from friends and strangers who venture into my bathroom to discover a pint-sized urinal. “That’s the coolest potty I’ve ever seen!” is the usual response, especially if it’s a guy. Potty training, however, is no laughing matter. It’s a pain in the ass (pun unavoidable), especially when you have a little guy who gets too caught up in his playing to hear his inner bodily fluid warning siren. Enter the Peter Potty. In the middle of playing with Thomas trains? No problem--standing and aiming a penis into a potty is way cooler than pushing Thomas through a tunnel. Right in the middle of building a block tower? Never fear--the Peter Potty has a working flusher that operates from a refillable water reservoir.
We have two potty seats that just rest atop the regular toilet seat. One, I am embarrassed to admit, has Dora splayed all over its pottiness. My kid’s a fan, what can I say? I try not to inundate the house with too much Dora, but Sy gets very excited to sit on the big girl Dora potty, so you know, carrot before the horse and all that. At $12.99, it didn’t break the bank, is easy to move when a grown-up needs to sit down and fairly easy to clean. I wipe it down with a baby wipe most of the time and then do soap and water or the occasional germ killing wipe. Downside: no handles.
The other seat we have is plain white (sweet Dora relief) but it does have handles.
Between all the houses Sy plays in and pees in, we’ve tried out about six little training type potties. We have two potty seats that fit over the big toilet (to be reviewed tomorrow) and two stand alone potties, both made by Baby Bjorn. One I like, the other one, not so much.
I do not like the Baby Bjorn Little Potty, I do not like it, Sam I am. It seems way too small for a kiddo to sit comfortably on. The kids always look all hunched and scrunched up, and their bottoms never look like they fit on the seat. Lots of time pee comes spraying out the front when one of the boys in our crew sits on it. If you potty train your little one at say, nine months, it’d probably fit them just fine. Maybe it’d be good on the road in emergencies, but I find this one to be messy, too small, and not worth the ten bucks. Clearly, I bought this one first. I keep it around for days when we have lots of kids playing here, but otherwise, it’s been banished to the bathroom closet.
The Baby Bjorn Potty Chair, however, is a much better mousetrap.
Potty training opens the door to yet more gear. Training potties, potty seats, fabulous pairs of Elmo underwear. So much for all that money saved on no more diapers, right? We have all the basics, but my favorite is the Primo potty folding seat. It’s exactly like what it sounds like it is, a folding portable potty seat. The white seat (yay! no Dora! no Backyardigans!) folds into quarters into a small little wedge. It slips into a purse or diaper bag no problem. I like to keep mine in a plastic bag since I am a total germ-phobe.
We’ve gotten some requests to review diapers, so here are some of our oh-so-humble opinions.
I think we’ve tried every brand of diaper out there. When Sy was little, we used the Huggies Preemie (red package), then onto the Huggies newborn. The newborn diapers have a little portion cut out of the front to enable the umbilical cord stump to dry off and heal more easily. Once Sy put on some weight and her umbilical cord scab fell off (eeyuw), we switched to a combo of Fuzzi Bunz fleece pocket diapers and Seventh Generation no bleach disposables for day, along with Huggies Overnites for night. Pampers never fit Sy right, they seemed too boxy for her small person. Since babies come in all shapes and sizes, you may want to try these, too. I like that the Seventh Generation diapers are not as processed and have no characters on them. The ink on printed diapers smells so weird, it always sort of grosses me out. Like Huggies and Pampers, Seventh Generation diapers also have the absorbent gel in them, so they hold about as much liquid as their counterparts. I have found that I have to move up a size earlier than the stated size range on the SG diapers.
My friend Andie has used Fuzzi Bunz from the get go, her review after the jump.
Oooh! I see that Fuzzi Bunz are on sale over at Fuzzi Bunz. Looks like great prices ($13.95 instead of $17.95 per diaper). These are our favorite cloth diapers. I’ll review them soon.
Apparently they are coming out with a new and improved diaper in November. We like this one just fine and can’t wait to see how it changes. I also love that Fuzzi Bunz was started by a mother of three who wanted a better diaper for her kids. Mom Power!
