Diaper Review: bumGenius Freetime

We have officially been using cloth diapers for about a year now. What a year! We've learned a lot. We've bought diapers we wanted to try, bought some cutesy ones and bought some that friends have told us to try. I kid you not, though, when I say that we always go back to our favorite brand--bumGenius.

Tried and true, they rarely, if ever, have failed us. We started out with a stash of 12 bumGenius 4.0 OS pocket diapers. Now, we love these pockets. We have our system down, we get them done (laundered) efficiently. They are stuffed and ready to go at a moments notice. You can not argue that cloth is harder than disposables. There's a little prep work involved.. but, hey. That's parenting, my friend. But 4.0s aren't the title of this post, are they? Nope!

About 6, or so, months ago, bumGenius released their brand new All-In-One (AIO), One Size (OS) diaper -- the Freetime. (They already had one, the Elemental, which I'll mention later.) Now, Freetimes were pre-order only for a long time, then on backorder for a long time after that. Then my local Nappy Shoppe got them, but they'd sell out freakishly quick, and I have a feeling their employees snatched them up when they did restock. (lucky!) I sent Hector and our friend Patrick with baby Coco up to the Nappy Shoppe one day (I was at work) when they announced on Facebook that they'd restocked a few Freetimes. Hector managed to score two of them in the glorious "Mirror" and "Sassy" colors. I instructed him to wash all of our diapers immediately when he got home so he could wash those and get them ready for Coco. (You have to pre-wash cloth diapers to get them ready to absorb.)

We used the Freetime diapers and fell in love. Hard. These diapers were so easy. They have two semi-attached stay-dry panels that you can adjust a little to put them where your child needs the most absorbency. The semi-attached-ness makes it a super easy diaper to clean. Each panel gets a good soak in the washing machine and because it's not thick, it is quick to dry. It's also very easy for us to still use our disposable liners with these diapers. (I like the pocket diapers, because it gives you a place to tuck the end of the liner, to help hold it in place. But see pics below to see how we do the liner with Freetimes.)

Today, while at the Nappy Shoppe, we were restocking on Bummis biodegradable liners and to my surprise... Freetimes were in stock! We HAD to grab two more. We got Lovelace and Albert. :) :)

Have you EVER seen a prettier diaper? Blog, meet Lovelace. Lovelace, meet blog. 

And for anyone who thinks this diaper is only for girls, keep your opinions to yourself. My husband insisted we get this one for Coco. It has blue and green and is ADORBS.

See how we wrap the liner around the top panel? It's actually very trim and the liner doesn't stick out the leg opening, like it sometimes can with our pockets.

See how the panels are each attached at opposite ends of the diaper? You can even add doublers and soakers in, under the panels! It's very versatile. 

Cohen loves his "Di-tuhs" (diapers) and was about to grab this one out of the photo shoot. Look at those snaps! How cute are they?? sigghhhh... I just love this diaper.

That bum! 

Show me your diaper!! (Ok.. maybe I said, "Where's your bellybutton??!") But it worked!

Playing with "caahs".

Found a marker....

Trying to open said marker....

My big boy! 

One last bum view... can't get enough!

I mentioned the other AIO bumGenius diaper we tried out.. the Elemental. We thought we liked it, but quickly learned that we did NOT. It was super trim, which I liked. But it was never dry after all the other diapers were dry (in the dryer, on lowest heat setting). And it stained the first time poop touched it. No amount of sun-bleaching would fix it. It didn't absorb much from our heavy-wetter. I'm embarrassed to say that in a moment of sheer frustration and grossed-out-ness I threw this diaper in the trash. We were at the mall, the poop completely missed the liner, made a gag-inducing mess, and we weren't going home right away... you get the drift. Not my proudest mama-moment. But I had had it. Here's the Elemental. And maybe some people like it.. but not us.

photo source

Freetimes cost about $20/diaper. I feel this is a spectacular price. Yea, it sounds expensive for one singular diaper, yea, I'd love to pay $5/diaper, but come on. This is a good diaper and is better quality than cheaper ones we've tried. A lot of hard work goes into making cloth diapers. And they last FOREVER. I can't wait to use all of Cohen's diapers on his siblings some day. Yea, we might have to replace elastic at some point. But whatever. This is the other diaper we got:

photo source

I introduce: Albert. :) This diaper instantly make Cohen smarter than other babies. :)

Ahhh, cloth. I could literally sit around and talk about cloth diapers for hours. Do you have any questions about cloth you've been dying to ask? :)

NEW FLUFF!

On Facebook last weekend, I saw that hipgreenbaby was having a huge sale. I popped over there and found something we'd been looking for. A nighttime diaper!

Kawaii Goodnight Heavy Wetter diaper! Now we can stuff and stuff and stuff Cohen's nighttime diaper to where it won't leak at night.. but then he can't close his little leggies. And baby boy pees a lot at night!! Like, he saves it up during the day and just let's it go at night. So, I was very excited to find these for very cheap. I ordered two to try.

Well, two days ago, this was in the mail!

Each diaper has 2 microfiber inserts and is lined with super soft micro fleece. 

Here it is on Coco.

Hard to get a picture of him standing still..

See? (yes, those toys are always out like that...)

Nice and fluffy for bedtime! 

Baby boy woke up this morning with NO leaks! The outer, waterproof layer is a little slicker.. feels a tad bit cheaper than, say, bumGenius fabric. But at less than half the price of BG's.. I think we found a nice nighttime solution. And cute patterns too!

Happy baby, Happy mama!

11 Months, so soon??

Well, Cohen is eleven months old now! Yesterday to be exact. Can you believe it? I can't.

I've been putting things together for his birthday party and it's making me all nostalgic and stuff. I see the pictures of his itty bitty 8 pound, 12.4 ounce self, snuggled up on Daddy's chest and I get teary eyed. How were we so blessed to get this amazing bundle of joy? He really is a joy, too. I can't count the number of people who ask me, "Is he always this happy??" And yes, yes he is, I tell them. Unless you catch him from 9 pm to 3 am. I joke, I joke. Or do I?

Here is Cohen's winning 11 Month Tonka truck picture!

(he would not sit facing the front long enough for a picture.)

(also, see that adorable fuzzy diaper sticking out? yea, that's our itti bitti tutto minky diaper; LOVE IT!)

Growth: BIG. We'll get ya some real measurements next month, as he'll go to the pediatrician for his ONE YEAR checkup. Pretty sure he's a 22 pounder, though. He wears 12-18 month pants and 9-12 month shirts. 

Eating: He gets 6 ounce bottles of formula 3-4 times a day. He drinks half-strength apple/carrot juice a lot (50 mL of juice + 50 mL of water mixed together). He also drinks water a lot. He has conquered the straw, so he has had a capri sun and a juice box. :) He likes to try our Dr. Pepper and Lemonade too, when we go out somewhere. Just because he loves straws. He eats just about what we eat, I just tear up pieces for him or give him little fork/spoonfuls. He loves chicken. (Yay!) And rice! Especially from Pei-Wei. He's just like his Daddy. 

Sleeping: He is so fickle. He's unpredictable and horribly inconsistent. (Sorry, buddy.) He'll usually go down for bed at 9 pm, no problem. But then, he'll wake up 1.5 to 3 hours later crying  screaming in his crib. He wants out. We've made the mistake of getting him out a few times, and now he expects it. I'm the weak one, I can't stand to hear him screaming like that, so I cave and go get him. Hubby says NO MORE. And we haven't. I'll go in and give him his paci once. And we'll think he's quit crying but it's just that he's crying so hard he is holding his breath (you know that cry, right?). Ugghhhh. It has to be near the end of all that mess right? We have YET to get a full night's sleep with that child. Nap time, however, is a different story! Boy likes his naps! (Or maybe he's just so deprived from crying for hours the night before.......) He takes a nap in the morning that lasts about one hour (or 2.5 today... he cried a lot last night) and then another one in the afternoon that lasts about one to two hours. Mama loves nap time. Sometimes she takes naps too. :)

Teeth: We have two teeth! The middle two on the bottom. They look so sweet and he likes to touch them and use them. I could never get a picture of them, because he hides them! I know, I know... eleven months and only two teeth? He's a late bloomer! Give him a break. He doesn't seem to be teething right now, but I'm sure there are more around the corner. 

Development: This kid has taken steps! He took a whole bunch on Thanksgiving. Some days he'll go the whole day without taking any, he'll just crawl and cruise. Others, he's all about getting adventurous and taking steps. It's precious and he gets very excited when he does take steps, probably because we're clapping like seals when he does it. He's trying to crawl up on the couch. Like, hiking one knee up and not being able to push the rest of the way. He loves his lovey, and brings it out of the crib with him when he wakes up in the morning or from naps, it's so cute. Let's see.. He tries to undecorate our Christmas tree... he pulls at the bows and ribbon on gifts. He has started taking drinks of water and letting the water drip.. no, gush out of his mouth, rather than swallowing it. Must feel cool. And the fact that Mama laughs every time probably doesn't help discourage him.

The other pics?

sitting still, but dark

that's lovey!!

just overturned the Tonka truck

TEETH!! You see them?

Oh, little Cohen. We love you so much. It has been the best 11 months of our lives so far! Thank you for bringing so much happiness to us and everyone you meet!

Our decision to cloth diaper.

A couple months ago, we made a sort of snap decision (haha.. pun intended) to start cloth diapering Cohen.  He was 7 months old. I wish, so much, that some one had talked to me and convinced me to do this from the get-go.

Before I looked into it, I used to think, "Yuck.. peed on cloth with poop on it that I have to touch." That's not convenient, that's not fun. To be honest, I didn't really even think of cloth until our baby shower stash of diapers (which was quite large, actually) ran out around 5 months and we started to feel the burden of how expensive disposable diapers were.

We did this for several reasons. First, to save money. And it does! Since we bought our first big batch of diapers those couple months ago, we haven't had to buy a $40 box of disposables (which we would've certainly done once or twice by now.) I will not lie, it takes a pretty penny to get your diaper stash built up and to buy a few accessories you kind of need to cloth diaper. I'll go over the cost later. But once you buy 18-24 diapers, you are set and don't need buy anymore. I'll expand on that thought later, too. :)

Second, the environment! Landfills in American soil are 30% full of disposable diapers! It takes something like 200 years for a disposable diaper to decompose. (Now, who sat around and waited for that to happen, I don't know.) :) Despite popular belief, disposable diapers require 2x the amount of water to produce than it takes to wash your cloth diapers. It takes 3x as much energy to produce a disposable diaper. For every one baby using disposables, 1 ton of garbage is created (by the end of their diapering lifetime.) And last, and kind of disturbing.. 1 cup of crude oil is used to manufacture the plastic in one disposable diaper.
(these stats were found and cited here)

Third, our baby's bottom! We wanted something natural to be on Cohen's bottom. Babies who wear cloth experience less (if any!) diaper rashes. The cloth wicks away moisture, helping keep bottoms dry. We know what fabrics we're buying so, we can get all natural fibers that we know won't bother Cohen.

Fourth, they're incredibly cute. Who doesn't love a fluffy-bottomed baby? They are not your mother's cloth diapers. They are easy to use, come in many colors and styles, and are convenient. I was worried about the convenience issue, but they are made to be easy to use anywhere.

Time for some pictures!

We decided on BumGenius 4.0 one size pocket diapers. This means they have snaps that you can snap down to make them smaller, then the waist is also adjustable with snaps. There is also a hook/loop version (velcro) but we figured Cohen would finagle his way out of velcro easier than snaps. At the back right are gFlappers (more info later), bottom right are our cloth wipes and then there is a sample of Rockin' Green cloth diaper detergent. 

These are part of the artist series and are just adorable. Otherwise, bumgenius are solid and super cute.

Cloth diapers should not go into your dryer, as it will ruin the elastic after a while. It is suggested to line dry them in the sunlight. The sun dries them quickly and also helps remove poopy stains. (I doubted the suns stain fighting abilities but am now 100% convinced!)

Cohen's first cloth diaper experience! Happy as a clam! Not uncomfortable to him in the least.

And just look at that booty! So fluffy and cute!

Here is my big bag, that came in the mail a few days after I got the sample. This is the start up kit with a bag of detergent, a scoop and "Shake it up," a powder to help keep odors at bay in your diaper pail and wet bags. It is made by a stay at home mom right here in Texas! It can be purchased here. You buy either "Classic, Soft, or Hard Rock" depending on your town's water type. We bought Hard Rock. It has worked like a charm so far--no stinkies here! This bundle is $24.95, plus shipping. But, they sell this in my local cloth shop, so I'll never have to pay shipping again. :) And one bag like the one pictured above there (The Nappy Shoppe) is $15.95.

This is a monkeydoodlez Tuck And Go. It's hook and loop closure. It is a cover, you simply lay your own inserts (the part that soaks up pee) inside and fix it to your very wiggly baby and go! (hence, "tuck and go") These are sized, meaning you buy it for the stage your baby is in currently. 

You lay the inserts in that opening right there. Pretty easy. This cover is $14.95. Great value.

This is a standard AIO (All in one) monkeydoodlez diaper. It is sized diaper, also. It is hook/loop closure.

It's very, very simple to use. No stuffing required. I find myself grabbing this diaper when we are in a big hurry. It's a good one to keep in the diaper bag. This one is $19.25 over at the Nappy Shoppe. 

This diaper. Oh, this diaper. I love it. It is a Sweet Pea OS (one size) pocket diaper. I just love the fit. 

It is microfiber on the inside, so it is super soft on Cohen's bum. And the owls? Don't get me started. It's a great deal of a diaper too. At the Nappy Shoppe, it's $15.95. And this includes 2 inserts. A soaker insert and a smaller one. I have since gone back for a royal blue and turquoise sweet pea. Love it. 

And these cuties are gDiapers. They look ridiculously cute on a baby bum. They have a snap in leak-proof liner. Then you stuff that liner with either a biodegradable disposable insert, or your own cloth inserts! Makes them great for trips! These are sized. We got larges for Cohen.

These two came together at Babies R Us, and cost $26.99. But the Nappy Shoppe sells individual gPants for $19.99.

This is Coco's Bummis swim diaper! No inserts needed. Did you know that disposable "swim diapers" don't really absorb pee? They soak up with water the minute they are submerged and might keep poop from escaping if they aren't too full of water. This diaper will hold poop if baby happens to do that in the pool. And it looks so cute! And baby doesn't need a swim suit with this one. $12.75 at the Nappy Shoppe.

And alas, my favorites. BumGenius 4.0 OS (one size) pocket diapers. So incredibly easy and real freakin' cute. These come with 2 inserts, a larger "toddler" one and a smaller "infant" one. We use both now. These are generally a little more expensive. But I bought two sets of these when they were buy 5 get 1 free. One is $17.95 at the Nappy Shoppe. 

They're very soft inside. And oh-so-easy. And the designs and colors are to die for. 

And these amazing inserts are called gFlappers. They're made at the Nappy Shoppe. They're amazing. It's a three layer insert, for tons of absorbency, but only sewn together on one end so it comes nice and clean in the washing machine. They're $7.85. I have 5. :) We use these at night. We use all bamboo, but they make them with hemp and bamboo. I'm nervous about the oils in hemp for Cohen's skin.

Also pictured way up at the top, Sweet Pea cotton wipes. These are $5.95 for 8. We wet those and use them instead of wipes. 

You'll also need a wet bag for being out and about. I got mine at Planet Wise for either $16.50 or $19.00, I can't remember. 

I also bought a pail liner from the Nappy Shoppe. It lines a standard kitchen trash can and you store used diapers in it until you're ready to wash. Mine is Wahmies brand and was $17.95.

We use flushable liners in our diapers. It's a thin, paper-like liner that lays in the diaper. Pee passes through and it catches poop! Then you lift it out and flush it away! Right now we're using TinyTush liners. These are usually less than $10 for a 100 of them. 

I feel like that's all if it for now. But we've been cloth diapering for about 2 months and we still love it. I might do a part 2, later, but this is so long as is! Any questions? :)