Training Underwear

My son has recently started showing signs he may be ready to start potty training.  He is very very very stubborn so I'm a little scared and want to start slow by just introducing him to the concept.  I bought a potty seat Saturday and started looking at training underwear.  Holy Crap those things are pricey.  The only brand I could find were Gerber packages of 3 for about $6.  When I started thinking about the fact that I would probably go through 3 training pants in about an hour (my little guy drinks alot) and therefore would need 30 pair or more, I began to panic a little....Ok ALOT! 

Like always I started trying to think of how to make my own or at least cut the cost in some way.   I will be keeping my eye out for training pants and underwear at yard sales but until I hit that jackpot,  I was lucky enough to have received about 3 packages of the flat prefold cloth diapers as baby shower gifts with Grant and have been trying to figure out how to turn those into waterproof training pants.  I thought if I could make cloth diapers why couldn't I make training pants.

Of course I packed all those prefolds in boxes during the move and they have remained in boxes since I did not think I would be needing them until another baby came along.  I considered buying another package and starting with those however when I added up the cost of cloth diapers (about $12), waterproof PUL fabric (about $9/yd with a 40% off coupon), and elastic, it averaged out to be about $2 a pair.  So it would have been pointless and my husband's honey-do list got one more thing added to it: Find prefold cloth diapers!

I have been looking for free patterns online and tutorials and after a couple late nights surfing the internet (oh the things us wives/moms will do to save a little cash or find an excuse to craft) I found 2 that I really like and seemed to suit my needs.

This one is my favorite and the one I think I'll go with since I really want the waterproof layer to avoid having to buy the rubber pants.

(Are these cute or what?)

Here is the other one I found and I would probably use it with an added PUL layer if I already had one of those things to put snaps on (have no idea what their official name is so I'll just call it the snap thingy).  I want to buy one eventually, especially before we have baby #2, for cloth diaper making but for now I want to avoid that expense.

These could also be used as a regular cloth diaper if you put a waterproof layer overtop and then you could graduate into potty training with them.  I am always trying to get more than one use out of everything.  It's a sickness.

I'm hoping to get started on these this week.  They are added to my craft to-do list that continuously gets longer and longer.  But maybe I'll have a few to show off my finished masterpieces, haha.

Cloth Diapering

I am a pretty frugal person so when I got pregnant I tried to think of ways to save money.  One of those ways I found was cloth diapering.  One thing I found to be very aggravating was everyone telling me I was crazy for wanting to use them and how disgusting it would be to change and wash poopy cloth diapers.  Well I'm here to say, It's really not that bad.  If anyone out there is on the fence about it get a few and try it because it's not bad at all.  The only thing I have found is my son pees alot at night and it doesn't matter what I do he soaks through the cloth ones every time. So to save me from having to change his clothes, sheets, and blankets at 3 in the morning I use disposables during the night.

I searched many different sites online and looked at the different brands such as fuzzibunz but the price of $15+ per diaper was way too much for me.  There was no way I could afford to buy enough diapers to get me through a day or two at that price.  I was very fortunate to have my mom buy some all in one diapers for me as a baby shower gift but I also received the old school prefolds with rubber pants like my mom used when I was a baby.  Originally I didn't want to use the prefolds because I thought they wouldn't work as well and I didn't like the idea of using safety pins.  I think many moms may feel the same about this, so I bought some Snappis and I love them.  I actually find it easier sometimes to use the prefolds, rubber pants, and the Snappi than the all in ones.

Here's a picture of the Snappi's in case someone doesn't know what they are:

To give you an idea of how much money we save we used disposables during our christmas trip to ohio for 2 weeks.  During those 2 weeks we probably went through at least 3+ bags of disposables.  That's roughly 150 diapers.  We buy target brand which is about $7 for 42 diapers so that's 4 bags for a total of about $30.  If we were using them all the time it would be about $60 a month give or take depending.

When we use cloth at home and only use the disposables for night time and going out places, we probably go through about 3 diapers a night and if we are out maybe 1-2 (during the week we don't usually go anywhere so this is mainly just on the weekend).  That's about a bag of diapers every 2-3 weeks.  We save about 50% or more on disposable diapers.  Knowing those numbers is enough for me to deal with the occasional blow out and cleaning the  poops in cloth diapers.  Its worth it!

Cloth Diaper Covers

I am a cloth diapering mom and before my son was born i was making many cloth diapers using different patterns on the nappy network website and diaper covers from Katrina's Soaker Pattern.

These are newborn size, i found them to be more difficult to make than the other sizes

  because they are so small. i ended up making five newborn and never got to use one of them because my son ended up being born at 9lbs 9oz.

This is the size small. i made 6 of this size and i think he fit into them for just a few weeks.

For those of you who don't cloth diaper i would still recommend making some of these soakers to go over disposables.  My little one has peed and pooped out of many of his diapers and after staining a couple outfits i started using the covers to help prevent leakage.  They work like a charm.



a few things i've done

Ok i don't have anything recent that i've made since i've been all consumed with my son since his birth (i have now given up on trying to get him on a schedule), so here are a few things i have done in the past few months.  i should have something new made this week, i just bought the fabric to make two christmas gifts for friends and i have to have them done by thursday.  So as long as i remember to take a picture i'll be all set.

one of my favorite things to make are baby items, s when my cousin-in-law's wife was expecting i put together this basket of goodies, a mix of store bought and homemade items. sorry about the crappy photo quality, these pictures were taken on my cell phone months ago.

she planned on cloth diapering her little girl so i made 2 sets of diapers with bibs.  I got the pattern for the diaper at the nappy network.

this buttercup bag i made last year, it was suppose to be a gift for my sister's birthday but ended up being too small for her so now it is going to my niece for her birthday.  i think it turned out so cute and it was really easy too, even for me, who is not the best seamtress.

the black apple doll is still waiting for a home but i saw her first on homemade by jill's blog and thought she was so cute, i had to try to make one even though as of now i have no one to give her to.