Fluff Friday 5/22 The Waste

Well it is week two of Fluff Friday. I find the thought of writing this post every week so exciting. I really want this to be a place for beginner information about cloth diapers that is informational but not over stuffed with information, because cloth diapering can be scary and the research that goes into it can be even more overwhelming.

When I was trying to decide what I should write about this week I thought that since is the first week I am really writing something in depth it should probably be about the thing that scared me most about cloth diapers. For me the most scary thing was the poop. Since I have not written my product review for the week I am going to combined the two posts into one. Lets get down to business.

There are multiple ways to handle poop in cloth diapers. You can plop, use liners, scrape, spray, or dunk and swish. For me my preferred methods are plop and spray, but we will talk about those at the end. I want to touch on the other methods before I go into detail with what I use and do.

Liners- I linked to my favorite diaper brands, but I don't use them. But I hear they are great.
Liners are something you place inside of your cloth diapers to make clean up much easier they are flushable but many people don't risk it and just toss them but it makes clean up is effortless. Also these are great if you have a diaper rash and are not using a cloth safe cream because it protects your diapers from all the bad things in the cream.

Scrape
I did this in a way when we first started cloth when we would occasionally have a sticky poop. I would use a flushable wipe to get as much poop as could off. Some people use a kitchen utensil (spatula or plastic spoon) they have specifically for this purpose, but I find that a bit gross. To each their own though; what is right for one person is not what right for everyone.

Dunk and Swish
Basically with this method you hold the corner of the diaper that is not completely soiled then dunk the rest into the toilet. Then you swish it around and hope the water helps release the poop. Apparently from what I heave read flushing helps but don't let go of the diaper because that would be very bad! I personally don't use this method I can't put something in the toilet and still touch it even if it is already covered in poop.

Plop
This method is really only suitable for children that are eating mostly solids and are having relatively solid poops. Basically you take the dirty diaper to the toilet flip it upside down and the poop just falls off into the toilet. Sometimes I have to jiggle it a little bit to get it to release everything. This is the method we use most in our house, but for the occasional sticky poop we spray.

Spray- I linked the Amazon search results
We only use this every once in a while for poo; typically about twice a week. Lately we have been using it more because I think he is teething again so as we all know those poops are a little crazy and super sticky. This works great and gets everything off super easily, but if you don't have some kind of shield it can be crazy. I don't have a shield at this point maybe eventually, but I have heard great things about the spray pal.

The one above is the one I purchased it is called First Lil Diaper Sprayer I paid $26.99 on Amazon through prime so I had it two days later. I liked that it came with everything I needed, because many of the ones I looked at did not come with the valve and most of them cost more then this one. It is very sturdy and does not feel cheap and flimsy like I though it would considering it cost half as much as many of the others. It was also extremely easy to install. It took me maybe five minutes and it works perfectly. I do only use it twice a week to spray poop, but I use it anytime we cloth diaper at night to spray my sons night time diapers to rinse them before I put them in the diaper pail. I rinse his night diapers in the morning because they have a strong smell and it helps to prevent ammonia build up in the diapers. I highly recommend a diaper sprayer even if you don't think you need one, because you will defiantly use it. I went the first month with out one, but life has definitely gotten much easier now that I have a sprayer. I truly love this diaper sprayer it is easy to use and install it also has a lot of power. I will say if you don't have spray shield of some kind be careful to keep the sprayer on the diaper otherwise you will be getting wet. 

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog all of you readers mean so much to me. 

I did not receive any compensation of any kind in exchange for this review. 

Fluff Friday 5/15

Welcome to my first installment of Fluff Friday. I am really excited to make this a weekly addition to my blog. I have just recently started cloth diapering my son and I have quickly become a huge advocate of it and I have absolutely fallen in love with cloth diapering. Less than a month ago I did a guest blog about cloth diapering and I welcome you to go read it here. It kind of quickly covers the starting phase of my cloth diaper journey.

I wrote a lot about what the beginning of my cloth diapering journey was like. I will eventually repeat everything in that post but a lot of the topics will become their own blog post here. This week I will talk about what Fluff Friday is going to be and talk about the cloth diaper trial I did recently.

I am going to start by talking about what my vision for Fluff Friday is. Fluff Friday is going to be a place for me to talk about all things cloth diapers. I will also do cloth diaper and cloth diaper related product reviews to keep with the theme of my blog. For example in the coming weeks I will be reviewing Glow Bug diapers, and hopefully a few more brands as well. As for cloth related products I will review laundry detergent, cloth diaper safe diaper creams, and possibly even diaper liners. (I have yet to try liners so we will see) We will also cover all topics of cloth diapers such as wash routines, night time diaper solutions, cloth diaper pails, day time diapers, finding the right fit, and even picking the right cloth diapers for your family. I want this to be a place where people who are considering cloth diapers can find honest answers and my thoughts about all things cloth diapering. I know many of you are thinking there are already so many even possibly too many places to go looking for information about cloth diapers. I feel like I can bring something different to the table then all the other sources out there. First, I feel like getting answers from someone who was very skeptical is something that is not out easily found right now. Second, I feel like there are not any places to read answers from someone who is still very new to cloth diapering, and see how things work for them and how their views on different things change as time goes on. These are two points I hope to cover in every post I make.

When it comes to trying cloth diapers I highly recommend a cloth diaper trial I did mine through a store that is semi-local to me, but also ships called The Natural Baby.

website

Their cloth diaper trial is only $10 for three weeks and is awesome. You basically tell them what kind of diapers you are interested in or they can help you pick what you want to try and they will give you about about a days worth of diapers to try. They will give you a variety of the different types of diapers you were interested in to see if cloth diapers are right for you without having to invest a bunch of money and it not work out for you. At the end of your three weeks you give/send back what you don't like and only buy what you do like. There are many other cloth diaper stores out there that offer cloth diaper trials, but in my research I found that most if not all cost more then $10. For me after day one of cloth diapers I was sold and used the three weeks to find good deals on diapers and the prefect diaper brand for us. The fact is that there are bunch of different kinds of cloth diapers and once you figure out the kind you like there are probably a hundred different brands of cloth diapers to choose from and each one is different. But when you find the right brand you will know and you will want to buy all the diapers. 

Please comment with any cloth diaper topics you would like to see me cover. 

I did not receive any compensation in exchange for this blog post. 

Schick Intuition

I am so sorry to all of my readers that I have been MIA for last week or two. We have been having a rough time in our house. My son is teething yet again and going through a massive growth spurt (skipped an entire size of clothing) that has resulted in some massive growing pains and a lot of whining and crying. I have not been able to make it to the computer to write my blog posts; it has been so rough that honestly when he finally goes to sleep at night I do too. Now back on topic to the product review.

I noticed after I had my son that I am having less and less time to shower, which means I have about five minutes to shower and shave. As we all know showering is hard to do that fast; let alone having time to shave when you need to be that quick. That is where the Schick Intuition comes to the rescue.

The one above is the one that I purchased from our local Sam's Club. It truly has been a life saver, because as I let the conditioner work it's magic in my hair I can quickly make a pass over my legs and under arms and in less than three minutes I can be done shaving. I know my other half really appreciates this because as much as I hate to admit it I had been neglecting shaving as a whole because I was trying to be as fast as possible. With summer quickly approaching I realized I needed to find a solution to my shaving dilemma. I love that this a more natural option to many of the other things on the market. I love that this has the shaving cream/gel and the razor as one system all I have to do it make a pass and every little bit of hair is gone. My skin feels moisturized after I shave, which is something very different for me considering I have very dry skin and sensitive skin. I also love that with multiple trips coming up in the near future for me I don't have to worry about packing shaving gel and a razor; I only have to pack the razor. 

There are only two cons that I can think of for this product. One is that this is only a three blade razor but for me that is not that big of an issue, because I don't really notice a difference in a razor with three blades verses a razor with four or five blades. The second con for this is that the handle accumulates water when used which does have me fearful that mold or mildew may eventually grow in the handle, but to avoid this when I use mine I just drain the water before I put it up to store it until the next use. Overall I absolutely love this product and I don't think I will ever go back to shaving the conventional way, because shaving with this is much more convenient and much easier; not to mention much quicker. 

I did not receive any compensation for this review.