Windows are open. I notice the occasional warm breeze. It’s time to ask whether you have the right carrier to take advantage of this beautiful weather with your baby or toddler. Do you have your summer baby carrier?

As you are out and about this summer, how active will you be and for how long?

Mei Tai Baby Carriers

If you will just be walking around town or going to the park, a soft mei tai baby carrier gives you a good balance between comfort and support for both you and your baby.

The FreeHand Mei Tai Baby Carrier is soft like traditional Asian baby carriers.

The BabyHawk Mei Tai Carrier has thicker, padded shoulder straps.

Both of these mei tai carriers get great reviews from our customers.

Soft Pack Buckle Carriers

If you will be hiking and spending a lot of time wearing your baby, a soft-pack buckle baby carrier will give both of you more support.

The Ergo Baby Carrier is our most popular baby carrier—lightweight an very comfortable.

The Boba Baby Carrier takes the traditional mei tai shape and adds zippered pouches, straps, and buckles to make this adaptable for long periods out.

Ergo always gets great reviews, but none of our customers has reviewed the Boba yet. Be the first!

A comfortable baby carrier that fits your lifestyle makes an active summer with your baby so much easier.

You cloth diaper your baby, use reusable products throughout your house, and you’ve tried to create a more sustainable lifestyle for your children. They will begin to make their own choices at some point. When you’ve directly modeled an action and they understand how easy it is (like washing kitchen towels), or when it just doesn’t occur to them that there is another way to live (like cooking meals from scratch), they will probably follow your choices to a great extent.

What will happen when they don’t have a direct model, though? What will happen when they don’t want to talk about their choices? What will happen when reusable products make your child stand out among peers?

What will happen when your daughter reaches menarche (her first period)?

For those who think this is far, far in the future, if your little girl is six years old and you find yourself surprised by that, just know that twelve will sneak up just as fast. It helps to think through now what you will do to help your daughter become familiar with her body and her options for menstrual products.

Create Familiarity

Creating familiarity was my strategy. My daughter (and everyone else in my house) knows that I use cloth pads. It’s just part of our life and not hidden or whispered about. Some of us grew up in households where the natural functioning of our bodies was not a welcome topic. If that was the case with the family you grew up in, you have the power to change that with your growing family. If your daughter is comfortable asking you questions about your period, she will be more comfortable asking you about her own period.

My daughter is generally quite private. Despite my efforts to be the radically open parent (or maybe even because of them), my daughter hated talking about puberty. I persisted, but I wasn’t annoying. I tried to keep the door open and knock on that door occasionally as I could see that puberty was coming. She did ask questions, though, and I answered her questions as she asked them, so I knew it was working just to be available.

I told my daughter how we handled potty training. When she was a toddler, I showed her where there were underwear in her drawer in addition to diapers and explained how underwear work. One day, she told me she planned to wear the underwear all day, and she did. That was it. Potty trained.

When she was about twelve years old, we did the same with cloth pads.

I have a lot of cloth scraps in a rainbow of colors. My daughter chose a time when we were alone, and together we drew the shape of a basic cloth pad that snaps around the underwear with an extra layer in the center. We cut out half a dozen and sewed them. Then, she stuffed them into the back of a drawer so her brother would never see them.

For a long time, that was it. I occasionally knocked on the door and talked to her about changes, but I didn’t push too much. When the time came, she just used the pads on her own. By making sure that she had access to what she needed, I tried to be sure that she could be as private as she wanted to be.

That was not it with cloth pads, though.

Be Open to Options

My daughter is a dancer. She spends a lot of time in leotards and tights. The cloth pads were uncomfortable for her, but also she hated how bulky they were. “Please just let me use tampons,” she said. I asked her to trust me that we could find a way to use reusables, and she did.

We kept looking for better options. We did the research together. She was completely unwilling to use a menstrual cup, but she decided to try natural sponges. These actually worked really well, but she still needed some kind of pad, so she finally tried Lunapanties. These start with the same long oval as the Lunapads that snap around your underwear. Rather than being held in place on a pad with rickrack, though, they are held in place on underwear by tucking the pad under elastic. No extra bulk snapped around the underwear.

I tell you what my daughter chose not because it is the solution for every girl but because it was the solution that finally helped my daughter embrace reusable menstrual products. I adore Lunapads because they helped my daughter relax and stop worrying about accidents. My daughter washes her own sponges and puts her pads in the same bucket with mine for wash. She’s less sensitive about her brother knowing now. She’s comfortable talking with friends about what she uses. And, she’s committed to reusables.

In the end, what menstrual products my daughter would use was not my choice. I certainly tried to influence her choice, but I recognized that she would do whatever she wanted to do, so I tried to keep the pressure off and the conversation open. My low-level persistence in talking about it and my openness to hearing and trying to understand what wasn’t working for her paid off.

My advice to you cloth diapering mothers who think this choice is far in your future is to start now with the openness. You don’t need to talk about periods or cloth pads necessarily. Just learn how to hear what your daughter needs and answer her questions. Create a pattern of discussion as a foundation for later. If you can see that puberty is coming, inform yourself about the full range of options for reusable menstrual products and talk to your daughter about those options. I’ve known girls who loved choosing their own fabrics for pretty pads, but my daughter is far less interested in pretty. Figure out what is important not to teen girls in general but to your daughter specifically. Tell her why it is important to you that she choose a sustainable option, and she’ll probably be willing to follow your lead.

Image Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Another easy product to replace with reusables is menstrual pads or tampons. Instead, you can use cloth menstrual pads or menstrual cups.

I keep saying that using cloth diapers, cloth baby wipes, cloth kitchen towels and other reusable products is easy, but that’s only after you cross over that lack of familiarity to the other side. If you haven’t washed your own menstrual pads before and you haven’t known anyone who has, making that leap to reusable can be intimidating.

If you find the idea of washing cloth pads or inserting a Diva cup intimidating, I suggest that you search YouTube for videos. A lot of women have shared their experiences, and seeing these friendly faces talk you through the process can help you understand the basics of use and care.

Care During Your Period

First of all, be prepared. If you are away from home a lot, be sure that you have a pad or cup in every purse or bag. My Planet Wise mini wet/dry bag is perfect. I love this bag. There are two zippered compartments. I keep clean pads in one side and used pads in the other. Though the bag lays flat with unfolded pads inside, it can also fit folded pads, natural sponges, or menstrual cups.

If you need to carry used pads home, any moisture-resistant, washable bag will do.

Cloth pads. At home, where will you store your pads until you wash? I used to just set them on the floor next to the toilet, which works fine if you have no pets. If you have pets, you need a barrier, like a cabinet door. A lot of women put pads dry into a small, open top bucket or pot then soak them all together at the end of their cycles. If you have pets, you can put this bucket under the sink. I have a small pedal bin with a removable liner. My clever dogs have learned to operate the pedal, so I just turn the pedal toward the wall.

During your period, you just need a place to carry and store your pads safely.

Menstrual Cups. When you use a menstrual cup, just empty the cup, wash it with hot, soapy water, then reuse. If your soap might leave a scent or an oily residue, you can buy liquid soap formulated specifically for menstrual cups. Be sure to wash your hands in hot water before handling your cup.

Care After Your Period

After each cycle, clean your reusable menstrual products thoroughly before you store them.

Cloth pads. Before washing cloth pads, I find it helpful to soak the pads to help release the stains. You can use oxygen bleach, peroxide bleach, or an enzyme soak (which digests organic materials like blood). Do not use hot water, since hot water can set the stains. Keep in mind that dirt and organic material are easier to remove at the same temperature they were when the stain was made. That means, soaking at body temperature is ideal. Leave to soak for several hours at least.

Then, wash on cool or warm (not hot). You can wash with dark clothes or towels, or just wash a small load of pads and underwear.

Dry in the sun to bleach stains naturally or dry with clothes or towels in a dryer.

Menstrual Cups. If you have washed your cup after every use, it should be quite clean, but you may still want to boil it for 5-10 minutes IF this is recommended by the manufacturer. (We sell the DivaCup, which can be boiled carefully.)

Storage

Once they are clean, store your menstrual supplies in a clean, dry place in the bathroom. I have a drawer just for pads. Put your menstrual cup in the small bag it came with. This allows air flow.

Caring for reusable menstrual products really is easy. Are you ready to try them out? My favorites are Lunapads. I like the products; I like the company (based in Canada); and I love that this is the product that convinced my teenage daughter to use cloth pads. More on that later this week.

Reusable kitchen towels are nothing new at all, but I only recently saw on Pinterest towels that snap together to make them as convenient as paper towels. So, I made some.

A lot of my friends create Pinterest boards with titles like “Must Make” or “DIY for My House.” I don’t know a lot of people with time on their hands, though, and I’m one of them. You probably are, too. A DIY project has to really catch my interest to inspire me to get up and do it. This is so clever that I just had to sew my own kitchen towels. I thought you might find this one of those eco baby steps that is easy to take as well.

Make Your Own Kitchen Towels

As always, I recommend you use what you have on hand. I happened to have some Harmony Art organic cotton fabrics that I had yet to find a use for. My fabrics were a range of weights from heavy twill (like jeans) to thin plain weave (like sheets). I decided that it might be useful to have wipes available in different thicknesses, so I used all of the fabrics, giving each a different color of snaps and trim to make it easier to tell the difference between weights as I was reaching to clean up a spill. For the absorbent side, I used brushed French terry that was too flawed to use for clothes but was fine for towels.

What I did takes no special skill at all. If you can use a serger, you can make towels.

• 1/3 yard each of 4 decorative, cotton fabrics at least 36″ wide (or use the same fabric for all)
• 1 yard of absorbent, loopy fabric to do the dirty work – cotton terry or birdseye are perfect
• Decorative thread (optional)
• 24 4-part sets of snaps

Wash your fabric before you start. You don’t want to make beautiful towels only to have them shrink and distort after washing. Pre-shrink to avoid this. I also ironed my fabric to make sure I was cutting evenly.

Cut 12 11″ x 11″ squares of the decorative fabric and 12 more of the absorbent fabric. I also rounded the corners to make sewing really fast.

Match up the cut squares with the absorbent, loopy side out and the decorative side out if you are going to have decorative serging that shows. You can also put the absorbent and decorative sides in, if you plan to turn and top-stitch your towels. If you want to keep it simple, just serge.

Sew each towel together.

Place snaps—two male and two female on each. I had writing on mine, so I carefully paid attention to which side had which snaps so the writing would always go the same way.

Total time for 12 wipes: 40 minutes

But What If I’m Not Crafty?

If you don’t have time or you don’t sew, how about just buying cotton towels to ditch the paper towels? My mother-in-law still uses 40-year old diapers as kitchen towels. In my house, we have a stack of old prefolds that we use as dog cloths, since I can’t quite bring myself to put the used diapers in the kitchen. New cotton prefolds make great kitchen towels because they are very soft and absorbent.

That’s what you need for spills. Nothing fancy. Just a little cleverness and a lot of absorbency, and you have washable, reusable towels, and you won’t miss paper towels.

Following up on a couple of weeks of cloth diaper focus, I’m covering other reusable products you can easily introduce into your family’s routine. Last week, it was reusable sandwich bags and wraps then DIY reusable baby wipes last Tuesday. Do you have favorite reusable products that you use? Drop by the Parenting by Nature Facebook page and tell us about it.

If you are working to replace throw-away products with reusable products, start with the simple things. When you are already cloth diapering, it’s easy to use reusable cloth wipes as well. Recycle and re-purpose what you have to make what you don’t have. I got so many baby washcloths at my baby showers the first time around that I repurposed them as wipes.

It’s quick and easy to make your own cloth baby wipes. All you need is:

• Old or surplus wash cloths
• Scissors
• Sewing machine

That’s it.

If you don’t have cloths, try old towels, sheets, worn flannel blankets. Look around to see what you have that you would like to renew or repurpose as baby wipes.

I find that 3.75" x 7.5" fits perfectly in a commercial wipes container. I usually cut them square, but it takes some sewing skill to turn a square corner well. If you don’t have that skill, round the corners and make your life easier.

Ideally, use a serger or overlocking machine. This makes a tough edging that can withstand a lot of washing.

If you don’t have a serger, you can zig zag the edge, either right on the edge (the quick and dirty way) or turning the edge first (longer lasting but harder to do).

Sew in the end. If you just cut the threads, they will unravel. Trust me on this one!

Easy! Now you have a stack of your own homemade baby wipes. Start to finish (including the time it took to take photos) I spent 10 minutes making 4 wipes. If you get on a roll, you can easily make one wipe per minute.

While you are into DIY, make your own wipes solution. It’s very easy.

Basic Baby Wipes Solution Recipe

1 Tablespoon mild soap (baby shampoo or castile soap)
1 Tablespoon oil (calendula, almond, olive, or other carrier oil)
2-8 drops essential oil (tea tree for antibiotic properties or any for scent)
1 cup water

Start with what you have on hand rather than buying ingredients. Don’t make too much at once because it won’t last a long time. Plus, it’s nice to change the scent with each batch. I like to keep a spray bottle of the solution near the wipes and spray directly on each wipe as needed, but I also tried putting solution and wipes in a wipes warmer to avoid shocking the baby with cold wipes. See if you can get away with cold wipes before resorting to a warmer.

Following up on a couple of weeks of cloth diaper focus, I’m covering other reusable products you can easily introduce into your family’s routine. Last week, it was reusable sandwich bags and wraps. Next, it’s my favorite recent idea. I’m making a cool reusable product I saw on Pinterest and sharing the photos with you.

With all of the focus on cloth diapers recently, I’ve been thinking about other reusable options. For a couple of weeks, I’m going to cover some of those easy, reusable products that anyone can introduce to their family.

Reusable Sandwich Bags and Wraps

Every eco parent who makes a sandwich every morning for their child has wondered how to keep that sandwich fresh without a zip-top plastic bag that gets thrown in the garbage at school. For some parents, a reusable bag is enough. I have picked these up many times and wanted to love them, but I just don’t. I don’t want to wrap my child’s food in plastic, even if it is reusable plastic. I realize that we don’t all share the same aversions to particular solutions to the fresh sandwich problem, so I’ve tried to cover every solution I can think of, asking the pros and cons of each.

I came up with characteristics of sandwich wraps and bags in these areas:

• transport to school (waterproof, plastic next to food, can smash, can leak);
• useful while eating (doubles as placement);
• transportation back home (heavy, bulky/not flat);
• care (single-use, wash & reuse, washing machine or dishwasher); and
• material (plastic, polyester, cotton, glass, metal).

For potential solutions, I thought of:

• the no-zip, single-use plastic bag and the zip-top plastic bag, both of which can be rinsed and reused a couple of times, but are still meant to be thrown away;
• a lightweight paper bag, which might last for a couple of days if the sandwiches are dry;
• waxed paper, though it is coated in petroleum-derived wax, or parchment or baking paper, which is available with or without a petroleum-derived coating;
• a cotton bag with a drawstring or a cotton cloth (a napkin) just wrapped around the sandwich;
• a waterproof sandwich wrap that can double as a placemat;
• a waterproof sandwich bag with hook & loop or zipper;
• a glass container with a lid; and
• a metal container with a lid.

I don’t want this to be a list of products you should buy. I don’t think you should buy a lot of these. We at bynature.ca carry a lot of reusable food storage products, and we look for high quality in everything we stock. I hope that by comparing the characteristics of each solution, you will be able to figure out which fits best with your expectations.

I love the resurgence of reusable sandwich wraps and other sandwich containers. There is such a variety of styles and prints made of fabric. It’s also really easy to make your own sandwich wraps.

DIY Caution!

If you make your own sandwich wrap, don’t use iron-on vinyl. That is not food safe. I don’t love the idea of using polyurethane laminate (PUL) next to food, but a lot of PUL has been tested for phthalates banned in the U.S. children’s product safety law, CPSIA, since this is a material used commonly in diaper covers. Still, it contains non-banned plastic softeners, and I can’t wrap my mind around the reason anyone would wrap plastic around food. If you are going to make your own bags or wraps, at least get “sandwiched PUL” (which doesn’t have anything to do with the sandwiches made out of bread until you make your wrap). In this type of PUL, the plastic coating is hidden between two layers of fabric, usually cotton or polyester. That way, you get your waterproof layer without it touching the food.

I hope this helps you think through what works for you in keeping sandwiches safe for a few hours from the time your child leaves home until lunchtime.

Adding reusable products to your family’s regular routines is easy. I will share a few more ideas next week.

What a great day we had last Saturday at the Great Cloth Diaper Change in Orillia. We had 42 parents gather together from all parts of Simcoe County, Muskoka, and even some coming up from the Greater Toronto Area, all to celebrate cloth diapers. We had participants from Washago, Victoria Harbour, Orillia, Barrie, Muskoka (Gravenhurst), Midland, Angus, Oshawa, Wasaga Beach, as well as Peterborough and Toronto. We couldn’t have had a more diverse crowd, and it was so much fun seeing all the cloth diapered babies in the room!

Kelly Clune, from Orillia’s Waste Management Committee, was there as our official witness. She was incredibly supportive and impressed with the parents that attended. She’s been advocating cloth diapers for many years and was genuinely thrilled to be a part of our event.

The hit of the morning was definitely Kate of First Songs of Muskoka entertaining everyone with her music performance.

Thank you to everyone who participated. We’ve been very excited to see photographs posted from around the world in the past couple of days, so we want to be sure to share favorites from our event. See more photographs on our Facebook page.

If you missed the event, you can read about it on the Packet & Times or see us on CTV News Barrie (start at about 9′ 20″).

Once we get word from Guinness World Records (R) about the results of the record attempt, we will be sure to post about it.

• Ecoparent Magazine – ecoparent.ca
• Anointment – anointment.ca
• Bummis – bummis.com
• AMP Diapers – ampdiapers.com
• Sling Sisters – slingsisters.com
• LunaPads – lunapads.com
• Big Village – bigvillage.ca
• Lotus Natural Living – lotusnaturalliving.com

And of course, Nature Clean. Unfortunately, it seems a shipping error has prevented our Nature Clean samples from arriving in time, however, we will keep these in the store for participants to pick up at a later date, after they do arrive next week.

We’d also like to thank Amanda Black Photography for joining us to document the day and Kate of First Songs of Muskoka for providing our little ones with some entertainment while they await their moment of glory.

And a special thanks to our witnesses and volunteers, Kelly of Orillia’s Waste Management Committee, Melissa of Birthing Blessings Doula Services, and Nancy, grandmother of Arabella, as well as National Nutrition for agreeing to be our host for the event.

We couldn’t be putting this together without your help!

Real Diaper Week
Great Cloth Diaper Change

The big day is here! All week, we’ve been posting about cloth diapers to celebrate Real Diaper Week. Each day, Great Cloth Diaper Change organizers suggested a topic for cloth diaper education.

• Monday: Basic Cloth Diaper Care
• Tuesday: Environmental Benefits of Cloth Diapers
• Wednesday: Cloth Diapering on a Budget (I LOVE this one!)
• Thursday: How to Use Cloth Diapers in Daycare
• Friday: Traveling with Cloth Diapers

Today, I just want to share how cloth diapering has simplified my life.

My youngest is about to turn twelve years old. Before he was born, I caught the cloth diaper bug. I loved the most outrageous, the most beautiful, and the newest cloth diapers. I had made very simple contour diapers for his older sister, but I went all out for my son.

The funny thing is, after pushing the boundaries to see how amazing and colorful I could make cloth diapers for my children, I realized it wasn’t necessary. I realized that I preferred the simple flat diapers I used with my daughter—flannel on one side and terry on the other. I preferred an old t-shirt or a towel to the fitted diapers that filled my drawers.

I kept using all of those diapers until they were threadbare, but I reached for my flat diapers first. I’ve heard a lot of experienced cloth diapering parents say similar things. When I’ve talked to parents at festivals and fairs about cloth diapering, I always ask, “What kind of diapers do you use?” so I know where to start the conversation. Of the cloth diapering parents, at least half say, “Prefolds.”

And, yet, I hear people talk about “modern diapers” as if cloth diapers are different now than they were 20 years ago or 40 years ago. There are certainly more choices, but they still do the same job—and most parents still use simple cloth diapers at least some of the time. There is no magic in the idea of “modern” other than the shiny thing it represents to attract attention.

The cool, the hip, the new attracts parents to cloth diapers, but I don’t think it keeps them using cloth diapers. Diapering is really a very simple job: catch the wet and the mess so life with baby can focus on something other than elimination. Diapers that do the job without fuss keep parents using cloth diapers.

I went the long way around, but I have arrived at a preference for the simplest cloth diapers. If I had it all to do over again, I would use terry nappies or flat birdseye diapers with wool covers. Nothing else. No huge stash, big brands, or fancy variations. No special instructions or big deals, just one of the tools a parent uses for a baby.

Cloth diapers helped me embrace simplicity in my life.

Now, head out to your nearest Great Cloth Diaper Change and celebrate the resurgence of this simple tool.

Real Diaper Association is a nonprofit charity that trains grassroots cloth diaper educators. They are the organizers of Real Diaper Week and of the Great Cloth Diaper Change this Saturday. To celebrate Real Diaper Week, we are posting about cloth diapers all week. Parents at 262 Great Cloth Diaper Change events around the world will change their babies’ cloth diapers on Saturday at the same time in order to break the world record for the most simultaneous diaper changes. bynature.ca and NaturalNutrition.ca will be co-hosting a fun cloth diaper event in Orillia for up 50 babies and their parents.