Non-toxic Cleaners:

By now most of us know the dangers of chemical cleaners. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “the air inside the typical home is on average 2-5 times more polluted than the air just outside—and in extreme cases 100 times more contaminated—largely because of household cleaners and pesticides”

Some of the major eco-friendly cleaning company pull the wool over our eyes. If you read the ingredient list, all seem pretty natural until you come upon “Fragrance”. These fragrances are generally synthetic. The fragrance/perfume industry is protected by patent or trade secret laws. A company does not need to and usually doesn’t disclose the ingredients they use for the scent. These same companies also use dyes in their cleaners which are made in-part of synthetic dyes.

I don’t know about you, but I like to know what I am exposing myself to regardless if the company deems their ingredients “safe”.

There are some great cleaners out there like this made in Maine all-purpose spray

Or, you can make your own.

Here is a recipe for furniture polish:

In a small container mix:
1/2 c. unrefined coconut oil
2-4 drops of your favorite pure essential oil. I like clary sage and/or lavender.
Dab a small amount ( a little goes a long way) on a soft clean rag and polish away!

Double duty tip: Give your metal hardware, faucets and stainless steels a great shine!

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New Store!

We are so excited to announce that we will be opening a new store location, this month! For those of you that live in the Belfast area, we will soon be neighbors.

The new store will be located in the Cherished Home in East Belfast, Maine and the Maine Cloth Diaper Annex will be with Jill Lepow Designs. We are eagerly working to get the new cloth diaper store ready to open on August 27th.

Stay tuned, we will keep you all posted as the opening gets closer. In the meantime, come on down to our flagship store in Damariscotta and visit! We look forward to seeing you! Happy diapering :)

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4th of July at the Round Pond Parade!

Maine Cloth Diaper in the Round Pond Parade

Well, we have done it, again…pure fun and a little  humiliation at the 2011 Round Pond Fourth of July Parade.  Murray, a.k.a;  diaper guy, represented Maine Cloth Diaper Company in this quirky, crazy and oh,  so “different” parade.  “Diapered” up and frolicking down the parade route,  Murray greets on-lookers as they laugh and take pics; remembering their cloth  diapering days with babies.  We always have people say with great pride, “I  remember cloth diapering my babies, I always loved seeing them on the  line.  Folding them was always a fond memory”. We always find it  interesting that something that seems so “difficult” is almost always remembered  as a great memory with their children. We never hear anyone recollecting their  fond memories of diapering their babies with disposable diapers.  It just  doesn’t seem to stir the same feelings of accomplishment and pride during their  diapering days with baby.  Washing baby’s cloth diapers is so much easier  than “back in the day”.  We think this parade is a great way to remind  people that there are other options.   Convenience sells in a our  disposable society.  Contrary to the old adage that it is “so hard” to  cloth diaper, it’s easier now and well worth the memories.  We are proud to  have been part of the Round Pond Parade representing our diapering company and  advocating for cloth diaper use.  Go  cloth!

Maine Cloth Diaper Owner Murray Perce dressed in diaper

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It’s Our Anniversary!

Good afternoon all!  I know its been awhile since we blogged, life and business are so busy!  Anyhow, we wanted to let you know that we are celebrating our anniversary this week – 5 years can you believe it?  We certainly cannot – seems like yesterday.

We want to thank all our loyal customers for allowing us to be your cloth diaper store of choice and for letting us teach you about cloth diapers and trusting our products on your child(ren).  Even though it’s Thursday, we are still celebrating.  If you are local, come on into the store and learn about our free products and our giveaways and if you are not local (or want a sneak peek), check out our home page for a rundown on what we are giving away this week – something new each day.

http://maineclothdiaper.com/

Oh and pass the word to your friends, just a few more days left to get some great deals and try out some new products for free.  Thanks again – and Happy Diapering!

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Earth Day!

One of our favorite days of the year – an excuse to talk to people about the environment, to shamelessly push cloth diapers and spread our word!  What a better way to show your children how much you love them then to do something proactive to try and make the world a better place for them to live in?

This year, Earth Day is being Celebrated on Friday the 22nd.  On Saturday the 23rd we are having a mini-celebration in our store.  Come on it and bring your friends and family with their babies that have never tried cloth.  They will get a quick tutorial on cloth using their own baby AND receive their first prefold and cover for free when we help them change their baby out of a disposable diaper into their first cloth diaper!  For parents of children already in cloth, spend $20 or more that same day and you will get a prefold and cover for free too.

I feel like a broken record sometimes telling people all the pros of using cloth – its easy, cute, cheaper than sposie, healthier for baby and best for the environment.  I like to take Earth Day weekend to remind people, parents we meet at the park, friends and sometimes even strangers.  It’s not their grandmother’s pins and rubber pants anymore.  I encourage people to visit both our website and also to use a google image search to check out some of the adorable new types of cloth diapers.  People are amazed!

Hope to see lots of you and your friends in the store on Saturday the 23rd.  We will be keeping count of how many babies we can change out of a disposable into a cloth diaper, so help us out by telling people you know.  Thanks and happy diapering :)

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Our First Guest Blogger! ….Pink Vs. Blue

“No son of mine is gonna wear pink!”  A common refrain heard from time to time in fathers’ circles.  I heard this again the other night at friend’s house, and this time I innocently asked “why?”  After the pause, he replied; “It’s feminine, I don’t want people thinking he’s a girl.”  “Oh” I said, “I guess that could happen.”  At least he didn’t say, “I don’t want him to turn out gay.” No sooner had I thought this than someone said it.  I replied, “Did you know that until the late 1800’s all infants and children wore dresses?”  Everyone took one step back, silence.  “It’s true, and I don’t think that it made more people gay.  Furthermore, red and shades of red were considered fiery and therefore masculine.  Blue was a color commonly related to the dress of the Virgin Mary and therefore feminine.”  “Bullshit!” was the retort.  “Maybe,” I said “but our children certainly don’t know the difference between the two and wearing one or the other isn’t going to change their sexual orientation, that’s just common sense.”  

 

It is my opinion that people place way too much emphasis on the feminine and masculine dress code of infants and young children.  “What’s your baby’s name?” seems a more relevant, caring concern, rather than “is it a boy or a girl?”  Children have plenty of time to be male or female, it will be thrust upon them soon enough.  For now let’s enjoy and celebrate the new human without regard to gender specific stereotypes.  Our adult “need” to organize and classify the world around us can wait, don’t you think? 

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Guest Bloggers…

Hi Everyone! Just a little heads up that we are going to have some guest bloggers coming up in the next month so stay tuned.  Also, head over to Facebook for our Giveaway that will be starting TODAY!  Don’t forget to leave comments and let us know what you think of the new blogs.  Happy diapering all!!

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Sanitize Cycle…

Its easy to get caught up in all the bells in whistles that new clothing washers have these days.  I couldn’t believe it when I was checking them out at the appliance store the other day.  I mentioned washing cloth diapers to the lady that was helping me and she jumped on me pushing this fancy front loader that has a “sanitize cycle.”  This was actually one of the reasons I had even gone to check out the washers, lots of complaints from customers about breaking down PUL.  After having several conversations in the store, we came to the conclusion that the culprit is the sanitize cycle. 

After talking to the lady at the appliance store I found out that the temperature on this cycle is actually the boiling point of water (or higher) which is 212 degrees F.  I know we have done posts talking about boiling your diapers to get rid of build-up or yeast, but we only recommend doing that WHEN NEEDED…not every time they are washed.  Also, we always tell people to use caution with covers and PUL lined pockets.  Any high temperature cycle is going to put more wear and tear on your cloth diapers, the same with the dryer – which is why we are recommending to our customers and friends to use the sanitize cycle on their cloth diapers with “care.” 

For cotton and other natural fiber material cloth diapers, the sanitize cycle should be fine, but probably not necessary every time you wash.  It seems nice to have this option for periodic stripping or rash/yeast times but as an everyday routine, it is probably over-doing it a bit and most likely reducing the life of your diapers.  We definitely do not recommend it for PUL either, especially in light of recent conversations with friends and customers.

Let us know if you use the sanitize cycle and how you feel about it.  We are always open to discussion and tips from our parenting community! Happy diapering everyone :)

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Happy Holidays!

Hi everyone – sorry for the lasp in posts, things get really busy around here this time of year with all the holiday sales and shopping.  Hopefully everyone was able to take advantage of our Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals.  If not, head right now we have a deal going on both online and in the store – Get a Free Fuzzi Bunz Perfect Size Diaper with any purchase of $45 or more.  The offer is good until midnight this Sunday (12/5) – if you are ordering online, please mention the offer in the comment box at check out or to us directly in the store if you come in for a visit!

It seems like so many babies are born this time of year, doesn’t it?  The other day I had the honor of putting the first cloth diaper on my friend’s 5-day old son – so adorable, but I forgot how small newborns are!  It reminded me just how handy that umbilical “scoop” is that Proraps has on their preemie and newborn size covers.  It also made me wonder what folds you all like for prefolds on your tiniest newborns?  I did a tri fold the short way and then tucked the extra in the front under since it was a boy?  If anyone wants to share their favorite newborn fold, that would be great for our new mom readers – post a comment!

A funny conversation that came up at a recent baby shower – alternative uses for the diaper sprayer.  I was luck enough to be in the presence of several cloth diapering moms (sometimes a rarity at baby showers!) One of the ladies was talking about being overseas because her husband is in the military and some of the other military families and some funny stories about kids mixing up the toilet with the bidet.  She also mentioned that she told her husband when he is home, if he misses the bidet too much he can always use the diaper sprayer instead - talk about multiple usage!

We have some great new products – we now have Rockin’ Green Detergent, the beautiful bumGenius Artist Series diapers, Thirsties Duo Hemp Prefolds as well as a great new pail freshener called Shake it Up!

If you don’t already, make sure you are following us on Facebook to get up to date Sale info AND participate in our monthly giveaways!  Happy diapering :)

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Night Time Diapering…

Lots of people that we talk to that use cloth in the daytime tell us that they use some form of disposable at night.  The reasons are all over the place, need for dryness, not wanting to soak through, comfort, convenience, etc. 

I never minded changing a damp pair of pjs myself on the few occasions that my daughter would drink enough the night before (or throughout the night) to actually wet through, but then again I had a pretty airtight system in place. 

If dryness is your number one concern, a couple things can help:

Pocket diaper with a suede cloth outer such as bumGenius is a great choice – or a fleece liner (or both!)  Those will help wick the moisture into the diaper and away from your baby’s skin.

If absorbency is your main issue, then you probably have a super soaker like I did!  The materials that I found that absorbed the most moisture were

1. Hemp

2. Bamboo

The biggest issue I ever had with hemp is that if my daughter peed really fast or hard (all at once, when she got older) sometimes the hemp doesn’t absorb quickly enough.  That is why most hemp inserts are a combo of both hemp and cotton, the cotton has that quick absorbing ability and the hemp holds tons of moisture.

I couple of diaper combos that I found to work especially well at night – hemp or bamboo fitteds with an extra prefold or tri fold insert laid inside, all covered with an airtight cover (I used thirstiesor wool).  My other tried and true combo that I used for both night time and longer outings where changing might be tricky – a pocket diaper (we used BGs, Hugga Buns and Fuzzi Bunz) with double inserts, typically I would use the largest hemp insert that would fit in the diaper and then one of the micro fiber inserts that come with all the pocket diapers (microfiber on top of the hemp for the quick absorbency).  We very seldom had leaks!

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