Good Mama Diapers - Exclusive Prints

Have you been looking for new Good Mama prints? Cotton Babies has new EXCLUSIVE print Good Mama Diapers! They are really fun, and bright - the inside of each is a solid color that matches the outer fabric.

Here are the details:

Outer: Printed knit fabric (varies)
Core: Absorbent organic bamboo fleece
Lining: Soft cotton velour in a color hand chosen to compliment the outer print fabric

Here are all the prints:


Click on the image to see them up-close!

Already using Good Mama Diapers? Be the first to leave a review at Cotton Babies...

Just another day at Cotton Babies...

Some of you may have seen Jenn's tweet this morning about her television interview today. We just got back to the office (the interview was done at the store) and I thought I'd share some pictures I took with my phone while she was in the hot seat!

The cameraman's set up:


Jenn being interviewed:



Bekah (cloth diapering momma and fellow blog contributor) was also interviewed - holding her sweet little Marguerite):


The interview will air on the Higher Education Channel here in St. Louis but Nancy, the sweet interviewer, said that it will be easier viewed on their website. It won't be up until September, so when I have a link, I'll be sure to post it!

Calling all Mommy *and Daddy* Bloggers!

If you are on our email list, you saw this call out already (if not, you can sign up for email at www.cottonbabies.com!)

Have you blogged about Cotton Babies or bumGenius? I'm in the process of updating our media reviews pages on the bumGenius website and would love to link back to your blog in a special section we're creating just for mommy bloggers...

To be included, send an email to kc@cottonbabies.com with your blog name and a direct link to the page the review is located at.

If you haven't already written about your bumGenius cloth diapers, now is the time! I'd love to include your blog in our list.

A Cloth Diapering Mom's Guide to Twitter

It seems like everywhere I go, I hear someone talking about Twitter - from the news world, to celebrities, to sports...and now even cloth diapers. Did you know that there is a huge cloth diapering community forming on Twitter?

So I thought we could do a quick crash course on Twitter and give you the scoop on how to connect with the tons of other cloth diaper moms who are tweeting.

In short, Twitter is a way to communicate something in only 140 characters - like a blog, but much shorter. You can keep up with friends, family and coworkers throughout their day. You can also communicate with celebrities and CEOs that you may never have the chance to meet on the street.

Here are a few other definitions to get you started on Twitter:

Tweet - a noun and a verb. As a noun it is the the 140 character message that you put on Twitter (if you use Facebook, think of it like a status update). As a verb, it is the action of updating your Twitter status ("I tweeted about cloth diapers today").

Followers - like "friends" on other social networks, these are the people that see your Twitter updates as you post them. You can "follow" users and then will see their updates on the homepage of your Twitter account when you log in.

@ (a.k.a. mentions or replies) - use @ when you want to communicate with someone specifically. Using @username tells the person that you want their attention or that you are talking to or about them personally.

DM (aka Direct Message) - you can send a direct message to someone that will be sent to only them, no one else can view your direct messages.

RT (a.k.a. ReTweet) - use RT in combination with @username when quoting someone else's tweet. Here is a great blog all about the art of RT.

#Hashtags - a way to participate in a conversation on a specific topic. Putting #clothdiapers in your tweet makes it readily viewable to anyone who is searching the clothdiapers topic or participating in that conversation. Here is a great blog about using hashtags.

Here is an example of a post from last week using RT and #hashtags: RT @cottonbabies: Just a reminder, our next big #clothdiapers sale will be tweeted first. Follow @cottonbabies to be first in line. (The sale happened last week and the diapers flew off the shelves, Twitter followers had the first crack at it...just one more reason to jump on the Twitter bandwagon!)

So how can this relate to the cloth diapering world? Well, search the term "clothdiapers" - you are guaranteed to get a TON of responses. Have a question about cloth diapers - buying them, using them, selling them, winning them - tweet it, add #clothdiapers (all one word) and watch the responses come in! It is such a great way to join together the cloth diapering community and be a resource for each other!

It gets better - for the past several Monday nights, there has been a cloth diapering chat going on. Cloth diaper moms, retailers and manufacturers get together to talk cloth diapering by putting #clothdiapers (one word) in their tweets - answering questions, posing their own and sharing experiences.

The easiest way to participate in the chat - join us at 8pm in your time zone (the chat gets going around 8pm EST and continues until later into the evening...so jump in any time!):
1. Go to tweetgrid.com
2. Click on the "search" button at the top of the page.
3. Type clothdiapers (all one word) into the search

The chat will automatically update so you can stay up-to-date on what is being talked about! And, please, join in conversation! We want to hear what you have to say!

A couple of weeks ago the term "clothdiapers" even became the #3 most popular term being "tweeted" - this is called trending. It was so much fun! We had people who knew didn't even know that cloth diapers like bumGenius existed - they were asking all kinds of questions about "modern cloth diapering" and wondering why in the world clothdiapers was trending on Twitter! What a fun way to get even more people talking about how to save money and the environment all in one place. We definitely took them off guard!

So...join us - especially on Monday nights (8pm in your time zone)! Ask questions, learn new tricks and tips on cloth diapering, get in touch with other cloth diapering moms and share your pictures and experiences with all of us! (Just remember to add #clothdiapers (all one word) in your tweet so we can find each other)

*Jenn tweets as @bumgenius and @cottonbabies - so be sure to follow her. She personally updates it, so you are hearing from the source herself!

Elimintation Communication - A year later

Almost a year ago I posted about our journey with part time Elimination Communication (EC for ease of typing). It began kind of accidentally when she was about 7 months old and we just offered her opportunities as we could.

We were on quite a roll for a while until Lily was a little over age one. We had traumatic move that really upset our schedules for a few months in a row. During that time I really scaled back on her pottying, but I tried to at least have her go once a day upon waking in the morning or from a nap. Very often that was the only exposure to the potty she had.

As our life settled back down, we have used the potty a little more. At 20 months now, Lily will reliably go 3-4 times a day.

We put a potty chair out by the swimming pool and I have her pee before and immediately after swimming and she is nearly always successful, so I am pretty confident that she is not peeing in the pool.

I also let her go diaperless for a couple hours a day and she will run to the potty herself about half the time if she needs to go in that time. Sometimes she has let out a few drops and then run to the potty to finish. However if she is wearing a diaper, she seldom signals a need to go. I think that full fledged potty training is still a couple months off at least. I am watching her for signs that she feels the need to pee. They are coming more often now, but are not very reliable. As we transition into potty training, I have added a reward for going potty. Because she is a strong willed little toddler there are times that she doesn't want to sit on the potty at all due to her own grumpiness. In that case I offer her one m&m just for trying. I also give her the choice of books or songs while she is there to keep things light.

With my other kids I have placed potties throughout the house to allow lots of opportunity and so they don't get bored. But anytime I have put her potty in another room, Lily will move it back to the bathroom to sit on it. I guess for her that is a comfort zone.

EC at this pace really hasn't made any extra work for me. I don't know if I am up to doing it full time with a baby - our crazy schedule would make that pretty difficult - but part time EC fit right in to our family pattern and has given Lily the exposure to the potty to make the transition to full time potty use easier. Whether she fully trains soon or we take thing slow for another year is really up to her.