i know i've been MIA for a while. we were away for a short bit in november for a family vacation. as hard as we try to be environmentally-friendly, we just can't give up travelling...which is probably one of the most "un-green" things you can do.
since N is turning two this month, we thought we'd squeak in one last plane trip before having to pay full fare. so we went to the beautiful island of maui! it is already starting to get cold here, so we were looking forward to heading to warmer climes. since we'd be spending lots of time on the beach, it seemed like a good time to try a reusable diaper on for size. i've been wanting to try them for a while, but we're not allowed to use them at the pool where N has his swimming lessons. i approached the kind folks at applecheeks about doing a review on their new swim diaper, and they happily obliged by sending me one of their super cute corsica swim diapers.
so we took it for a test drive on ulua beach in south maui. we arrived at the beach, set ourselves up on a patch of sand, and proceeded to change N into the swim diaper. for those of you have never used a reusable swim diaper before, let me tell ya that it holds in solids (i.e. poop), but does not contain any kind of absorbent layer for liquids. i knew that going in, but what i didn't expect was for N to pee
as soon as i put him in it. literally, he was in it for less than a minute when i noticed liquid trickling down his leg. :oP i then had to rinse off my straw beach mat since there was now a small puddle on it. overall, the diaper held up well and had a great fit. at the time of the trip, N was 23 months and 25 lbs. the size 2 was a great fit for him, just like the regular size 2 applecheeks pocket diaper. in fact, there is still a lot of room for him to grow into it, but the elastics were snug enough that nothing would leak out and the rows of snaps allow you to adjust to a perfect fit. i could definitely see using this as the beach instead of a disposable swimmer. unfortunately, i don't think it will work for the pool at the community centre as the ones in our neighbourhood state that diapered children have to be huggies/pampers-type swimmers.
here are some shots of N playing on the beach in his applecheeks...
* GIVEAWAY ALERT *
applecheeks is kindly offering up one of their fab swim diapers to one lucky reader! visit
www.applecheeks.com and indicate which colour and size you would pick if you won. they come in two sizes and two colours (corsica, as pictured on N, and bonfire)
* EXTRA ENTRIES *
(please leave a separate comment for each additional entry)
• follow my blog via Google Friend Connect
• follow the AppleCheeks
blog • follow @AppleCheeksDipe on
Twitter
this giveaway is open to residents of Canada and the U.S. until Dec. 30, 2010 at 5:00 p.m. EST. the winner will be chosen using a random number generator. please include your email address in your entry so that i can contact you if you are the winner. you can email me at ecoparentblog [at] gmail [dot] com if you prefer not to post your email address here. if the winner does not respond within 72 hours, another winner will be chosen. good luck!
applecheeks envelope diaper in lemon zest
many inserts = good absorbency = puffy bum syndrome :o)
You know that something has become more mainstream when even Disney gets in on it. I walked past The Disney Store at the mall yesterday and saw their window display advertising their new 100% organic t-shirts. The coolest thing about them is that they each come with a tracking code so that you can see the process of how your shirt came to be made. It's a great tool for kids as it teaches them how just a little cotton seed from a farm becomes a piece of clothing. You can view the site even without a unique tracking code if you just want general information. Check out the site at www.disneystore.com/trackmyt.
i saw these great eco-friendly art supplies by eco-kids on the anthropologie website today and just had to share about them! with worries about toxicity in paints and toys and such, it's nice to find products that are all natural. at eco-kids, you can find all natural play dough, paint, coloured pencils and paper. their eco-dough and eco-paint even come in gluten-free! their products are made with ingredients such as flour, natural and organic fruit, and vegetable extracts. go to eco-kidsusa.com for more information about their products and for a list of retailers.
we've found a new laundry detergent for our cloth diapers and it's awesome! when i originally started cloth diapering, i researched online about how to treat them, what to wash them with, etc. one of the sites i found said that it was okay to use tide to clean them. even though it seemed like the diapers were clean and overall smelled okay, they just always seemed to have a mild lingering odour to them. so after purchasing my grobaby shells from sogreenbaby.com, i noticed they had something in their "laundry care" section called rockin' green cloth diaper detergent. i thought i'd give it a try. i went to their official website (www.rockingreensoap.com) to get the low-down on the how-tos, etc. so they said that initially if you've been using other soaps that aren't clean rinsing, you might end up with a major case of stinkies as all the guk that's been living in the diapers gets released. so i did an initial hot soak with the rockin' green, and then a wash with no soap. that seemed to do the trick. i've since washed with rockin' green a couple more times and gone is that mild lingering odour that was there before. even better is that rockin' green soap is dye free and 100% phosphate free so it's good for the environment and for baby's sensitive skin. we bought unscented to use on our diapers, but rockin' green also comes in other fun scents:
recently, we went away for an extended weekend with nate. we had been searching for an eco-friendly diapering option while away from home and we finally found something that is a great alternative to regular disposable diapers. grobaby offers a travel system using biodegradable soaker pads in combination with their diaper covers. their "bio soaker pads" are made with biodegradable and compostable materials. i believe that the soaker pad itself will completely biodegrade within 50 days. their covers also dry super fast, which make it a really great travel option. we took 2 covers with us and 20 bio soaker pads with us for the 4 days that we were away. all you do is lay the soaker pad in the cover and then fasten it shut. for diaper changes, you just remove the soiled soaker pad and replace with a fresh one. if the cover isn't dirty, you can just reuse it. we even used this on nate for overnights and it did not leak. we had the second cover as a back-up during the day in case the first one got soiled, but the soaker pad was so absorbent that we didn't need to change the cover until the next day. so i would handwash the cover each night and hang it to dry. i think it would only take an hour or two to dry, but we left it for overnight just in case. right now all grobaby products are on sale as they're renaming their product line, so it's a great time to try them! we bought ours from natasha at so green baby. she's super nice and helpful.
while on a family road trip this past weekend, we visited this awesome toy store (benjo) in quebec city. it was probably nate's favourite spot on our entire trip. he was able to run around and explore and see all these fun toys. he even got to ride on a train around the whole store! but enough about that. while we were there, i noticed these cool looking toys packaged in environmentally-friendly packaging. they are all wind-up, so they require absolutely no batteries. how great is that?! they are made by a uk-based company called ecotronic. they have a rocket, a pocket radio, a boombox, and a phone amongst other things. check 'em out!
