Baby Carriers for Shopping

Baby Carriers for Shopping

While braving the malls during the Christmas shopping season, I was armed with a baby carrier. I got many comments, such as, “Gosh, doesn’t that hurt your back?”  They must be thinking that all baby carriers are created equal, because my baby carrier was designed just for my back and my baby’s hips and spine. The baby carrier I was adorning (that caught so much attention while out shopping) was a Mei Tai style carrier and it was heavenly.

Not only did I not have to push around a stroller, which from what I can tell are designed solely to suit the ergonomic needs of a person 5’7.321 inches tall, but I also did not have to carry my baby in a detachable car seat that pretends to also be an infant carrier.  Now, these things are a total joke.  So, for added convenience, you can simply unsnap the car seat from the base, and… voila! You have an instant carrier that weighs a gabillion© pounds, will bang against your leg with every step, will increase your chiropractic bill by 300%, and will keep you adequately detached from your baby.

OR

You can use a wonderful baby carrier that takes less than a minute to tie on, and will provide you will the comfort of knowing people can’t touch your baby with their germy-money-and-flu-season-mouth touching-fingers without you knowing about it. It will also help you from getting stressed out at the mall because it’s really quite hard to stress when your gorgeous little baby is resting soundly and breathing deeply against your chest, with their little butts encompassed by the padded carrier situated perfectly for your hands to pat at will. As a bonus feature, with a well made baby carrier, you’re hands free. That means you will have… count ‘em… TWO hands to carry bags, go through your purse, browse through racks and bins of merchandise, resituate your pants, blow your nose, wash your hands (in that order please) or do whatever else your two hands desire.

…and the entire time…

Your back will thank you.

-Dawn Papple

Dear Teen-Aged Boy Driving Way Too Close Behind My Car,

Dear Teen-Aged Boy Driving Way Too Close Behind My Car,

I normally drive five mph above the speed limit. You wouldn’t know that though because as soon as you turned onto the road behind me, your front bumper became invisible to me, hidden by the angle of my rear view mirror and the trunk of my Impala. So, I tapped my break, and slowed down to 55 mph.

Now, I understand that you are in a hurry. I get that you’re hostile from the realization that someone else is on the road besides you. Don’t think for a minute that the curse words flying from your lips will intimidate me into driving faster though:

• I guarantee that if there were not children in my car, I could out cuss you in a manner far more witty and creative and with far more command presence than your 17 years of age could ever muster.
• Your cussing is a clear indicator to me that you are distracted, even more distracted than your inherent youth and reckless driving would automatically ensure.  In fact, you’re so distracted, that as a natural consequence, we will now be proceeding down this county road at five mph UNDER the speed limit.
• I am a cloth diapering, homeopathic using, baby wearing, co-sleeping mom, I’m used to bullying. A little swearing from a teen-aged boy means nothing to me.

I have tapped my breaks now, two separate times, meaning, I have communicated with you the universal sign for, “Get off my tail,” but you persist.  Here’s what’s going on. When I took my driver’s education class exam almost twenty years ago, I got 100%. I learned something really important, and I still remember it. Do you realize that at all average driving speeds, (regardless of your score on “Street Racer” or “Mario Cart”)  it is physically impossible for your reaction time to allow you to put on your breaks in enough time to avoid a collision if there is less than two car lengths between us?

At any rate, while there is not two car lengths between us, I will tell you what IS between us.

You see, the reason why I am willing to slow down to whatever speed I feel safe with ( for as long as you continue to follow at this distance) is because in addition to my trunk, two bumpers and only about 10 feet of empty space, between you and I sit the three most precious little human beings to have ever existed.

You can’t win.  You see?

You can’t bully a mom when she’s got kids in the car.

It will get you nowhere.

Well, I take that back, you will get SOMEWHERE… eventually. You’ll just end up getting there at 35 miles per hour.

-Dawn Papple

Diapers Leaking Along the Stitching?

Diapers Leaking Along the Stitching?

Pocket diapers leaking along the stitching is a fairly common problem. I get asked about this all the time. I am happy to be able to inform you that this is a very easy fix.

When cloth diapers leak, there are a few causes.

• You’ve dried the cloth diaper covers one too many times on heat and the PUL is now bad. This just sucks for you, because that means you’ve ruined your diapers. So, buy some more and follow the instructions this time. It will still be cheaper to buy a whole new set of diapers than to switch to disposables. If this were the case though, they’d leak everywhere, not just along the stitching.
• Your cloth diapers are repelling because you use too much detergent, fabric softener or butt cream. This really isn’t a big deal you can find a million posts online about how to strip your diapers. Again though, this will not cause them to leak at the stitching.
• You bought cheap cloth diapers. Yup, not all brands are created equal. Next time buy some diapers from Everything Birth, because they only sell diapers that they themselves would use. Again, it will still be cheaper to invest in some good cloth diapers than buy disposables.
• Your baby holds in urine and then pees all at one time. There it is! The answer to why your diapers are leaking at the stitching! This is the easiest fix of them all!  All you have to do is double or triple stuff them! That’s why pocket diapers are so fabulous. You can add as many inserts as you want. Now, often, pocket diapers come with pre-fold diapers. So you may be asking yourself how in the world you would double or triple stuff them.  All you need to do is switch from pre-folds to micro cloth inserts. These hold way more wetness than they would appear to, so they work great and keep things trim.

If you have a diapering problem that I wasn’t able to solve, come join me at The Village, our free community forum for all of our blog readers and Everything Birth customers!

-Dawn Papple

A Homeopathic Substitute for Tums

A Homeopathic Substitute for Tums

My step-son turned five the other day and we had a party for him. My sister-in-law said she couldn’t possibly eat a thing because she had Mexican food right before and had awful indigestion. She then asked me for some Tums.

I have Tums.

Here’s the thing though, other people’s misfortunes when it comes to physical ailments are viewed differently by me. They are viewed as my window of opportunity to demonstrate how well homeopathic remedies work.

So, I got out the Tums, and I said she could have some… in ten minutes.

First, I told her, she had to try the Hyland’s Colic Tabs for her gas and indigestion. She’s always a good sport, so she agreed without hesitation. I gave her a couple of the Hyland’s Colic Tabs and then I sat the bottle of Tums in front of the poor girl. I reminded her that she could have some in ten minutes.

A more caring person, would probably have just given her both, but I didn’t want her to be able to thank the Tums when she felt better right away. So, the Tums sat there on the table, while we all chatted.

Less than ten minutes later, she pushed the Tums aside. She said, “You know what, I’m feeling all better. I guess I don’t even need the Tums anymore.”

I was thrilled.

I’d love to say I was thrilled because I am so compassionate towards human suffering and I was happy she was feeling better. The truth is, indigestion isn’t generally something I feel super sorry for people about. It is what it is. She had Mexican food and got indigestion. It happens all the time and we usually all get over it in a few hours or so. The reason I was thrilled is because I had before me, four adult witnesses to the remarkable healing effectiveness of homeopathic remedies.

So, the moral of the story is, before grabbing the Tums, grab your baby’s Hyland’s Colic Tabs, and then know first-hand how much they sooth your baby.

-Dawn Papple

“If Only Hyland’s Made A Teething Tablet for my PMS”

“If Only Hyland’s Made A Teething Tablet for my PMS”

I can’t even tell you how many times as a seasoned natural living mother, I’ve heard that from other natural living mothers. “If Only Hyland’s Made a Teething Tablet For My PMS.”

I hear this and I smile with secret delight, because for that brief moment in my head, only I know that I have the answer to that woman’s prayers.

I have it in my purse at all times:  This fantasy “Hyland’s Teething Tablet for PMS.”  They don’t call it that though. They call it “Hyland’s PMS” and it has single handedly saved my marriage on numerous occasions.

Hyland’s, the manufacturers of the coveted Hyland’s Teething Tablets, makes a whole cornucopia of other homeopathic products that works as well for their indicated ailments as Hyland’s Teething Tablets work for our babies’ teething woes.

Hyland’s PMS is my very favorite product that they carry. Like the old saying goes, “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t anybody happy.”

It’s bizarre, but I take one tablet from the Hyland’s PMS bottle and my children are no longer monsters, my husband is no longer a cheating liar, my body morphs back into beauty, my co-workers are no longer out to sabotage me, and my mother no longer wishes I was someone else. You see, I suffer from more than just PMS. My PMS is very severe. It makes me cranky, angry, full of suspicion, jealous, depressed, full of self-loathing and destructive. My hormones alter my perspective of reality.  I sabotage my own happiness on a regular monthly basis without Hyland’s PMS. I suffer from what would clinically be called PMDD, and Hyland’s PMS has allowed me to rise above it.

Plenty of women don’t have the emotional rollercoaster that my cycle burdens me with though. Often, women suffer from debilitating cramps. In that case, Hyland’s offers Hyland’s Menstrual Cramps Tablets. These work for cramps and pain to the same degree that the Hyland’s PMS works for my mood swings.

Join me at Everything Birth’s Online Forum to discuss this further or to talk about all aspect of your natural womanhood.

-Dawn Papple

While We Wait For Hyland’s Teething Tablets To Come Back…

We all love Hyland’s Teething Tablets. We are all bummed about the dumb recall on Hyland’s Teething Tablets. While we wait for them to come back, we do have more options though besides just soothing our kids with organic teething toys. Let’s face it, most of us that frequent Everything Birth’s blog aren’t about to use something like Baby Orajel.

Hyland’s isn’t the only kind of homeopathic teething remedy. There are a few others on the market. They work the same way that Hyland’s Teething Tablets do. They are all 100% safe. They all have basically the same ingredients. They all work on the same basic homeopathic principals as Hyland’s Teething Tablets did, they are just less marketed, and so the FDA didn’t feel like bullying their manufacturers around.

If you are interested in a substitute for Hyland’s Teething Tablets during this recall, we have compiled the other brands into our Homeopathic Combination Remedies page of our Amazon store for your convenience. We don’t offer them on our actual web store, because we are patiently awaiting the return of Hyland’s Teething Tablets. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to bring on a new product for the short interim while we wait. Here’s what homeopathic teething remedies we offer in association with Amazon:

• Hyland’s Teething Gel
• Boiron Teething Relief
• Humphrey’s Teething Strips
• Humphrey’s Teething Pellets, original flavor
• Humphrey’s Teething Pellets, flavored with natural cherry

 

So, you don’t have to give up on homeopathy for teething while we wait for Hyland’s Teething Tablets to get back on the market from the dumb recall. These products will work just as well as Hyland’s Teething Tablets did for your babies.

–Dawn Papple

Everything Birth on Facebook

Everything Birth on Facebook

You’ve seen the little Facebook icon on the Everything Birth website, but it’s more than just a fancy way for us to keep in touch. Perhaps, you simply use FaceBook for keeping in touch with your old high school friends and your family members that live far away.

Well, while you’re logged on looking at beautiful pictures of your new niece or planning a play date to meet your old best friend’s new baby, take just a minute to “like” our Facebook Page.  That’s really all you have to do, then watch as your newsfeed informs you of our latest contests, where we have a blast giving away free stuff and spreading the word about cloth diapers.

You will also quickly and easily learn about what our weekly specials are. We’re almost always running some kind of great deal. We do two regular sales:

• Monday Morning Coupon- Valid through midnight on Tuesdays!
• Wednesday Wash- An amazing sale that lasts until Friday or until we sell out of the item!

There are lots of fun discussions that also go on our Facebook page, and we’d love for you to join us. Everyone interested in cloth diapering is welcome to join us. Don’t feel like you have to be a loyal customer to join in on our fun. 

The more the merrier. See you on Facebook!

-Dawn Papple

Full Circle

When I was three, I was driving with my dad to go pick up pizza. I vividly remember this event. I looked out to the right side of the truck above the pines (where incidentally, I happen to be renting a house at right now.) It was dusk. I saw a huge swarm of little black things flying above the pines. I screamed, because I thought they were bats.

Promptly, my dad calmed me down. “Dawn, those are not bats. Those are the birds that come out at night.”

Phew!

For a second I thought they were bats.

I was embarrassed when at twenty, I was sitting on the front porch with my old in-laws (I’m now divorced from my first husband) and I saw those birds. My old mother-in-law said, “OOOH, look at all those bats!”

I told her. “Oh Sue, those aren’t bats, those are the birds that come out at night.” All of my in-laws started laughing at me. That’s when it dawned on me that my dad had fibbed to me to get me to settle down. In my embarrassment, I told myself, I would never fib to my children.

My step son has Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, which is caused when a woman drinks while she is pregnant. He’s five. I’ve spoken about him on here before. He’s always a challenge.  My days with him consist of walking on eggshells quite regularly. He has many challenges due to his disability. He has impulse control problems, especially if he’s had any food coloring. He has temper tantrums that rival my two year olds. To try to subside these tantrums, I’ve sewn a heavy shirt for him to wear, instead of punching me and we give him Hyland’s Calms. He is not nighttime potty trained yet, and he might not be for quite some time.  For a brief time, we were buying pull-ups for him, until I managed to convince him that the large Perfect Size Fuzzi Bunz turned backwards were night-time underpants, not diapers. I am absolutely amazed that the large Perfect Size Fuzzi Bunz still fit him. Anyway, the point is, with him, I need to always be on my game.  Often, I need to get creative.

Tonight, he was taking his bath. Everything was calm. He had just started emptying the tub out, when he suddenly screamed at the top of his lungs. After the shock of the scream penetrating my body subsided, I tried to figure out what was wrong.

He had lost one of his little toys down the drain. It was gone; there was no getting it out. I tried to be intelligent about it. I tried explaining that I was sorry that he lost his toy and we could replace it. That was met with more screams and cries. I tried being worldly, “Sometimes we lose things we love, it’s hard, it’s OK to be sad, but the screams hurt my ears.” That was met with more screams and cries.

So, I got creative and I fibbed.

“Patrick,” I explained, “Your toy is on a mission.” He glanced up at me and the screaming stopped for a second. “Your toy dove down the drain to find the toys that had gone down the drain at our last house and bring them home.” It appeared to be working, though the look he gave me was skeptical. “Don’t you want your other lost toys to come home to us? They didn’t know we moved.”

“Yeah!” Patrick said, “I DO want those other toys to come home.”

“Alright,” I said, “Then will you please try to have a little faith in your toy. He’s going to save your old toys.”

He got skeptical for a second again, and then with total conviction, I firmly asked, “What?! You’ve never seen Toy Story?”

That was proof enough for him and he finally let the issue go.

Then, I remembered the birds that come out at night. Understanding fully why my father fibbed to me, after all these years of being annoyed about it, I finally let the issue go.

Then, I helped myself to some of Patrick’s Calms Forte.

-Dawn Papple

Bed Wetter Pants

Bed Wetter Pants

I just stumbled upon this product: Mother Ease Bedwetter Pants. These cloth pull-ups are definitely going in my shopping cart. I’ve mentioned it before, but my (full-time) step-son struggles with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. One of the big challenges with FASD is nighttime wetting. I know that it’s a common enough problem for even healthy brained children, but in our case, his bedwetting problem is caused by his disability.

I spent a short time putting him in disposable pull-ups, unsure of how to handle the bedwetting.  At four, he couldn’t snap his Fuzzi Bunz cloth diapers, so that meant if he did actually remember to go to the bathroom, he’d be frustrated and dependent on us to help him. He would have zero independence if we had gone that route. We tried him in cloth trainers, but they were never absorbent enough. Besides, he wasn’t training. He has a disability. If he was going to have an accident at night, he was going to completely empty his bladder, and he wasn’t going to notice (because his brain doesn’t talk to his body like it normally would.) That’s why we had him in disposables for a short time. Not long ago, he learned how to snap his Fuzzi Bunz. Given that, we stopped with the disposable pull-ups and switched him back to the Fuzzi Bunz.

In the back of my mind though, I’ve wondered what we would do in a year or so when he would be unable to fit in the Fuzzi Bunz cloth diapers any longer. I was shocked that at five, he still could. Mother Ease is a wonderful manufacturer, so I know that I can order these cloth incontinence pants with confidence. They absorb twenty one ounces of fluid!

These will make my step-son feel so good about himself that I might even use a couple of these as Christmas presents. Plus, he’ll like that they’re called “pants” and not “diapers.”

-Dawn Papple

Fuzzi Bunz donates diapers to Eagle Scout Project

The maker of Fuzzi Bunz, recently donated 500 Fuzzi Bunz cloth diapers to help out a young man who had traveled to Uganda while working on his Eagle Scout Project.

Boy Scouts generally pick one very large community service project that is a part of earning the very dignified status of Eagle Scout. Achieving the ranking of an Eagle Scout is the most prestigious recognition available to a Boy Scout. It signifies the pinnacle of their scouting career. Generally scouts choose a project closer to home, but this scout chose to travel to Uganda, where apparently, since this trip, his heart still remains. He vowed to go back to help these people again one day.

This certainly isn’t the first time the maker of Fuzzi Bunz has donated diapers to impoverished communities, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Mother of Eden’s owner Tereson Dupuy is intensely into philanthropy and is regularly found giving to those in need of her help. This young scout apparently was able to appeal to the open hearts of those at Fuzzi Bunz. His story is amazing and deserves recognition. Check out this young man:

In other exciting diapering news, Fuzzi Bunz was just honored with two Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

• The FuzziBunz One-Size Cloth Diaper, the most adjustable one-size cloth diaper, was named “Best New Product of the Year”
• FuzziBunz was named “Most Innovative Company of the Year” for its efforts to bring quality eco-friendly diapering products to moms around the world.

While Everything Birth was already very proud to carry Fuzzi Bunz in their product line, these two stories, make them even more proud to support this wonderful company.