Cloth Diaper Review Compendium: AMP, AppleCheeks, bumGenius, Chinacheapies and more

Oh hello Blogspot. Yeah, it's been almost a year... oh well. No time like the present to get back into it right?

I've been cloth diapering now for about three years, and my stash is pretty diverse, so I thought I'd write up my opinions on what I have as a resource for other cloth diapering families. 75% of my stash have been bought used, mostly in EUC from people who tried cloth diapering and then gave up, selling almost new diapers for 50%-90% off MSRP, or in a few cases even for nothing. If you're budget minded and patient, in my opinion that's the best way to build a stash, especially to try out different styles of diapers. It's a lot easier to try out a diaper for $5 and decide that the style isn't for you than to spend $200 on a bunch of diapers that you end up hating.

I may use diaper jargon without defining it, so if you're not familiar with the lingo here's a glossary.

My somewhat organized stash. AMP on the right, bG in the middle, and China cheapies on the left, with heavy wetters and wet bags in the back.

CURRENT STASH STATS:
5 AMP Duo -- hemp and bamboo inserts
11 bumGenius 4.0s with snaps
2 bG 4.0s with aplix
1 bG Freetime
3 Kawaii Baby heavy wetters
2 Tender Tushies heavy wetters
2 Tender Tushies regular pockets
8 Tender Tushies bamboo (discontinued style) -- used as "beaters"
11 HipKiddo pockets (discontinued style) --- used as "beaters"
TOTAL: 45 diapers
Typical diaper use per day (one year old): 6-9
Current washing routine: Every three days, usually about 22 diapers. HE top loader. Quick cold wash, no soap, no spin. Heavy hot wash with 1/4 scoop of Country Save, extra rinse. Once a week I also add a half scoop of baby OxyClean. Now that I have a big stash, I try to air dry whenever I can on a rack.

My very most favoritest diaper.

AMP (Annie Marie Padorie): I have 5 OS Duo (which is a hybrid AI2/pocket) and 1 medium AIO, which I bought when DD1 was a newborn. This was my only AIO which I got as an experiment and I was not a fan. I don't think the trimness is worth the increased drying time and the difficulty in stripping. Also its got the usual velcro and laundry tab problems, even though I've used it very little (basically it's been my emergency laundry diaper).

Back to the Duos. If you're familiar with pockets, these are basically the same as most other pockets except that the flap is in the front. You might think this is to hold the insert in, but actually you're just supposed to lay the insert in the cover if you want to use it in AI2 mode. I've kind of fallen in love with AI2s for use out. I never could get the hang of prefolds and covers, but this offers the same minimum diaper bag space as that set-up. I was using disposables while out (because my diaper bag just couldn't hold so much stuff--we don't have a car, so the diaper bag is It), but now that Pippa is in underwear and I have this AI2 option, I take two covers + 2-4 inserts, depending on the length of the trip out. Anything that reduces the amount of disposables I have to buy is good with me.

The fit of the diapers is very good. It has kind of a rippled edge, which I think adds a delicate touch to the look. They don't have that many prints (I prefer prints to solids). I really really REALLY love the AMP hemp inserts. They have fantastic absorbency, and are super soft and can go directly against babies skin (if you're doing an AI2). They also work much better than microfiber for avoiding compression leaks during baby wearing. I like that AMP diapers are made in Canada by people paid a good wage... but the price matches that. It's about $28 Canadian for the cover + hemp insert. Verdict: Thumbs up, but on the expensive side. Whenever I see one go up for a good price EUC, I snap it up.

AppleCheeks: I have tried a size 1. I bought the cover only without an insert so I can't speak to the inserts. By the time I tried this on Mimi, she was already at the upper limit of the size range, so I didn't get to use it very long (I got them when she was about nine months old and she outgrew them by one year old), but I liked the trimness and the way it's stuffed in the middle. Supposedly, you can throw Applecheeks directly into the wash without unstuffing them and they unstuff themselves. Personally, I was never brave enough to actually try it. The edges have the rippled look, similar to AMP diapers. Like AMP these are Made in Canada. Verdict: My babies so far come out average in weight (~8lbs) and get very big very fast (both 95 percentile in height and 60+ percentile in weight), so OS diapers work well for me, therefore I would not seek out AppleCheeks. If you have babies that start small and stay small, this might be a better investment, especially if you value trimness in a diaper.

bumGenius: I have tried OS 3.0 pockets with aplix closure, OS 4.0 pockets with aplix and snap closures, and OS Freetime.

The state of the velcro on my 3.0s after about 5 years of use.

3.0s: I got my 3.0s in EUC for $5 each and used them heavily until the velcro gave out entirely; I just gave them away to another mama who is crafty enough to snap convert them. Within a few weeks of getting the 3.0s, the laundry tabs stopped working. I think we weren't careful enough in the beginning because we didn't realize how absolutely critical they are to keeping the aplix in good condition. Maybe it wasn't anything we did though, because lots of people have trouble with aplix. Anyway, the laundry tabs just stopped being sticky, so we had "diaper chain" problems (where the diapers start sticking to each other in the wash). We still got almost three years of use out of them, so I guess I can't complain.

A 4.0 from the side, showing the smoother leg gussets as compared to the AMP.

An AMP diaper on top of a bumGenius.

4.0s: I got my first 4.0 when another mom left a wet one inside a ziplock bag by the changing table in the bathroom of the Neighbourhood House I volunteer at. I recognized it and brought it to the head of the program. I chatted with her a bit about it actually being pretty valuable and that I thought the person who left it would definitely want it back. Two days later, they hadn't claimed it, and the program head asked me if I would take it as she didn't want it sitting around (I can't blame her for that!). So I took it home and washed it and have been using it ever since. The diaper was stuffed with a Bummi's cotton prefold, and that was my introduction to the wonder that is stuffing pocket diapers with prefolds.

Then I bought a bunch more snap 4.0s. I like 4.0s quite a bit, but I think the fit is not quite as good as the AMPs for my kids' bodies. As far as microfiber inserts go, I like the ones that come with bumGenius the best of any I've tried, but I prefer natural fibers. I also bought a couple of aplix 4.0s. I've been more diligent about the laundry tabs this time and so far so good, but still, really the only reason I got them was the condition and price (immaculate/$5). So if they only make it through one kid I'm not too bothered.

Freetime in the summer!

Freetime: This is kind of a cool idea, it's a hybrid diaper that attempts to have the ease of an AIO without the drying/stink problems of an AIO. It has two microfiber flaps, one attached at the front and one attached at the back, that you layer over each other. I'd rather have pockets because I don't mind stuffing pockets, and I like being able to launder inserts separately if necessary.

No matter what the kind, bumGenius have a bolder silhouette than AMP, with sharp lines and no ruffling. I would describe AMP as "sweet" and bumGenius as "cheeky". Both describe babies, it's just a different look. bumGenius has some nice prints, but most of the their prints (aside from Albert, which is the only print I have) are limited edition, and thus hard to acquire, and resold for more than retail price, even used! No thanks. bumGenius sold in Canada are made in Egypt. Overall verdict: I like my bGs. They work well and, aside from the velcro, everything else about my 3.0s held up through heavy use over 3 years (and I bought it used!).

FuzziBunz: I got some large Perfect Size diapers for free second hand. They were really really large (like, still on the tightest setting for my older daughter by the time she potty trained), and the elastic in the legs was already shot, I'm pretty sure. So.... I can't really review these? From what the person who gave them to me described, they weren't heavily used, so it seems like these don't hold up so well. These are made in China and Turkey. Verdict: Maybe unfair, but I wouldn't try again unless given them for free.

China cheapies have some really cute prints.

CHINA CHEAPIES: Kawaii Baby, HipKiddo, Tender Tushies:
I'm putting these three together because this is a mysterious category of diaper, sometimes called the "China cheapie". The general definition is that the diaper is
1. Made in China,
2. Really cheap in wholesale (sometimes as low as $3 per diaper, including insert, when bought directly from the manufacturer in quantity), and
3. Resold under various labels (i.e. the brand is not actually involved in the design or manufacture, only in importing them and slapping a label on them and jacking up the price).

It's the #3 part that is the most controversial and mysterious, because nobody admits to being a reseller. You can only heavily suspect that someone is a reseller, based on identical designs and fabrics to some of the big wholesalers (Kawaii, Sunbaby, and Alva are some of the biggest wholesalers). The controversy gets vicious, because many of the resellers of these diapers made in China play up that they are a local business, run by a mother, etc. And I don't deny that it is a home business for them either, and I can understand why they would take umbrage at the "China cheapie" term. But I also don't think it's right how many people entering the cloth diapering world don't realize what they're buying.

HipKiddo: HipKiddo was the first diapers I ever bought new. I bought about six plain solid colour diapers and five minky diapers in animal prints. Seemingly, they don't sell the diapers I own anymore; the whole website looks a bit sparse. My diapers only cost about $7 each including the insert. Now they're charging $17+ a diaper. I will say that I got good customer service from HipKiddo when I had an issue with a defective diaper; they exchanged it right away. I've been using these diapers heavily over three years, and they still work pretty well. They've definitely become the diapers I stick baby in when she's eating spaghetti though. Verdict: Good customer service, but I'm not sure it's worth $17.

Kawaii Baby: I bought these through a co-op so I only paid $3 or $4 a diaper (I bought three heavy wetters for overnight), and I also bought 5 cloth training pants and a wet bag. I've had no problems with the overnight diapers, however one of the cloth training pants was defective out of the package (elastic WAY too tight, I couldn't even get it on my kid), and the strap came off the wet bag within one week of light use (I was using it as my back-up bag). Others in the co-op also had problems with defective training pants. However, despite being repeatedly contacted, Kawaii Baby did not replace or refund any of the defective products. When I divide what I paid total by the number of diapers I'm actually was able to use, I paid about $10/diaper. Yeah, that's still pretty cheap, but it was just an aggravating experience all around, and I wouldn't want it to sour a newbie on cloth diapering. Verdict: AVOID dealing with the company directly. Don't pay more than a few bucks for these no matter how you get them.

I let the diaper sit after taking it off for about ten minutes.
The pee is starting to soak through the cover.
(The crumbs are because this was the snack time diaper.)

Tender Tushies: I got these second hand as part of a lot that included other diapers I wanted more, haha. Two heavy wetters (which seem identical in cut and design to the Kawaii Baby, making me think they have the same manufacturer), two regular pockets, and 8 bamboo diapers, which seem identical to some HipKiddo bamboos that a friend of mine bought. They have a soft, almost t-shirt like exterior, and a grey interior. I remember that my friend had an issue with leaking THROUGH the cover with the bamboo diaper. It's not like a torrent leak like a leg leak, but rather that the cover starts to feel damp if not changed promptly. IIRC it's because they don't use PUL. Personally I don't find this a deal breaker for home use. It's a bit like how some people let their kids scamper around in just a fitted with no cover at home. I've heard the company discontinued this line because many people have this problem, but you might run into someone selling them second-hand, so buyer beware. I've had no dealings with the company itself, but  Verdict: Meh.

WET BAGS:

My PlanetWise wet bag in its usual spot on the bathroom door.

PlanetWise: I paid full retail for my large PlanetWise wet bag. I know! Me, pay retail? Ha. But it has totally been worth it. It has held up through three years of HEAVY use, getting washed at least twice a week, and hung most of the time by the strap. Only just now is the outer fabric starting to get worn down. I also have their small bag which I use in my diaper bag. Verdict: Worth the money. I plan to buy another one, maybe even two.

GroVia: I got a Perfect Pail. It has a overlapping slot on the top to put diapers into, and a zipper on the bottom so you can unzip it over the washing machine without having to reach into the gross old diapers. In practice, I did not find this as easy as the PlanetWise bag, which is double layered, so I just grab the outer cloth layer and hold it and shake it, and the diapers fall into the washing machine while the PUL layer inverts.

It looks less gross when it's getting full than the PlanetWise bag does. But it's not as cute as my PlanetWise bag as it's just a plain grey. If you want to hang your diaper bag in a closet, its strap is made to clip around a clothes hanger, which is nice in terms of versatility, but we have a hook installed already. Unfortunately I had the same problem that many people have had with this bag, which is that a seam burst. GroVia would have replaced it if I had the receipt, but I didn't. On the up side, it looks like it will be a pretty easy fix, it's just going to be a while until I can get someone with a sewing machine to let me fix it. Verdict: Keep your receipt.

Kawaii Baby: AVOID AVOID AVOID see above. Strap came off within a week, they would not replace (and this was WITH receipt). Seems poorly made overall.

Bummis: I have a medium wet bag, which I usually don't use for diapers. But it is a really good size for holding everybody's wet swim stuff. I like that it's made in Canada too. Verdict: Nice!

Relative sizes and shapes:
AppleCheeks size 1, HipKiddo,
AMP, Tender Tushies Bamboo,
bumGenius, Kawaii Baby heavy wetter.

~Grand Conclusion~
I spent basically all summer working on this cloth diaper post on and off, and I am so glad it's done, and I have nothing else to say.

Media We All Like - Toddler-Friendly Movies That Mom Likes Too

Like many parents, I like to screen media before I allow my toddler to view it. Also like many parents, I wonder who has the freaking time to watch a 30 minute Sesame Street episode solo every time before letting their kid watch it, and if they need to drink in order to get through Elmo's World like I do. So I usually resort to screening/skimming part of a television series/book series/film/game and then just relying on being around while my kid views it so that if something unexpectedly problematic turns up I can swoop in.

But! The good news is that there is some stuff that is both appropriate for toddlers AND actually enjoyable for adults (or at least enjoyable as background noise). Here in this post I want to share the best of the best, and I'd love to hear your recommendations too. I'd like to do similar posts for books, television, iOS apps, etc, but I'll start with movies.

We have not actually watched that many full-length movies. Most full length films for children contain at least one scary part, and these scary parts, in my opinion, are often actually scarier for little children than adult movies would be. I think to a three year old, seeing someone get shot in a realistic way is more puzzling than scary. When I think of the things in my young childhood that scared me the most, they are not adult things I watched in error, but rather stuff like the Pleasure Island sequence in Pinocchio.

There are basically four movies that we watch right now, but we watch them a lot.

Babies (2010 documentary) - Is there anything that babies like more than watching other babies? This was the first film that we ever showed her. When I was pregnant with the second child we watched it frequently. Pippa still requests it. There is one part that she doesn't like, and that's the brief scene where the puppy is playing with the mother's foot. She will say "Not this part! Not this part!" until I skip ahead. (See what I mean about kids having a totally different idea about what's scary?)

The film doesn't really teach a moral lesson per se, other than "babies are awesome" and "all babies are very alike, and all babies are very different". There's no narrator so you have to draw the lessons yourself. The juxtaposition of different scenes provides its own commentary. For example, Hattie's father vacuuming around her, and then carefully using a lint roller on her romper, cuts to Ponijao chewing on a bone she found in the dirt. Bayar, alone in the yurt and tethered to a pole with no toys
, happily chomping on a roll of toilet paper, cuts to Mari, screaming and throwing herself on the ground in frustration at her inability to correctly work a toy, while surrounded by other toys.

In my opinion, you could lay the parents out in four corners of a graph, where one axis was "conscientious cultivation" (classes, concerted efforts to "teach", helicopter parenting, constant monitoring) and the other graph is "emotional and physical availability" (answering cries, holding/wearing the child, quantity time). Relatively, Hattie's parents score high on both, Ponijao's parents score low on cultivation and high on availability, Mari's parents score high on cultivation and low on availability, and Bayar's score low on both. But the movie doesn't necessarily show one way as the best way, and it definitely shows that all four babies are loved.

Winnie the Pooh (2011) - We actually enjoy this one more than the original Disney film. Unlike Piglet's Big Movie and The Tigger Movie and Kanga Starts Dating: the Movie or whatever else Disney has churned out lately, this film is actually based on stories in the original books by Milne. It's brief, just over an hour, and has wonderful music (including the theme song sung by Zooey Deschanel) and voice acting (including John Cleese as the narrator). The "scary" part of the movie, a psychedelic chalkboard bit about the mysterious Backson, doesn't scare my daughter. I think a key reason for that is, the Backson just does naughty things, like poking holes in socks and scribbling in books--come to think of it, the Backson basically does stuff that toddlers themselves do. Including waking up babies. So no wonder toddlers aren't too afraid of him; he's just a big toddler!

Morally, the movie teaches a great, low-key lesson for toddlers about self-control. Pooh has to learn to control his urge for honey in order to help his friends. But mostly it's just a lot of fun.

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh - The original seems much cheaper in retrospect, in terms of doing stuff like repeating animation frames, but it has its own charm, especially the music. Honestly I prefer the 2011 movie, but the original is still great. The Heffalumps and Woozles song is scary to my toddler though, so we skip it.

My Neighbor Totoro - Little spider-like black puff balls swarming in your attic. A massive beast with huge teeth and eyes. A mother who is dangerously ill and might die. Sounds like nightmare fuel, right? Actually, My Neighbor Totoro is amazing specifically BECAUSE it's like nightmare retardant. This film is about a set of girls, seven-ish Satsuki and five-ish Mei, who move with their university professor father to the country to be near their mother's tuberculosis sanatorium in post-war Japan. You might think that would be a grim setting, but it's the reverse. Their father is warm, caring, authoritative, and supportive, as are their neighbors. The girls are rambunctious but well-meaning and respectful, at least for their ages. All the stuff that seems terrifying at first glance becomes enchanting and uplifting.

My toddler loves to recite lines from the movie; when I brush her hair, she says "Mommy, I want it to look just like yours" like Satsuki does in the film, and when she dresses up, she'll often turn to me and say "Do I look like a big girl?" like Mei says to her father. And of course I have to give the father's line, "You do!" Every time it happens it reminds me how much kids absorb what they see in media, and thus how important it is to choose wisely what to show them.

Do you have any recommendations for movies for toddlers that everyone will enjoy too? Please let me know in a comment!

crafty crafty

I've been thinking that I need to do more arts and crafts with my toddler. Every week at her French class we do a craft, and it's usually the most frustrating part of the class for me. We're not actually learning any French at that point, I'm just trying to keep Pippa from getting marker on her clothes (why markers, Madame??? why not crayons?) and from destroying the craft before it's done. All she wants to do is scribble, and if stickers of any kind are involved, she immediately wants to rip them off, put them on again, and rip them off again, and for stickers that usually doesn't even last one time. Then she wants me to "fix it".  Sorry kid, I can't.

My parents saved some art/crafts from when I was young and I always thought they were kind of ugly and dumb. I thought that would magically change when I had my own kids but no, I still think 95% of toddler "art" or "crafts" are ugly and dumb. Even when it's created by my kid. Especially because really it was created by me, while attempting to keep my child from eating a glue stick.

But I put it up on the fridge anyway.

Mostly because otherwise she destroys them. I didn't get last week's craft (a coloring page of a fruit bowl, with the fruits labeled in French, mounted on construction paper) up on the fridge in time, and she destroyed it while trying to demount it. Taking things apart is what she wants to do all the time.

 The other two- to three-year-olds in the class exhibit a spectrum of craft behavior, from the little girl who sits there passively while her mother creates an immaculate, Martha Stewart Living type craft, to the exuberant Picasso type who is actually into this whole craft business, to more moderate scribblers. But all of them at least sit more nicely than she does (even the ones who are as energetic as she is otherwise).

It occurs to me (with a sinking feeling) that maybe we ought to do more crafts in order to develop the sitting still and concentrating skills that I've been waiting to exist in order to make craft-making enjoyable. But of course, enjoyable for who? For me, that's who. I don't like doing crafts with her right now; it's messy, it costs money, the finished product is pointless. I want to make crafts with her to give as gifts, but I know that it would be very frustrating to try to make something like a footprint penguin or whatever, because she would stamp all over the paper, or wiggle her foot, or say "I want to do it!" and grab for the marker just as I'm writing "Merry Christmas", and the finished product would look like Martha Stewart Dying.

But the rainy season is here in Vancouver. While I try to get out even in the rain, sometimes it just isn't possible. Maybe I should be using that time to get her involved in some art.

She will enjoy it, right? I know she does. And maybe slowly that will help her learn that craft time is when we sit nicely and create.

Maybe eventually nicely enough that mommy can use the bathroom in peace.

"It's Daddy!" "My, you have done a good job there of capturing your father's basic existential angst. Well done, child."

In Defense of Cry Rooms

In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity. - Unknown

Modeled by one of my little room criers.

It seems at least once a week someone on my Facebook feed shares a piece attacking cry rooms. There are three main directions of attack, which interestingly enough, also attack each other implicitly:

1. Babies and young children should be able to cry, scream, laugh, and talk during Mass and other people should ignore, accept or even celebrate it.
2. Babies and young children need to be in the pew in order to be taught to behave. You must swiftly correct every disruptive behavior every time until your children sit attentively, or at least quietly, in the pew for an hour and a half every week.
3. Children under 7 shouldn't be at Mass at all. They should be left in a nursery or at home with another caregiver so that the parents can focus on Christ. The parents can switch off Masses if necessary to achieve this.

But although they implicitly criticize each other, the focus of their criticism always seems to be the cry room, that semi-segregated section of shame (how's that for alliteration) where brats hang from the ceiling while their mothers chat about toilet training, oblivious to the homily or the consecration.

My perspective is that there is no section on cry rooms or child behavior at Mass in either scripture, the catechism, or canon law, except inasmuch as to say that children under the age of reason are not bound by the obligation to attend Mass. Despite the dire reputation, in fact, the Church isn't terribly keen on telling people The Only Way to Do It unless there IS only one possible choice that is binding on every person without regard to circumstance, something that is rarer than you might think.

We laity are actually a lot more judgmental and strict than the Church in these matters. My perspective is basically that everyone should figure out what works for their family. Unfortunately, the cry room attacks often go all the way to a call for priests and administrators to remove or ban cry rooms. To the extent that they succeed, this is an attack on a perfectly licit and for me often a very helpful option. So I feel the need to defend cry rooms, with the important caveat that I am not claiming that letting children be potentially disruptive in Mass, OR swiftly correcting all possibly disruptive behavior in Mass, OR not bringing young children to Mass are wrong things to do, much less sinful things to do. Any might be right or wrong for your family, at this moment. Any can be taken to a harmful extreme for sure, just as the hyperbolic example of cry rooms I gave previously is easily recognized as a harmful extreme. A child who is allowed to sing loudly all through the homily, a family that is never IN the pew for more than a few minutes before yanking a child who dared to scratch an itch out to the vestibule for a time out, and a poor breastfeeding mother who misses Mass for months because she can't be separated from her baby and yet doesn't want to "disrupt" Mass with an infant's cries--all these would also be harmful extremes.

Any parent of more than one child knows that being a good parent means recognizing that the same approach doesn't work with every child. The Church is our mother, and she recognizes that we all have different needs, and require different disciplines, and different consolations. And, frankly, some of us are weaker than others, some of us are the bruised reeds. There are definitely weeks, or just moments, where I feel like a bruised reed. It's time like that, that the cry room is one of my consolations.

So if the hellscape version of cry rooms is a harmful extreme, what does an appropriate version look like? Maybe it's boastful to say so, but I think my parish does it pretty well.

At our parish, the cry room is one of the confessional rooms, with the screen pulled back, some kneelers at the window, some chairs, and a box full of quiet toys (an alphabet puzzle, some religious children's books, and some stuffed animals). There is a soft speaker, which enables the occupants to hear the priest etc, and the room is directly under the choir loft, so the music can be heard.

I can put a changing mat on the floor, and change a baby, while my toddler plays with a doll, and still be able to listen to the homily. I can let my overtired toddler lie on the floor behind me while I kneel watching the consecration and pray for strength. I can breastfeed in a chair that, frankly, is way more comfortable than doing so in the pew. These are the things that make the cry room a good option for me, at least some of the time. If you don't think these are good excuses, you should thank God that you are stronger than me, and pray that I may become as strong as you.

But in the meantime, please don't take away my cry room!