Love SoftBums Blog: My Baby's First Month in SoftBums- Pitty's Intro

Meet Pitty & Meadowlark!

Hi Everyone I would like to start out by introducing myself. My name is Elizabeth, but everyone calls me Pitty. I live in the heart of wine country in beautiful Northern California. I have been married to my wonderful husband going on almost 6 years, but we have been together almost 10!

My husband and I own a small, but successful tattoo studio in which we both work at. He is a Tattoo Artist and I am a Body Piercer. We have 3 children in total. Our youngest is named Meadowlark Mae and was born August 9^th. Our next little girl is Tsunami Mae and she just turned 3 yrs. old in July. The oldest is 20 and lives in Montana with our handsome 1 yr. old grandson. I think we are a pretty normal family. We have 2 small family dogs named Monkey and Sharky. A 9 yr. old cat named Princess. And last but not least we own a 45lb Sulcata, Tortoise named Oliver who loves kids.

How I got into Cloth Diapers:

When I got pregnant I was so excited to be able to have the opportunity to use cloth diapers. With my first daughter we had moved around a lot and I really had not thought too much about using cloth until she was almost potty trained. I discovered SoftBums through a friend of mine who makes cloth diapers. She had made a post about the company and when I checked them out online I just fell in love. Not only with the prints, but the idea of being able to have them change sizes to grow with my daughter. At that point I was convinced that this was the brand for me. The next step was to convince the husband that we were going to cloth diaper. I looked up and did tons of research on how great it was for the planet and how much money they would save in the long run. And of course the fact they were so much softer to put on our little girls fresh new skin then some chemically infested piece of plastic. It worked he was on board!

Building a CD Stash:

My very first set of diapers that I received was straight from the SoftBums site bought by my mother-in-law. She got us the starter kit. When it arrived I was beyond amazed with how soft they were. That right there started what soon would become an addiction to SoftBums. I then went online and ordered a set from GoGo Naturals. By this point I was even more in love with my new diapers and just had to have more. I became a fan on the SoftBums SuperFans group and was introduced to the SoftBums B/S/T page. That became quite dangerous as I wanted to buy every used diaper that I saw come up for sale. It’s a good thing that I do have some self-control. I purchased several Omni and Echo shells from the site as well as some from the HTF page as well. I then ordered more pods from GoGo Naturals and received another set of diapers at my baby shower by a friend.

Here was the start to my stash:

14 Echo shells:

Sugar and Spice, Black Tie, Buttercup, Lilac, Brown Giraffes, Baby Safari, Midnight Owls, Berry Owls, Coconut, Chocolate, Sprout, Ocean, Yellow Aliens, Panda Bums

7 Omni Shells:

Miss Kitty, Firecracker, Peace-a-phants, Blue Alien, Cowies, Bubblegum, Sprout

Pods:

18- DryTouch small pods (minis), 18- DryTouch Superpods, 8- cotton prefolds as a just in case for laundry day

Prepping:

When I first got all my shells and pods I followed the prepping instructions on the SoftBums website. I put everything in my washer on a cold small cycle with a small amount of detergent. I used All free and clear at the time. I then ran them for 3 more cycles using hot water and at the highest water setting with no detergent. Last step was to put all the shells in the dryer on high for 10 minutes to seal them. I line dried all the pods and then threw them in the dryer for about 5 minutes to soften them up.

Storage & Organization:

I tried to figure out the best way to store my small stash of 20 shells and 36 pods. We would be using our pack and play for changing and nap time. So I tried a bin but found it was too bulky and was taking up too much room near the changing station. I finally decided on using an old wooden nightstand that we had lying around.

I put all the shells in the top drawer and all the pods and burp cloths in the second drawer.

Shells

Pods

I also placed a small basket on top of the nightstand to use for on hand shells and pods when changing. I was so excited that I had everything washed, prepped and ready to go. I then watched countless videos on how to size our shells, and what were the best pods to use for newborns. Read numerous blogs on trouble shooting leak issues as well as how to take care of rashes. At this point I was ready to start our adventure into the world of cloth diapering. I only needed one more thing, our little girl to be born.

We started cloth diapering Meadowlark at 1 week old weighing in at about 8 lbs.

At first I was not sure about how to get the perfect fit so would put on a diaper and then fix the toggles and hope for the best.

We had a couple of leaks here and there but nothing too much. It was mostly leg leaks because I think I had a couple of the diapers a bit too tight. During these weeks we only used echos because they are much more trim then the omnis.