Things for baby?

[AlwayzOnDaMove]

What are you favorite baby products when it comes to diapers, wipes, lotion etc. There are alot of brands out there now. Do you go for big name brands or get the bargains to save money?

[limewave]

I really like the Burt's Bees baby products. They are made from all natural ingredients. Unfortunately, not many stores near us carry their products. I found their products to be gentle on DD's sensitive skin.

[AlwayzOnDaMove]

Is that the same company that makes the bee's wax lip balm? Never heard of Burt.

[ny biker]

Okay, I read the title of this thead too quickly and thought it said "Thongs for baby?"

(I guess I need more caffeine...)

p.s. It looks like drugstore.com carries Burt's Bees baby products.

[singletrackmind]

Thick prefold cloth diapers and diaper covers with snaps. If you are interested I can come up with some names. Also diaper liners as they get bigger.

Various tearless baby shampoos aren't really tearless. It doesn't hurt near as much but it still hurts.

Avent Isis mechanical breast pump. Make sure the bottles are dry at the seal when you cap them or they leak sometimes.

Sunshine Kids Radian car seat. It's for babies up through toddlers, mine still fits my 5 year old and should be the last seat I buy (they have a seat requirement in MO that kids must be in a booster or seat until age 7 or 80# or 4'9" tall). They make a Radian 80 that's the exact same size but made to hold heavier children, overkill for my scrawny adorable son.
A lot of people prefer the punkin seats that you can take out, but I couldn't see spending the money for the length of time the baby can use it. For me it was no big deal.

Beechnut baby food because there wasn't any added sugar.

Huggies natural care diaper wipes in the big bulk boxes. I cut them in half and stored them in the single plastic box I had, just had to open the lid to get them out.

Madden Caravan backpack...they're called something else now, but it's the same pack. My 5 year old still rides in it.



I went cheaper some places, more expensive in others. Sometimes because of brand recognition, sometimes I felt it was the better product. Cloth diapers were great for me, the substantial savings were secondary. I could change him very often to keep him dry without worrying about the cost and as he got older he could feel when he was wet and got to the point where he'd ask to be changed. Breast feeding was what I wanted to do, the savings were a bonus. The crib and furniture were second-hand as was the gliding chair. As far as the glider goes, a rocker would have been a better motion.

[ridenread]

Even if you don't plan on using cloth diapers get a about a dozen of them anyway. They make great spit cloths, bibs, wipes, towels, as well as diapers.They are great as a clean place to change a diaper if you are in a public restroom or in the back of the car.When I was nursing I would use the cloth to to drape if we were out and I wanted more coverage. I would also leave the towel that I had close to my skin with my son if I had to go out somewhere so he would still have my scent. My son is now 6 and actually sleeps with one as his "security" blanket.

[limewave]

I really like the Burt's Bees baby products. They are made from all natural ingredients. Unfortunately, not many stores near us carry their products. I found their products to be gentle on DD's sensitive skin.

They make the lip balm too :)

[xeney]

We did not use any lotions or soaps or diaper creams or other goo for the first eight months. We still use those things sparingly at a year. We've also never used diaper wipes -- we use cloth wipes with plain water, or those disposable wash cloths from the hospital, also with plain water. We use a mix of cloth diapers and Seventh Generation disposables and she's never had diaper rash. (My husband and I have really sensitive skin so we were super careful about these things. I get blisters from using aloe vera products, to give you an idea.)

Seventh Generation disposables are the only ones I can stand. The others we've tried all have perfumes that smell absolutely awful when the baby pees. If the deodorant makes baby pee smell worse, it is not worth the effort, you know?

Now that we are using soaps and lotions, we don't worry so much about "hypoallergenic" or "natural" stuff because I've learned from my own bad experience that it's mostly a crock. We just use very small amounts of whatever product we use. We use Suave shampoo/conditioner for kids about twice a week, an amount about 1/4 the size of a dime. We use Aveeno baby soaps, no-perfume Lubriderm lotion (not baby lotion), and Banana Boat tear-free sunscreen for babies. (Tear-free is more important for sunscreen than for shampoo, in my opinion.)

The only one of those things we use every day is the sunscreen. Everything else is as needed. I have a pretty grubby baby sometimes, but whatever, it's not like she's shoveling horse manure. She's healthy and has not had any skin issues, which I consider a victory given the genes she got.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Hopefully the baby in question will be breastfeeding for a while, but later on...

The Happy Baby Food Grinder! (http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=happy+baby+food+grinder&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2)
I raised my two girls by just grinding the same food we ate and I never bought even a single jar of prepared/preserved "baby food".
Just throw in fresh peaches, apples, cereal, chicken, cooked veggies, potatoes, pasta,....whatever. And it's VERY simple and easy to wash- just pull the two pieces apart and wash quickly with a hot soapy brush. Or throw in the dishwasher.
I LOVED my Happy Baby Food Grinder when my daughters started eating stuff other than breast milk- and it helped produce two beautiful happy healthy babies. :p

[AlwayzOnDaMove]

BleeckerSt_Girl, speaking of breastfeeding, I am still amazed at the female body. We literally become cows and produce our own milk :D. I will always be amazed at that.
I've never payed attention to cloth diapers, but saw pictures of them recently and they look comfortable and cute. I saw the one with the snaps. There is a new product called mom to mom. Everything is made for moms by moms.
As for the organic things or the things that claim to be organic, I don't really trust any of that stuff. Since alot of people are going green...products are claiming they're green too.

[Natural Beauty]

yeah, like "simple green' and 'green clorox' what a crock. just like clorox burts bees....
i clean with microfibres called enjo. works pretty darn skippy.

to be certified organic or to use certified organic ingredients is a HUGE process.

Green Shreen, we need to read labels to be sure they are good ingredients.

What just kills me is for a product to be able to say they are Natural; they only have to have 1% natural ingredients. How scary is that!

ok...soapbox over. :p

[Tuckervill]

My DIl uses cloth diapers and wool outer pants. I don't know where you get them, but she does knit the wool pants herself. The lanolin in the wool keeps the outside dry. They're not any harder to deal with than regular diapers, but there is the washing that requires baking soda for the ammonia.

Karen

[Natural Beauty]

My DIl uses cloth diapers and wool outer pants. I don't know where you get them, but she does knit the wool pants herself. The lanolin in the wool keeps the outside dry. They're not any harder to deal with than regular diapers, but there is the washing that requires baking soda for the ammonia.

Karen

Karen, I had to laugh. My dad and I were just talking about this the other day. He has nightmares from the wool diapers his mom put him in from back in the day. I asked him why he didn't get cashmire nappies since he is so special. LOL!!!!!

[Tuckervill]

I think if he can remember his diapers he potty trained a LITTLE LATE! lol.

The diapers she uses are not wool on the inside. The liners are cotton or whatever--absorbent. The covers are wool, and it's the nice soft kind of wool that felts up really nice.

Karen

[xeney]

Our covers are just a waterproof plasticky surface under cotton, with velcro tabs. They rarely need to be washed but when they do it is very easy. The diapers themselves are cotton fleece with snaps. It's one more step than disposables, plus laundry, but the laundry is not bad at all -- we have sealed laundry bags that just go straight in the wash.

[Irulan]

My DIl uses cloth diapers and wool outer pants. I don't know where you get them, but she does knit the wool pants herself. The lanolin in the wool keeps the outside dry. They're not any harder to deal with than regular diapers, but there is the washing that requires baking soda for the ammonia.

Karen

I never used baking soda, just wash n dry. Is that something you are supposed to do with wool?

[Tuckervill]

I'm sure it depends on how long you go before you wash them. She always had lots of them and only washed them once a week. You know what a diaper pail smells like!

My other friend only started using baking soda after her baby got older and was eating real food. Things change. :)

Karen

[xeney]

My kid eats real food, and we don't use baking soda except for whatever is in the Arm & Hammer liquid detergent we use. I've never heard of baking soda for diapers -- vinegar is what is usually recommended. And we do use that.

The "real food" issue really isn't one for us. We shake or rinse feces off into the toilet and flush. (We have a sprayer attachment on the toilet for this purpose.) When she was just breastfed we did not bother because breastmilk feces are pretty much entirely water soluble. It's the urine that is most likely to leave long-term smells, and that is definitely a bigger issue now that she's older, but vinegar in the wash takes care of it. Baking soda probably would too.

Since I am home and have laundry on site, cloth diapers are a non-issue in terms of adding extra work, but I don't think they'd be reasonable if you worked full time outside of the home or had to go to a laundromat. Unless you used a service.

[sfa]

I always found cloth diapers way easier than disposable. It's easier to do a load of laundry when you're running low than it is to go to the store for more disposables. My oldest child is nearly ten and we STILL have a pile of the Chinese prefolds around that we use for cleaning things, soaking up messes, mopping floors, etc. I don't know how people live without them. We also used cloth wipes--a stack of cheap baby washcloths dunked in a mixture of water, baby soap, baby oil and a few drops of tea tree oil. When we used disposables, I liked Pampers best, but I've heard that a lot depends on how your baby is shaped--chubby legs do well with some brands and skinny legs do better with others. I can't remember which now, and they've all changed their designs so much that I don't know if it makes a difference anymore.

Boudreux's butt paste is the best diaper ointment I've ever used. Same zinc oxide as the active ingredient like most rash ointments, but much better smell and texture, and it washes out of cloth diapers easily. Makes a great anti-chafe lotion as well.

I liked the book "Super Baby Food"--has lots of instructions for making your own baby food as well as recipes for older babies/toddlers and some kitchen craft ideas.

Sarah