Cloth Diaper Giveaways

Ah...giveaways...the excitement of potentially winning some exciting fluff to add to my stash... I can't even tell you how much time I've spent entering these giveaways.

Freckleberry Finds has a TON of kid & baby giveaways all the time -- and a super simple entry form!



For the best fluff giveaways, I subscribe to The Cloth Diaper Whisperer. Each week, they have another great giveaway (not to mention -- when you make a purchase from Kelly's Closet, keep an eye open for coupon codes for free diapers -- I've received a free cover and GroVia AIO).

This week - TCDW is giving away TWO GroVia AIOs! Check it out here.

Cloth Diaper Prep

I spent all day yesterday preparing our cloth diapers for Sprout's arrival - I loved seeing all of the covers and cute fluff on my clothesline, enjoying the sunshine. :)

Washing Brand New Products...

New diapers do need to be laundered prior to their first use. Some items such as pocket diapers, covers, inserts and items made from micro-terry or bamboo only need a quick wash; warm or hot water works best (detergent is optional but recommended).

Between information from Kelly's Closet and from the packages of prefolds & pocket diapers, I determined the following:

Cotton & hemp products (most of my prefolds & all of the AIOs and pocket inserts)

5-6 hot water washes required before reaching full absorbancy. I did 3 hot water washes yesterday, and dried everything in the dryer (not the covers...those went to the clothesline) between washes. I used Rockin' Green detergent on the first wash, and for subsequent washes, omitted detergent. I plan to wash with detergent again today.

Darker colored diapers

I have some BumGenius 4.0s that I received as shower gifts -- and some are bright green/blue/etc. These I washed separately and will continue to was separately until 5-6 washes, just to avoid any color bleeding.

Hand-me-down diapers

Thanks for my wonderful aunt, I have a bunch of homemade flannel fitted diapers that were used with her grandson. These I washed separately once, and then the second time with my dark diapers (since I'm not worried about color bleeding). Some have velcro, others will require a snappi. All of the flannel was washed once with detergent, and dried once - then back to the nursery.

A note on pre-folds

The prefolds I have: Gerber Birdseye cotton (also have flats from them) and Osocozy unbleached cotton - seemed SO big! (especially since my plan is to use these for Sprout during the newborn stage...) After washing, just as the package suggested, I have noticed a substantial amount of shrinking. Now, folded up, I think they'll work great in the Thirsties covers and the homemade PUL covers from my mother-in-law (everyone is catching CD fever! they're irresistably cute!)

Back to prepping and organizing...I'll post a picture of the fluff on the clothesline. :)

First Post...

I'm new to the blogging world - but very excited about all of the info-sharing opportunities!
We are expecting our first - "Sprout" - to arrive any day.  (Our original due date was June 28, but it was moved to June 20 early on in my pregnancy...we'll see!)  On Monday, both my sister-in-law and my husband's cousin gave birth to beautiful baby boys - now the family is waiting for us to join in!

Right now I'm working on the finishing touches for the nursery, as well as getting Sprout's cloth diaper stash ready: washed and organized!  We're planning to use prefolds with covers to start, and then moving on to BumGenius 4.0 pocket diapers (although I don't know that I'll stuff the pockets...) once Sprout is big enough to fit them. I also have some hand-me-down, homemade flannel fitteds from my aunt that we'll use with a cover.  My next post will be a report on the fluff stash... :)