Friday, June 13, 2008

Dirty Diapers

I feel like I'm working in an office today. I have made so many calls. We're trying to figure out things with our insurance company to get an "out of network approval". Apparently, pregnancy qualifies as some sort of emergency medical situation so we may not have to pay anything for going to a provider in Mass. That would be sweet! Anywho, first we were told to have our midwife's office call, they did and were told to have my primary care call.

So now I've been going back and forth with dumb receptionists and even dumber (is that a word?) answering services to get the information to them. I've been to my primary care doctor once so it's annoying to have to deal with them in this. I hope they get it done.

I've also been in the debate of how to diaper the baby. After seeing the amount of diapers that kids go through and for many years, I definitely knew I wanted a more environmentally friendly source for the baby. It's disturbing that my diapers from when I was a baby are still in a landfill. I planned on using GDiapers. They're kind of like a cloth/disposable hybrid. I went ahead and purchased some little G pants and refills at a local store. However, I don't seem to see any stores that sell them where we'll be living. You can order them online but it's pricey and kind of negates some of the environmental benefits. So now I contacted a diaper service to see how that would work and if they service the town I'll be living in. I think I could do cloth if I had a diaper service, I just don't want poop in my washer and it sounds like you have to wash them multiple times to actually clean them (?). I'm a total priss when it comes to dirty things especially poop. Oh well, hopefully I'll find a "green" way to diaper this baby.

I have also been on a crazy search for pre-schools. I had looked into stuff months ago and then sort of put it on the back burner until recently. I think having him attached to my hip for the past few weeks got me in gear. So I've contacted numerous places and everything is already full for September. Oy. I'm even on a wait list for 2 Catholic schools. I find this quite amusing. Needless to say, I hope I find one because I think I'll definitely need some relief from balancing 2 small children and Cameron definitely needs to be around other kids and be learning something.

4 comments:

Happy said...

Gdiapers are very nifty. I've never heard of them (never looked though). Hey, nice pic of Cameron. Adorable!

Stacey said...

I hate dealing with receptionists. Riley's pediatrician has a rude receptionist. I think it's a language/culture barrier as she's just very abrupt.

We use gDiapers at daycare. Maybe you could stock up in bulk from somewhere. Some people use cloth inside of them too.

Washing cloth diapers is really not difficult and it's MUCH cheaper than gDiapers or a service. When they're a newborn, you can wash the poop because they're eating liquid which means their poop is liquid. And when they're older you have many options. There are biodegradable liners that flush that you can put in the diaper so you can flush solids and not wash them. Or you can shake them into the toilet (the method we use) or buy a sprayer to hook onto your toilet to spray them clean into the toilet. With disposables, you're supposed to flush solids anyway but I doubt many people do that. We wash our diapers once. We have a front loader and use the sanitization cycle (just very hot water) and use vinegar as a fabric softener which also strips away an amonia smells or detergent build-up. We too didn't want to do cloth but when we realized how easy it was, we went for it and have not looked back. They are really easy. I have some info on washing/care here: http://www.greenbaby101.com

Let me know if you have any questions. :) I'm happy you're thinking about the environment because not many people do. On that note, do you use chemical-free cleaners and detergents? There are awesome green products out there and the ingredients in big brands like Johnson & Johnson, Tide, Lysol, etc. are disturbing (i.e. formaldehyde, pesticides)

Candice said...

Oh, that's good to hear. I was on the Bumgenius site and they had a cleaning method listed which included putting them through the washer twice. That seemed like a lot of work and a lot of water waste. I might go ahead and invest in a few cloth diapers to test them out. Do you know of any that are on the thin side? I know I've seen a lot of babies looking a bit crazy with majorly bulky cloth diapers.

Yes, I try to be pretty conscious with the cleaners. I use a vinegar/water solution to clean most of our house and a baking soda solution for the bathrooms. We have a Shark steam mops that cleans the floors with just water. Though during my pregnancy, I have sometimes used a regular mop since for whatever reason our Shark is somewhat hard to push. It doesn't glide very smoothly. And for laundry detergent, I use a 7th Generation product, it's supposed to be more natural but I haven't done a lot of research on that one. I try to make my own cleaners so I really know what's going into them but couldn't figure out a laundry one.

Mary studies chemical exposure so she is always scaring me and well, commercial cleaners usually bother my breathing. I think I get freaked out about breathing in chemicals. LOL. Oh well, I am rambling! Back to packing!

Stacey said...

We love our Shark steam cleaner too.

bumGenius diapers are pretty nice and trimmer. Mother-ease one-size are thinner diapers. Sandy's are bulky as are pre-folds. In general, cloth diapers are bulkier than diposible. It's just how they are. We cloth diaperers call it fluffy butt. In reality, you know babies wear diapers so who cares if there's a little more junk in the trunk. I like that you can see they are cloth and not the other kind. :) GDiapers are REALLY thin so if you are really concerned, go with those. There are other brands I've never used that might be thin as well but I highly recommend bumGenius because you can buy the one-size and use them from day one until the end of diapering. They have fun colours too.

Prefolds are excellent for the early days when you go through a ton of diapers each day. They are cheap and easy to use on a newborn.

We never wash diapers more than once. Do you have a front loader? They tend to wash things better than a top loader.