Cabin fever, anyone? We have a cure - this issue of our newsletter, packed with tips, tricks, and info on cloth diapering your baby. Find a bright spot of color in your life with a new diaper cover, a little emotional lift from a freshly tweaked washing routine, or a big celebration when your child learns to use the potty. Pour yourself a cuppa and enjoy!

Wick No More With These Tips

Does wicking get you down? What is wicking, you ask? When the moisture from a wet diaper escapes past the cover and dampens or wets the outside fabric, this is wicking.

How does it happen? Wicking is usually a result of cotton diaper fabric that has become caught outside the cover, providing a route of escape for wetness. Wetness travels right along the cotton to the outside of the diaper cover, where it touches clothing fabric, wetting it as well.

The best way to prevent wicking is to make sure the diaper fabric is tucked completely inside the cover. Give the leg elastic of your diaper cover a gentle tug and pull it over the leg portion of the diaper to be sure all bits of fabric are completely covered. You're good to go!

Managing Diaper Covers - Get The Most From The Fewest!

Here's a great tip. A diaper cover that just has a bit of urine on it does not need to be washed. That's right - it doesn't need to be washed! (Forget poopy diaper covers - they are dirty laundry.)

By rotating your diaper covers, you can get the most performance with the fewest washes, saving time, money and energy. It will even help your covers last longer. But there's a trick to this tip: you have to "air out" the covers between uses. And if you want to air them out, you'll need enough diaper covers to rotate them between uses, so that by the time you get back to the first cover, it's nice and dry.

Urine is sterile when it comes out of the body. When exposed to air and allowed to evaporate quickly, it leaves no scent on the diaper cover. The exception might be if you don't change promptly - you might want to do a sniff test a few times before using this method to be sure, but we promise you'll be amazed at the results.

The method:
• Have a designated place for airing out covers. It could be a shelf or the top of a piece of furniture, but a set of three to five hooks on the wall near the diaper-changing area works especially well.

• When you change your baby, turn the wet-but-not-poopy diaper cover inside out, and hang it on the hook or place it on the surface you've designated. Use a fresh diaper cover over the new diaper.

• When you change your baby again, repeat, hanging the second diaper cover next to the first.

• When your hooks are filled and you're changing again, take the first diaper cover off the hook. Make sure it's dry - it should be unless you're changing every twenty minutes! Go ahead and give it a sniff test if you must - it should smell fresh and clean. Use this diaper cover again!

• Repeat, working down the row of hooks and placing the wet cover onto the now-open hook.

You can get multiple uses out of one washing of a diaper cover this way. After a few uses, you'll need to wash the cover -the exception is wool covers, which may take longer to dry between uses, but can be used for quite a long time between washes. How to know when to wash? The ol' sniff test (after airing) will tell you.

The Lowdown on Diaper Pails

You're ready for baby: the diapers are washed and stacked in the changing area, the covers are ready to go. You have cloth wipes and wipes solution. What else do you need?

A diaper pail! Because inevitably, those beautiful, soft cloth diapers will become soiled. You'll want to wash them, but you need a place to store them while you accumulate a load of dirty dipes.

You can use a kitchen garbage pail with a lid or any plastic laundry hamper for your dirty diapers. Yes, you can! Really! No need for a specialized pail. However, you'll want to be sure to line it, and make sure that the liner fits the pail properly. Our Bummis XL pail liner fits any size garbage or laundry pail, creating an instant dirty diaper storage area that won't leave you with a mess to clean up come laundry day. For more sizes and options, visit our diaper pail liner page to find just the right liner for your pail. Hint: measure how tall your pail is, and how wide across the tip, for a perfect fit.

Short on space? Our Mother of Eden Smell Better Hanging Diaper Pail may be just the right fit for you. It hangs on a doorknob or hook, saving you valuable floor space in tight spots. With an integrated essential oil sachet, it zaps odors before they escape. What's more, it does double duty (pardon the pun!) as a great pail for traveling.

Tap Into The "Brown Market": Sell Your Used Diapers

Have a diaper or cover that just didn't work for your baby, but you didn't figure it out for a while? Or did your little one outgrow his newborn diapers? We have some resources for you. You can sell those dipes and recoup a bit of your investment, and use it to buy what works for you. Or try a new style of diaper or cover on the cheap. These are places where parents buy, sell, or swap gently used diapers. Some may require you to register a username and password and validate your email address, but this is a free and quick process.

Diaperswappers.com

Amitymama.com Market Forum

Diaperpin.com

Diaper Jungle Swap & Sale

Quick Facts About Potty Training

by Elizabeth Pantley

Potty training can be natural, easy, and peaceful. The first step is to know the facts.

• The perfect age to begin potty training is different for every child. Your child's best starting age could be anywhere from eighteen to thirty-two months. Pre-potty training preparation can begin when a child is as young as ten months.

• You can begin training at any age, but your child's biology, skills, and readiness will determine when he can take over his own toileting.

• Teaching your child how to use the toilet can, and should, be as natural as teaching him to build a block tower or use a spoon.

• No matter the age that toilet training begins, most children become physically capable of independent toileting between ages two and a half and four.

• It takes three to twelve months from the start of training to daytime toilet independence. The more readiness skills that a child possesses, the quicker the
process will be.

• The age that a child masters toileting has absolutely no correlation to future abilities or intelligence.

• There isn't only one right way to potty train - any approach you use can work - if you are pleasant, positive and patient.

• Nighttime dryness is achieved only when a child's physiology supports this--you can't rush it.

• A parent's readiness to train is just as important as a child's readiness to learn.

• Potty training need not be expensive. A potty chair, a dozen pairs of training pants and a relaxed and pleasant attitude are all that you really need. Anything else is truly optional.

• Most toddlers urinate four to eight times each day, usually about every two hours or so.

• Most toddlers have one or two bowel movements each day, some have three, and others skip a day or two in between movements. In general, each child has a regular pattern.

• More than 80 percent of children experience setbacks in toilet training. This means that what we call "setbacks" are really just the usual path to mastery of toileting.

• Ninety-eight percent of children are completely daytime independent by age four.

This article is an excerpt from The No-Cry Potty Training Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Child Say Good-Bye to Diapers by Elizabeth Pantley. (McGraw-Hill, 2006)

Developmental Milestones: 3-4 months

contributed by Judy Freeman, Occupational Therapist, Easter Seals

By now, you will notice that your baby is becoming more social. He should have a social smile-he will respond to your talking to him and smiling with his own sunny responses. He will enjoy the attention of play, and may cry or fuss when your attention stops. You will also notice that he uses his whole body to communicate - leaning forward, widening his eyes and mouth, and waving his arms. He will even imitate some movements or facial expressions.

Your baby is stronger now, and can raise his head and chest when lying on his stomach, while supporting himself on his arms. He can kick when on his tummy or back, and can open and shut his hands. He is bringing his hand to his mouth, taking swipes at dangling objects and grasps and shakes small hand toys.

Babies at this age love to look and look at your face. She can now follow moving objects with her eyes and can recognize you and other familiar people and objects at a short distance.

Baby's hearing is becoming organized as well. She will smile at the sound of your voice, even if she can't see you. And most amazingly, baby will begin to babble and imitate some sounds in this developmental stage. She should turn her head in the direction of a sound.

You should alert your child's primary care provider if you see any of the following:
• does not seem to respond to loud noises
• does not notice hands by 2 months
• does not follow moving objects with eyes by 2-3 months
• does not grasp and hold objects by 3 months
• does not reach for and grasp toys by 3-4 months
• does not babble by 3-4 months
• does not bring objects to mouth by 4 months
• does not push down with legs when feet are placed on a firm surface by 4 months
• has trouble moving one or both eyes in all directions
• crosses eyes most of the time (occasional crossing is typical in first few months)

In This Issue:

Doublers: A Great Diapering Tool

Doublers are great for heavy wetters, because they add absorbency to your diaper. If you are having trouble with leaky diapers that seem soaked through between changes (can you wring out your baby's diaper after one pee?), you might want to consider using a doubler to maximize absorbency and lose leaks.

Doublers

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Polar Bummi Diaper Cover: Luxury, Fit, Performance

The Polar Bummi combines hi-tech performance with super softness and comfort. Two layers of breathable fleece with a highly breathable laminate sandwiched inside make this a breathable, cool, hardworking cover. The fleece is a densely knitted but lightweight, anti-pill fabric that will wick moisture away from baby's skin while the interior waterproof laminate stops leakage.

The Polar Bummi features Bummi's new design with leg gussets! This cover will fit with any type of diaper -super trim and not bulky at all.

Best of all, the Polar Bummi is easy care - it can be washed and dried with your diapers. Polar Bummis are hardworking and durable covers that are guaranteed for at least 100 home washes.

Polar Bummi Diaper Cover

Washing Tip: Start With A Cold Rinse

If you're having trouble with staining, a cold rinse to start might be just the tweak your washing routine needs.

Set your washer for a short, cold-water rinse cycle when you first put in a load of dirty dipes. The cold water loosens solids that may remain on the diapers and helps remove protein from the surface of the fabric. This minimizes protein staining that can occur when hot water hits a diaper with some remaining solids on the surface.

After the cold-water rinse, continue with a hot water wash with detergent as you normally do. Voila! Cleaner diapers!

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