Her diaper rash

For my birthday Joseph surprised me with an adventure of great proportions!  I'll write another blog for that.  But while on this adventure little Saoirse was in disposable diapers, because we were no where near a washing machine.  For the first time in her LIFE she got a diaper rash.  Obviously I'm pointing my accusatory finger at those disposables because she's never gotten a rash before while wearing her cloth diapers no matter how long she's been sitting in her 'creations'.  Anywho, last night when I was changing her diaper, I had been aware that a red line on both cheeks were creeping their way to full rash status, I noticed that those two red lines looked horrible.  Upon further inspection I noticed that they were raised, a couple of layers of skin were missing on those pesky red lines and she was starting to bleed.  I've never actually really needed to deal with diaper rash before but I did know some tricks to help it go away.  Well, by "tricks" I mean I knew that you could stick them in the tub to help clean off poo so you don't have to use a wipe that all of a sudden feels like you're wiping with thorns.  Normally, when she would look like her bum was getting a little red, I would keep her out of her diaper for a few minutes while I dried the area. This consisted of being fearless and blowing gently on her bum to dry it out.  So anywho, I was searching online how to best deal with diaper rash and/or what cream is best to use (and use on cloth diapers).  WELL, I found a fabulous cure.  Yes CURE.  I don't know why I never thought of it before, but when I came home from the hospital they kindly gave me some Lansinoh HPA Lanolin to help make breast feeding a little less bloody and raw, I just put a little dab of that wherever her rash was and BOOM, 14 hours later the rash is almost GONE.  From bloody to just a little red in 14 hours!  I was amazed.  I've never heard of something working that fast.  Maybe I'm just being a first time mom discovering old remedies, but I thought I'd share with the world in case you're in my boat with an angry baby, bleeding rashes and excess nipple cream.

Her cloth diapers and my next project.

Okay, so I LOVE my cloth diapers.  I ordered them off of this website www.theluvyourbaby.com because they were cute and WAY less expensive than EVERY OTHER BRAND I looked at.  Literally, every cloth diaper I saw was around $20 a diaper.  And that was JUST THE COVER.  The inserts for each diaper (inserts are to soak up anything needing to be soaked up) cost their own pretty penny.  But this site is linked to a small company based in Canada and each diaper comes with two inserts and costs $7 each.  And when you spend more than $70 you get free shipping.  Well, just to get started we bought 12 diapers (really the bare minimum if you want to do laundry everyday) which was a little over $80.  That's about how much 1 month of disposable diapers cost.  I LOVE CLOTH DIAPERS!!!  They're also super easy to clean - it's not a hassle at all.  And the best part is that we're saving loads of money every week we use those little things.  However, I've just been using regular old wipes you buy from the store.  They really don't cost much, especially because I don't wipe her every single time she has a pee filled diaper.  But I'm kind of getting tired of going to the store to buy them (lazy or a wonderful opportunity?).  Plus, I don't like wasting money on something that will be garbage.  SO my next project will be to make my own cloth wipes!  I found this awesome blog post that tells you just how to make them here http://www.myhappycrazylife.com/make-your-own-cloth-wipes/.  And the solution you use is super easy - just get a mixture of water and some of your favorite baby shampoo.  Badda-bing badda-boom.

I'm really excited to try this out.  I love the idea of saving money where I can.  Particularly when it's so dang easy to AND I can let my hippy side shine and save the rain forest (or whatever).  But really.  I feel good not filling up our beautiful gift of a planet with "disposable" (non-biodegradable) diapers.  I'd rather be a little more self-sufficient and love Heavenly Father's creation without filling it with crap (literally).