Thursday, August 30, 2012

Krista: On Soother Clips & Cloth Diapers

Hey everyone, I'm Krista ~ mom to serious but sweet Avery who just turned 5 months. I am also a teacher and I love to sew which led me to sewing the soother clips and bibs for Tiny TreeHugger.

Pam and I have been friends for a long time (I think 8 years but I might be wrong) and in the past few months as I have starting cloth diapering, and using the things I have been making for longer than I've been a mom Pam kept telling me that I should write a blog post about different things and now I have.

I always knew it was a possibility but although I make soother clips, my daughter is not a soother user. We have tried and it's just not her thing. But of course I have several soother clips around the house because I made them for her while I was pregnant. But regardless of soother use, I would be lost (or at
least her toys would be) without them. We use them to secure her toys like her O-ball, Sophie teether as well as others to her car seat and stroller. It means they are within the grasp of her hands and she can play or chew while we are on the go without the fear of her toys going flying.

In the past couple of months Pam and I have been discussing other designs for the clips to make them "little finger proof."
You might have seen some new ones if you were at the Grand Opening. Velcro works for some babies and situations but recently I have started making them with a sewn loop on the end and others with a smaller elastic loop. With these soother clips, once you have the soother on the strap it is virtually impossible for your little one to remove. These new soother clips will be coming to the website soon!

So cloth diapers. Honestly, some days I like them a lot more than others. We are what I call “part-time” cloth diaper people. Sometimes it's 50/50 while other times it swings to as much as 80% cloth but it can also swing the other way too. Often it depends on how busy we are and sometimes after wash day it takes me a little while to get back in the swing. My stash is made up of mainly Thirsties All-in-Ones with a couple pocket diapers including AppleCheeks, AMP and Thirsties Duo Diapers. We also have a cute little AppleCheeks Swim Diaper that my daughter has been wearing all week at swimming lessons. I think after doing this for several months already I determined recently that with my AIOs  that I really need to put an extra layer in there as our daughter is a rather heavy wetter. Part of what was discouraging me from putting her in cloth is that with those she would leak and I would have to change her so often (including her clothes). But when I use an extra insert I find she can go much longer and I don't find that it makes her diapers overly bulky which is a bonus, especially when she wants to wear her skinny jeans. The AIOs are built with a tunnel so that you can easily put another layer in there. Today it was an AppleCheeks insert in a Thirsties AIO in Mango. I am pretty excited that I've found something that works for our little girl.

But part of being a part-timer is that we also use disposable. Which means we have two bins in her closet. Garbage and cloth. Formerly in our stash was a very cute white Thirsties AIO. Unfortunately about 6 weeks ago I was counting my diapers because it seemed like I was missing one and I realized the white one was missing. I think that at some point it was laying on the change table and got deposited into the wrong bin. I will never know whether it was my husband or myself, or even when it got thrown out, but I was pretty choked when I realized that it was gone. We're definitely going to stick with colours and prints from now on.

Recently I starting having a small issue with my Thirsties and Pam encouraged me to go on their website and discuss the issue with their Live Chat personnel. Pam had told me their customer support was great and I learned that for myself in a huge way. It was far faster than email and much preferable for me than phone and the customer service was fantastic. She asked me some questions about when and where I bought my diaper, the nature of my problem, she also asked about my wash routine and type of detergent. After that conversation they told me they were going to replace my affected diapers and gave me the instructions for processing the return. Great. In a later email though they did tell me the detergent I was using could possibly be the problem but they stuck to the promise they had made me that they were going to replace the diapers. I was very impressed with that. So make sure you check with the website or with Pam to make sure the laundry detergent is approved by your diaper maker because if they had determined that initially it totally could have voided my warranty. But if you do have any questions or problems with your Thirsties I would highly encourage you to pop over to their website to chat with their staff. It was definitely worth it for me.
Until next time,

Krista

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