Knocked Up – Knocked Over

my journey through pregnancy and hyperemesis gravidarum

Category Archives: Green Living


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We are Cloth Diapering!

At night anyway.

When Gabi was near potty training (around 2), we had to switch to cloth at night.  Not even the heavy-duty overnight disposables could make it through the night without major leaks.  When that happened, I called up my good friend Jess who owns a cloth diaper store and wrote a fantastic guest post for me last year on cloth diapering.

Jess got me set up right away with bamboo fitteds and PUL covers.  For those not in the know, fitteds refer to a simple diaper shaped cloth… well, diaper.  It’s all cloth (in this case bamboo), and so to prevent leaks, you need a cover over it.  The PUL is the leak-proof material that the cover is made from.

Fitteds are awesome (and please just pretend I know what I’m talking about here) because they’re super absorbent and can hold a whole lot of pee.  They worked fabulously for Miss Gabi, and our days of changing sheets every night became a thing of the past.

Katie has reached the point of diaper leaking much sooner.  I suspect this is probably because she nurses through the night every night where Gabi slept through from a much earlier age.

I am tired of changing sheets every day, and thankfully Juan is too.  Because of this, he has agreed to try cloth diapering at night for Miss Katie.  I was so excited to get out the sweet bamboo fitteds and the covers again.  I was pretty worried though.  Would they even fit?  We bought those for a 2-year-old!

Well, I’m happy to report that at 9 months, my freakishly large and adorable baby fits into her sisters 2-year-old diapers without a problem.  We’ve had her in cloth since Sunday night with nary a leak.

It will be a little different this time around.  Gabi was 2 and not wetting every night.  By that point she was well on her way to potty training.  Katie, obviously, is not potty trained.  This means my meagre stash of 3 fitteds and 2 covers is not going to cut it.

I need more diapers!

I’ve also decided to switch from the PUL covers to wool.  Unlike the plastic, wool breathes.  This is important going into summer with no air conditioning.  Seems a little counterintuitive that wool would be the coolest option in summer, but apparently it is the ideal option for moms in our area.  It also seems counterintuitive that a pair of knitted pants would hold pee and keep it from leaking.  I’m a little afraid.  I trust my friends, though, so when our brand new purple wool cover arrives on Friday, I’ll be excited to lanolize it and get it onto Katie.

Thanks, Juan, for your willingness to make this switch.

Katie in a Kooshie Kiesters fitted (no longer available) and a Thirsties cover


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Naturally Dyed Easter Eggs – The Answers

Last week, in celebration of Easter, Gabi and I dyed eggs using food-based ingredients.   Here’s a quick link in case you missed that post.  It was so much fun and a few of the colors were so surprising that I decided to make a game of it and let you guess which ingredients produced which colors.

Here’s that list of dye ingredients again:

  • Spinach
  • Beets
  • Turmeric
  • Purple Cabbage
  • Yellow Onion Skins
  • Blueberries
  • Paprika & Chili Powder

And here’s that picture with the numbered eggs:

Which egg is which?

 

I had a few people guess in the comments and several guess in real-life and via email.  So here are the answers!

# 1 - Onion skins. I love how the membranes of the onions left that pretty pattern on the shell.

#2 was blueberries. Look at the polka-dots left behind where the berries rested against the eggs!

#3 was spinach. I think if I had processed the spinach in a blender I might have gotten a greener color. But it's still so soft and pretty.

#4 was a blend of paprika and chili powder. Juan said that this one looked like marble.

#6 was beets. This one actually changed pretty significantly as it dried. It turned into a beautiful green and purple marbled effect which you can almost see in this picture.

#6 was turmeric. I loved how speckled this turned out!

#7 was purple cabbage. This one was such a pretty surprise! Who knew that the purple cabbage would turn blue!

I hope you all had a wonderful week this week!  Happy Easter, happy spring!

SAMSUNG


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Easter Eggs, Naturally! – and a game

I loved dying Easter eggs when I was a kid.  I loved the colors.  I loved the weird smell of the dye.  I loved eating them afterwards and feeling so lucky when I got one where the shell had cracked and the white was tinted a nifty color.  Easter eggs are so much fun.

I haven’t dyed Easter eggs in years!

This year, I decided it was time to start passing that tradition along to Miss Gabi.  But, like many of the things I’ve done over the last year and a half, I decided to see if there was a natural way to dye the eggs.  As it turns out?  There absolutely is!

This year, we dyed eggs with things in our pantry!

It was surprisingly easy.  Sure, it took a bit more work than the PAAS kits, but only a bit.  I just hard-boiled my eggs, researched my ingredients, dumped them into jars, and made my dye.

Here’s how to dye the eggs:

  1. Put a handful of the ingredient into the bottom of a large mason jar.
  2. Pour boiling water over the ingredient to fill the jar.
  3. Allow the ingredient to steep in the hot water until the water cools (several hours).
  4. Place the eggs in the jars and poke them right down to the bottom.  The dye will overflow, so do this over the sink.
  5. Leave them overnight in the fridge.
  6. Pull them out in the morning and take pictures to show your friends on the internet.

Pretty!

These turned out so well.  The colors are so soft and the various ingredients I used to dye gave a pretty marbled appearance.

Here’s a shot of the jars of dye in action:

From left to right we have: onion skins, paprika & chili powder, blueberries, beets, turmeric, spinach, and purple cabbage.

I probably would’ve gotten darker colors if I had boiled the dye ingredients for some time instead of just steeping them and letting them cool right away.

The Game – Guess which Dye made Which Egg

Gabi and I had such fun finding out what colors the dyes made.  There were some real surprises in there!  See if you can match the eggs to their dyes!

Here are the dye ingredients again:

  • A. Spinach
  • B. Beets
  • C. Turmeric
  • D. Purple Cabbage
  • E. Yellow Onion Skins
  • F. Blueberries
  • G. Paprika & Chili Powder

Here’s a shot of the eggs, numbered to make it easier:

Leave your answer in the comments.  Next week, I’ll post the answers and you can see if you got them right!

Happy Easter everyone!

SAMSUNG


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Hippie Hygiene Experiment # 1: Why (and how!) I wash my face with oil

I haven’t used soap on my face in over a month. Yeah, you read that right.  I haven’t washed my face with soap or any kind of cleanser at all in four weeks!  I haven’t had to use heavy moisturizers, I haven’t had breakouts, and my skin looks absolutely radiant.  How do I manage it? 

Oil.  That’s right.  Oil.  That’s all I use on my face.  No soaps, creams, toners, masks.  Just oil.

My favorite olive oil

Shortly after Katie was born, I started noticing that she seemed to break out when I put my fancy, expensive, anti-aging moisturizer on my face.  The days I didn’t wear the moisturizer, her face was clear.  The days I did, her cheeks broke out in itchy, red pinpricks that she would scratch and rub on. 

I had to do something.  Obviously, I wasn’t going to continue using something that my baby was clearly sensitive to.  For a while, I used coconut oil on my face with mediocre results.  She still broke out a little, and my face always felt kind of gritty.  My skin looked tired and dull.  I was perusing the Trader Joe’s toiletries section one day, and I came across a bottle of Jojoba oil.  “Good for oil cleansing,” the back of the bottle said.  I didn’t get it, but I did go home and do some googling.

And thus did I discover the Oil Cleansing Method.

Here’s the idea: Your skin is covered by natural oils that it needs to protect and nourish itself.  When we constantly strip the oils out with soap the skin either gets dried out or reacts by overproducing oils and breaking out.  It doesn’t make sense to strip out your skin’s healthy, natural oil only to replace it with a synthetic oil.  Instead, what if we simply gently released the excess oils, dissolve the dead skin cells clogging in pores, and allow your body to maintain its own natural level of moisture?  And what gently dissolves excess oil?  More oil!

Okay, do you think I am insane yet?  I’m not.  This really does work better than any skin care regimen I’ve tried.  To put things into perspective, I used to work at a cosmetics counter, and I’ve always used high-end department store skin care lines.  None of them ever worked as well as a cheap bottle of oil!

If you’d like to try it for yourself, here’s how

Before you get started cleansing your face, you need to mix your oil.  You will mix castor oil with a nourishing oil of some kind.  The castor oil releases the dead skin and unclogs pores while the nourishing oil moisturizes and soothes. 

Nourishing oil and castor oil

Some ideas for nourishing oils include:

  • Olive oil
  • Avocado oil
  • Sunflower oil
  • Jojoba oil

Don’t use coconut oil.  It will clog your pores!

Start with a 1:1 ratio of castor oil and nourishing oil.  If you find your skin is too dry afterwards, cut the amount of castor oil.  If you find your skin is too oily, increase the castor oil.  The beauty of this is that you can customize this so that it perfectly meets your skin’s needs.

Right now I use a 1:3 ratio of castor oil and avocado oil. I mixed it in a pretty glass dropper bottle that I got at my local natural food store so it’s easy to work with.

Please ignore the background and focus on how pretty the blue dropper bottle is

Once you’ve mixed the oil, it’s time to start cleansing!

  1. Put a quarter sized amount of oil into the palm of your hands and massage it into your face.  Pay attention to those really oily bits like your chin and those crevices behind your nostrils.
  2. Leave it to sit while you do something else like brush teeth, wrangle a kid into the tub, or change a diaper.
  3. Wet a wash cloth with very warm water (not so hot that you scald yourself, but as warm as is comfortable) and lay back on your bed with it over your face to steam your pores.
  4. Accept the belly slapping, wet willies, foot tickling, and zerberts that your family bestows upon you as they sense your helpless state.
  5. When the wash cloth has cooled off (a minute or so), sit up and gently wipe the excess oil of your face.  This is the hardest step.  Your instinct will be to wipe really hard to take all the oil off.  Don’t do this as this will dry out your face.  There should still be oil on your face.  This will soak in after a few minutes, leaving your face feeling comfortably fresh.

I do this every night.  Even with the kids and husband piling all over me, it still feels so luxurious.

In the morning, I just rinse my face very briefly in the shower.

Simple.

Some things I’ve discovered while doing this

  • Use old, cheap wash cloths, preferably ones that are big enough to cover your entire face.  They will get oily and the oil does leave stains on them.
  • Drip a few drops of blue Dawn dish detergent into the laundry cycle if you are having trouble with the oil not coming out.
  • Unless you are much more graceful than I am, don’t try to oil cleanse in the shower.  There’s nothing like stepping on the oil patch on the shower floor at 6 AM and busting your butt.
  • Don’t leave out the castor oil.  I tried this for a couple of days thinking it was the castor oil drying my skin out and my pores got really clogged and my skin started looking dull.  Turns out I just needed to wipe off the oil in a more gentle way.
  • Expect an adjustment period.  I don’t know if this was more about my skin adjusting to the oil cleansing or me needing to adjust to the way skin should feel in the wild.  Regardless, it took a few weeks for things to work themselves out and for me to feel really comfortable with the way my skin feels with all of this.
  • If you have trouble with dryness during the adjustment period, just use a little bit of the nourishing oil on its own to give your skin a moisture boost.

Have you tried cleansing your face with oil?  How did you do it and what was your experience?

 


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Look what came in the mail this week!

I went ahead and ordered the rest of my JustFussy cloth pads.  Remember, these were the awesome bamboo velour cloth pads I was trying out to see if I wanted to use for postpartum.  And remember how I fell in love with them?

Well, I ordered enough for postpartum, and they arrived on Thursday!

Aren’t they gorgeous?  And that bamboo velour is so, so soft.

And feel free to admire the quilt below as well.  My mom made that!  Nice, eh?  Love those batiks!

So here is my cloth pad count right now:

All in the most gorgeous colors!  I love, love, love those deep, saturated colors.

She was also sweet enough to send me an extra wool-backed panty-liner as well.  I love the wool backing.  For some reason, it stays much cooler and feels more breathable than a cotton-backed liner.

Depending on how often I find myself doing laundry, I’m hoping that this will be enough to cover my postpartum needs.  I don’t remember how much lochia I had to deal with last time, but Christy’s got a fantastic turn-around time.  If I need more, I can always order more!

One more thing I can check off my to-do list.


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Green Disposable Diapers – Part 3

Okay, folks.  My parents are in town from Texas for a visit, so I’m going to take the lazy way out of today’s post.  Actually, I really lucked into this.

Janet, over at A Pregnancy With Hyperemesis Gravidarum, did my homework for me today!  How cool is that?

She has done a fantastic write up of different green diaper comparisons.  She tried out all four of the ones I’ve looked at:

  • Earth’s Best
  • Nature Babycare
  • Huggies Pure and Natural
  • 7th Generation
Read this post!  It’s awesome!
Thanks so much Janet!  You’ve given me some fantastic information the help narrow down my diaper hunt!


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Green Sunday – Natural Ways to get Iron

This Green Sunday, I’ll be jumping off my previous posts of the week and talking about iron.  Since I recently found out that I’m pretty anemic, it seems like a good topic choice.

“Molly,” you might ask, “Why don’t you just get an iron pill?”

A very good and very important question.  I don’t get along well with iron supplements.  First and foremost, they aggravate the nausea.  It’s a huge part of the reason I do not take a prenatal vitamin.  The high iron just makes me ill.  They also can be very constipating, and believe me, I get enough of that from the Zofran.  Finally, they can be difficult for your body to absorb.

Nutritional supplements can be good, but often they pass right through your body.  The trick is to get your vitamins and minerals from food.  For the vitamins that I do take, I try my best to find companies that source theirs from foods.  New Chapter vitamins (my daily vitamin) are sourced from food.  So is Floradix, my new iron supplement.

Sourcing nutrients from food also means they’re easier on the stomach.  So far, I’ve not thrown up a New Chapter vitamin (everyone knock on wood!), and the Floradix seems to sit pretty well, too.

I would like to find some other ways to safely and gently incorporate iron into my diet through simple and easy changes to my eating.  Now, anyone who has had HG knows that this can be difficult.  Finding snacks that don’t make me sick can sometimes be a challenge, so I did what anyone would do!

I called my mom!

And when you call in my mom, she springs into action in a big way!  She pulled out her trusty copy of Prescription for Nutritional Healing and went straight to work looking up foods for me to try.  Some of the ones she listed included (but is not limited to):

  • Bananas
  • Apples
  • Dark leafy greens (NOT spinach)
  • Purple grapes
  • Plums and prunes
  • Carrots
  • Dried Apricots
  • Liver (yeah right!)
  • Meat
It also listed foods to avoid (also not limited to):
  • Milk
  • Cheese
  • Other dairy products
  • Sugars
  • Chocolate (damn!)
  • Spinach

Wait a second.  Avoid spinach?  Apparently so!  According to the book (and wikipedia backs this up), spinach contains a compound called oxalate that can block the absorption of iron.  Good to know!

I also asked the good folks over at the Natural Parents Network Facebook page for some gentle and natural ideas to help with adding iron into my diet.

Those ladies came through in a big way.  I got a big thumbs up on the Floradix, but they had some other suggestions as well.  I’m not sure how ready I am to try powdered colustrum or terramin clay (or where I can even find those things!), but they also suggested some simple things like:

  • Cast iron skillets (check!)
  • blackstrap molasses
  • Stinging nettle infusions (will have to check and see if that’s safe for pregnancy)
  • Avoid corn and wheat (not sure how well I can do that since I’m on a bread-heavy diet right now)
  • Fresh parsley
  • Turnip greens and carrot tops
  • Foods high in vitamin C to help the iron be absorbed into my body

The most appealing suggestion, though, was to try out some green smoothies to see if they are palatable to me.

Now I have to admit:  I was not exactly sure what a green smoothie is.

If you’re clueless like me, here’s the gist of it:  Green smoothies are a fruit-based smoothie into which is blended a leafy green of some sort.  This can be spinach, kale, chard, lettuce, dandelion greens, or anything else leafy and green.  They look green, but the flavor is that of the fruit

I swung by Trader Joe’s today, and here’s what I got for my green smoothie experiments:

  • Kale
  • Bananas
  • Apples
  • Strawberries
  • Fresh medley of cut pineapple, papaya, and mango
  • Orange juice
  • Coconut milk
  • Coconut water
  • Lemons
  • Limes
  • Unsulfered Prunes (can be soaked to reconstitute for blending)
I’ve also got in my pantry:
  • Organic blackstrap molasses
  • Flax meal (high in omega 3s)
  • Agave nectar (if I need to sweeten it)
Let the experimenting begin!


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Cloth Diapering – Part 2

I have mentioned before that my family doesn’t cloth diaper, but I do love the idea of cloth diapering.  It’s a great way to reduce your impact on the environment.  Because of this, I asked several of my friends to write guest posts about cloth diapering for my Green Sunday segment.  This is the second post in my cloth diaper series.  It was written by my good friend Jessica who owns Top to Bottom Baby Boutique in Omaha, Nebraska.  If you’re ever in the area, check out her new storefront!  She’s a fun lady and a great businesswoman.

Owning a natural parenting and cloth diapering store usually garnishes a lot of questions:  What started me cloth diapering?  Why did we decide to open the business?  And what do I find the most challenging?  Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of stories from moms and dads on why they started or what stopped them.  These stories, always intrigue me, because I love seeing what cloth diapering means to families.  One of the most popular questions I get is “How in the world am I suppose to use cloth when both my husband and I work full-time”.  This one always makes me chuckle, because it is my favorite topic!

Let me warn you, this always starts me on the discussion of laundry.  And just so we are clear, I hate laundry.  I’m not even sure that hate is a strong enough word.  Luckily, early on, I was able to convince Justin that it should be one of his tasks!  And I have dealt with shrunken clothes, things that have turned blue, etc in order to avoid laundry.  But diaper laundry I will do!  I love diaper laundry because I don’t have to sort, fold, or put away…though my good friend Maia does all of those for her diapers!

Justin and I have always both worked, and for the longest times we were on opposite shifts to avoid full-time daycare.  It made it very hard to avoid laundry duty.  When we began cloth diapering, we used a local diaper service.  After a couple of weeks we were having issues with leaks and I started looking for other options.  What I found was the wonderful world of fitteds, beautiful covers, and all around cute diapers.  Cuter than Cadence was wearing at that point.  As my research continued, we decided to move away from using the service and begin washing our own.  Two kids and three years later we opened our own store because there were no local options that allowed me to play with diapers (and as my husband tells everyone, I’m just not patient enough to wait for the mail to arrive).

With both kids in diapers, we knew we needed enough diapers to get through about two days.  Our diapers weren’t always pretty, but they were functional.  I would throw them in the wash after the kids went to bed and then into the drier before I went to sleep.  And inevitably, they ended up in a basket the next morning and that is where they stayed (I warned you, I don’t fold them!)  Diaper wash, in case you are wondering, is easy peasy–throw in everything, rinse, add soap (I love Rockin Green) and wash on hot, toss in the drier (or like our partner Robyn, hang up to dry).  I always warn everyone that it is a good idea to have a couple extra prefolds and a cover around for the inevitable time that you forget to do laundry until you put the last diaper on the kids (or when you are taking that last diaper OFF!).  Justin and I once had to fashion a diaper out of his t-shirt because I had managed to forget to switch the diapers to the dryer.  I’m not sure he found it as amusing as I did.

I’m sure at this point you are wondering about daycare.  We used two different daycares during our last 3 years and numerous trips to grandmas, so I have learned a very important lesson–most people think prefolds and plastic pants when you tell them you are going to cloth diaper.  We realized early on that it was easier to show them the types of diapers we planned to use then hope they knew what we were talking about.  I always tell moms it is important to take a diaper with you when you go meet a new daycare.  I usually also recommend using a Pocket or an All in One diaper because they are the most like disposables.  I am not a big fan of pockets, because it requires stuffing the inserts in the diapers.  I lose inserts like I lose socks (ie my hatred for laundry) so I tend to steer clear of these!  If I could, I would redo my stash in Bummis Tot Bots and Itti Bitti Tuttos but at this point with 2 kids who are potty trained except at night I am having a hard time convincing Justin that I need all new diapers!

Natural diapering is an option for everyone, working or stay at home parents.  Some parents go for the full cloth diaper experience, others use a mixture of cloth with disposable inserts (Gro-Via and Flip both make disposable inserts that can be used with the cloth covers), or the eco-friendly disposables (G-Diapers or Gro-Via bio diapers).  All of these are great options for parents.  There are so many options out there that everyone can find something they enjoy!


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Update on the Green Disposable Diaper Search

A few weeks ago, I told you all how we are searching for a more earth-friendly/baby-friendly disposable diaper option.  You can read that post here: Green Disposable Diapers?

As a part of that search, I wanted to see, in person, the different diapers and wipes sold by the main producers of “green” disposable diapers.  To that end, I emailed the four companies requesting samples of their diapers:

At this point, almost two weeks have passed, and here’s where things stand:

I heard almost immediately from 7th Generation.  The emailed me right away to thank me for my interest and let me know that they had mailed me some samples.  Sure enough, within a few days, a large envelope arrived in my mailbox (hand addressed I might add) with 2 newborn size diapers, 2 size 1 diapers, and a small package of 3 wipes.  Perfect!  This is exactly what I needed!  This lets me get my hands right on the diapers and wipes to feel them, smell them, see if there’s a scent or fragrance that bothers me, and just generally get to know the product!  They included a few coupons for diapers and other 7th Generation products.

Thanks 7th Generation!  This really helps me!  I appreciate the quick response and I appreciate your willingness to go further than what I requested to try to accommodate and win a potential new customer.  As someone who works in customer service myself, I appreciate this.  It’s good salesmanship, and it predisposes me to feel favorably about the product.

I also heard back from the Nature Babycare folks.  Here is the email they sent me:

Thanks for taking the time to contact us.  We certainly appreciate your interest in Nature babycare as we do have the “greenest” diapers on the market.  (See attached FAQ’s)

We receive hundreds of emails from people requesting free samples.  We have limited resources as we are a very small company and want to keep the costs to a minimum so that we can pass that savings on to you.  The best and most environmentally friendly way “to try” Nature babycare is to purchase from one of our online retailers who offer our items at a very reasonable price, some offer additional discounts/specials and free shipping with qualifying orders.  Visit www.Diapers.com, www.Amazon.com or www.Naturebabycare.com as well as others.

Please feel free to sign up at our website www.naturebabycare.com (envelope icon, use your email address) for postings regarding product announcements, upcoming news, specials and coupons. 

In the interest of brevity and privacy, I omitted the signature.  It was signed by an actual person.  I just don’t want to plaster her name all over the internet without her permission because that doesn’t seem like a very nice thing to do.

So, okay.  I can understand this.  I get that they’re a small company.  Totally respect that.  On the other hand, part of me is thinking, “Really?  You don’t have one diaper sitting around there that you could pop into an envelope?”

Let’s be real, though.  I am writing these companies asking for free stuff.  I’m not asking for a ton of free diapers (just one!), but still, it’s a rough economy, so I respect that a company can’t necessarily afford to send a diaper to every single person.  It does annoy me–in that slightly unreasonable, customer is not always right kind of way–that basically told me I’m going to have to go out and buy a whole big pack of these diapers.

But, check out what I did manage to find just this very moment as I was writing this post:  You can go to diapers.com and buy a sample of the Nature Babycare diapers!  For $0.99!  Who knew?  I wish the customer service rep from Nature Babycare had mentioned that in her email.  When I got her email, I imagined that I would have to get a whole pack of 70+ diapers.  Imagine my relief now in seeing that I can just get a little sample here!  Good news!  If she had said that in the first place, it would have been a lot more helpful.

I have not heard from the Huggies or the Earth’s Best folks, which annoys me slightly.  The good news again, is that I can pick up $0.99 Earth’s Best diaper sample from the sample area at diapers.com.  It comes with a free sample of their rice cereal.  We very adamantly do not do rice cereal, so that’ll get donated.  No biggie.  The bad news is that for the Huggies, I don’t see a sample option.  I’m not through looking, but it’s just not apparent at this point. 

The lack of a sample from Huggies doesn’t break my heart, but I don’t want to have to buy 30 diapers just so I can look at one.  I know if I hate them I can just donate them, but we disliked Huggies so much when Gabi was a baby, I’m not sure I’m interested in going out of my way to try these out.

Right now, I want to wait to get the diaper samples in before I really start trying them out.  I want to be able to look at them all side-by-side to see how they compare.  I want to do things like put them on one of Gabi’s dolls to see how they fit, pour water into them, and just generally mess around with them to get a better idea of how they work.

Of course, I will keep you all posted, so stay tuned for the continuing saga!


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My Favorite Things Green Edition: JustFussy Cloth Pads

To my gentleman readers: If feminine hygiene makes you squeamish, you may want to skip this post.

I mentioned greening your period way back when I first started doing the Green Sunday thing.  Menstruation isn’t really an issue right now for me, but with the birth coming up, I wanted to go ahead and order a few cloth pads to try them out.  Since Diva Cups and the like aren’t an option postpartum, I need to find an alternative to dealing with lochia and other postpartum discharge.

With this in mind, I acted on a tip I received from a fellow poster on the Kellymom.com forums and contacted Christy of JustFussy which is a mom-owned business specializing in cloth menstrual pads, cloth diapers, reusable nursing pads, and undies.

I wasn’t completely sure.  I’ve used Gladrags before to back up my diva cup, and they were nice, but I didn’t love them, if that makes sense.  What I wanted was something more like the really nice cloth diapers with the ultra-soft and cushy insides.

JustFussy delivers the cushiness I wanted and more!  I wasn’t sure what I should get, so I emailed Christy directly and explained that I was looking for something for postpartum.  She was fantastic.  She recommended trying a few of the pads first to get a feel for them and decide which ones worked best.  So that’s exactly what I did!

Here’s what I ended up getting from her:

Christy was also kind enough to throw in

With the exception of the ultralight daily liner and the cloth rounds, the pads I got from Christy are made from bamboo velour with a wool backing.

This worried me.  First of all, the only velour I’ve ever worn was polyester and it tended to be hot.  Also, wool?  ’Scuse me while I drop an ice pack down my pants! *phew!*  Too much heat!  I’m a cotton girl all the way!  But I trusted my cloth diapering friends and I decided to give it a shot.

I am so glad that I did!

Let me tell you first of all how well these guys breathe.  Both the bamboo and the wool keep me feeling much cooler and fresher than even just my plain underwear!  When it comes to moisture (and yes, this is a serious issue during pregnancy), the bamboo wicks the moisture straight into the very absorbent wool backing.

What I’ve discovered is that the cotton pads I was using had been holding the moisture against my skin.  This left me feeling… not so fresh, let’s say.  It was quite a revelation to wear the Moonbow pads.  A very different  and much more pleasant experience.

Another thing I like about these pads is how they feel on.  I simply do not wear pads.  Before I switched to the Diva Cup, I used tampons.  Pads just were never something I liked.  For me they were hot, itchy, and smelly.  Gladrags were better, but they were bulky and still left me feeling gross and stinky.

I was pretty worried that these would be so bulky that I wouldn’t be able to deal with them.  Once again, Christy proved me wrong!  None of these pads feel particularly thick and bulky.  The velour keeps them soft and cool feeling on the fanny, and the wool allows them to be very absorbent without adding to the bulk.  Even the large, which really is overkill for right now, is still as comfortable as the thin little Moonbow liner.  I tried the XL pad last week because the others were all in the wash, and while that one certainly was bulky (4 layers of absorption anyone?) it was no more bulky than the Gladrags and definitely cooler and more comfortable.  I’m glad to know I don’t have to be scared of that one for postpartum.

The wingless Moonbows are really nice.  Later on they’ll act as boosters, but for now, I can just stick them in my undies like a regular pad.  The wool on the back keeps them from crawling out the back of my jeans, which has happened with the Gladrags when I use the boosters alone as a liner.  I have to be careful when I use the restroom so that they don’t fall in the toilet, but like the others, they do the job.  Right now they’re back up pads, later they’ll be boosters.  Christy also recommended soaking these in witch hazel and placing them in the fridge to help soothe that sore postpartum bottom.  Sounds like a fantastic idea to me!

Aside from the comfort, these pads are really pretty.  I’m such a sucker for color and JustFussy Moonbows deliver on that end as well.  I mean, it’s in the name!  Get it?  Moonbow?  Rainbow?  The fabrics are all hand-dyed, and I can tell you that several washings later, they’re still the same rich jewel tones that they were in the beginning.  Now I’m not saying you should throw your raspberry pads into the washer with your white shirts.  That’s just never a good idea.  But they have, thus far, not caused a problem in our laundry.  If you prefer, there is an undyed option as well.

I really, really love these pads.  I can’t wait to get more.  In addition to the one that I tried there is a Large Extra Moonbow pad that looks like it would be great for those heavier days.  It’s the size of the large, but has the same four layers as the XL.

All-in-all, I really can’t say enough good things about these pads.  I’m so glad I got brave enough to give them a shot.  They really are wonderful and you should definitely give them a try.

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