Foster: Cloth.

May is "Foster Care Awareness Month", and my husband and I are just weeks away from being a licensed foster family!

We had someone ask us a few weeks ago if we are going to use cloth diapers with our future foster children or not.

Truth is, the first thing I said is no! Disposables it is!

The thought of dealing with another child's dirty diapers grossed me out a bit, lets admit it, cloth can be messy sometimes!

But then, in these past few days we've had a friends little one year old hanging out with us, and we ran out of "sposies"!

The only thing I had was my daughters Fuzzibunz stash, freshly clean and awaiting her next diaper change! So I said what the heck, and put one on him.

It's day three of having him in cloth, and it's not bad at all! I'm not sure what I was so grossed out about before, I actually LOVE how cute he looks in them (and he cant rip them off!). Also, despite popular belief, foster parents do not get much money to care for the child/children they have placed with them, using cloth with everyone will help the budget in a huge way! Who knows, maybe the children's parents will be interested in using cloth when they return home!

So YES! We will be using cloth on our future foster children, each and every one of them (that wear diapers!) will have their own Fuzzibunz stash awaiting them, and I cannot wait!
Now for the fun part...the building of their stashes..!

By Shay P.

Foster: Cloth.

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A Laundry Revolution

"I just might need a new dryer. The older low end dryer we currently have is not drying our clothes! Literally, I have to run the dryer for 120 minutes to get our clothes dry. Even then, we may find a few damp items."  I recently found myself telling my husband this as I was browsing at the beautiful front loading HE dryers online. It was true though, I would have to run our dryer for a very long time before our clothes/diapers or anything was dry. It was causing our electric bill to rise and I'm sure it was not good on the dryer to be running that much either. $600...$644....Oh Oh! $475! I have to say, I was kind of excited to be shopping for a new dryer.

That was until I got a little smart. You see, I rarely use my dryer to dry my cloth diapers. I use a $9.99 wooden drying rack I found at the store so that I can sun them. Well after unloading another load of dry...but not really dry clothes...the rack caught my eye. I began to think...maybe I can kick it "old school" and begin drying our clothes on the racks and then tossing them in the dryer for a few minutes at the end to get the stiffness out. It should work until we get a new dryer- so I went out and bought a few more racks to have enough for a few loads of laundry and my diaper stash come wash day.

I have to say, while I was hanging my first load of laundry on the racks...I got a little excited about the money we were going to save in electric and the fact that we were simply not using electric to dry them. Even my two and three year old girls wanted to help me hang some clothes and it turned out to be kind of fun. We let our first load sit out overnight to dry and by the time we woke the next morning- they were dry and ready to "fluff" in the dryer. Ten minutes in the dryer, and I had clean, fresh smelling and dry laundry.  Just a few days of this routine and instead of getting tired of it, I was liking it more and more. If my diapers were out sunning, I'd throw a rack of clothes out there with them and got even faster results. By the time the week came to an end and it was time to go shop for a dryer, I told my husband I didn't want one. I know, I'm crazy. I have friends who are just waiting for something to happen to their washer or dryer so they can get new ones. But I love using my racks so much, that there is no need to go and spend hundreds on a new dryer when my $10 racks were doing a great job. The dryer was getting everything warm and fluffy during the ten minute sessions, and we were saving money and electric.

I can't help but owe it all to my cloth diapers!  Our house has literally gone through a laundry revolution. From hang drying to detergent- everything is different from how we use to do things and it all started with choosing how I was going to wash and dry my cloth diapers. I received an "its not the 18th century anymore" comment from a loved one who saw my racks of clothes and diapers- and I had to laugh, because I wouldn't change how we do our laundry around here- even when I had the chance. :)

By Shay P.

A Laundry Revolution

Read the full story here...