Cloth Diapering at Night

When talking about cloth diapering the question often comes up – What do you do at night? Is it possible to get adequate absorbency and leak-protection overnight with cloth diapers?

Yes! It’s not only possible – it’s actually pretty simple.

Help keep these out of the landfill!

The Real Diaper Association polled experienced cloth-diapering parents and created a tip sheet for night-time cloth diapering. We’re expanding on their basic advice – start with good absorbency, add good moisture resistance and finish with simple tweaks to adjust for your baby – with some specific product recommendations.

We selected the following products based on our collective personal experience in cloth diapering (4 mamas, 6 kids, 14 years), the experience of our friends and customer feedback. These items are all ethically made in the U.S. and meet our standards for sustainability and quality. We’ve used these products on our own babies and believe that they are truly the best – for you, your baby and the planet.

1. Start With Good Absorbency

Growing Greens Hemp & Organic Cotton Fitted Diaper

This diaper rocks for both absorbency and coverage. Hemp is more absorbent than cotton and is naturally anti-fungal and antibacterial – making it a great material for cloth diapers. Growing Greens fits babies from 5 to 35 lbs using a snap-system to adjust the size of the diaper. For newborns use just the contoured insert that converts to a snap-in doubler later.

Pair the Growing Greens diapers with wool soakers  for breathable, all-night protection that even works for heavy-wetters. This style of diaper is also excellent for babies who sleep on their sides; that extra bit of absorbency in the hip area makes all the difference.

Sprout Change Hemp & Organic Flat Diaper

For the mamas (and papas) who love their flat or prefold diapers, the Sprout Change diaper is a great option for overnight cloth diapering. Made from 55% super-absorbent hemp and 45% organic cotton fleece, the Sprout Change is soft, trim and highly effective. Each diaper comes with a 100% organic cotton fleece sleeve that can be used to add an extra layer of absorbency as well.

We love using this diaper with Polar Babies Fleece Diaper Covers at night; it will also work in any diaper cover that works with prefold diapers.

2. Add Good Moisture Resistance

Babee Greens Wool Soakers

Wool is like a miracle fabric for overnight cloth diapering. It’s natural, soft and breathable, so it’s more comfortable for your baby. Wool can absorb a lot of moisture without feeling wet, and the lanolin present in wool fibers creates a natural moisture barrier – so you won’t have to worry about leaks. Long or short wool soakers (pull-on wool pants or shorts) work best with fitted diapers or prefolds that have been pinned (or snappied).

Polar Babies Fleece Diaper Covers

Polar Fleece diaper covers are another great night-time diapering alternative. The outer fleece is soft and breathable and a laminated inner panel prevents moisture from escaping but still allows air to circulate. The microfiber leg-bindings on these covers are soft and comfortable while still being snug enough to prevent leaks. These covers are really easy to care for – machine wash and dry – and they dry quickly. We recommend using this cover with a hemp/cotton flat or prefold diaper.

Babee Greens Wool Diaper Cover

These beautiful diaper covers give you all the coverage and breathability of wool soakers but are designed for use with flat or prefold diapers. The outside layer is constructed from super-soft, upcycled wool sweaters, the inside layer is made from Oeko Tex 100 certified Merino Wool, with three rows of snaps to ensure you get a good, leak-proof fit for your baby.

3. A Couple of Tweaks to Perfect Your System

Now that you’ve addressed absorbency and moisture resistance, you’re almost done. Our final suggestion is to add a diaper liner or barrier cream to help keep your baby’s skin dry overnight. We love these options:

Polar Babies Hemp & Microfleece Diaper Liner

The ultra soft microfleece side of this liner goes face-up, so it’s next to your baby’s skin. Moisture passes through the fleece, keeping baby’s skin dry and comfortable. The hemp/cotton blend layer on the other side of the liner helps wick the moisture through and adds an extra bit of absorbency.

Babee Greens Wool Diaper Liner

Once again, wool’s amazing ability to absorb moisture without feeling wet saves the night. This wool diaper liner will add a bit of absorbency to your diaper while also wicking moisture away from your baby’s skin.

Magical Childe Bunbutter

We love this product so much that we should probably just marry it. We’ve carried (and used) it for years and it is by far our favorite diaper balm. Sweet Almond, Olive Oil and Beeswax based and infused with healing herbs, it is safe for your baby, safe for your diapers and it creates an effective moisture barrier to protect baby’s skin.

We hope these tips and recommendations help you along the way to successful night-time cloth diapering. Please feel free to ask questions or share tips of your own in the comments. Happy Diapering!

Click here for more cloth diapers at Bootyland

Sustainable Urban Fasion: Eco-Friendly Goods for City Living

The sign outside our shop says  Bootyland: Sustainable Urban Fashion, and we’ve been using that as a tagline in our advertisements for years. But what exactly do we mean by “sustainable urban fashion”?

Sustainability has been the guiding principle of everything we do here at Bootyland for over ten years now.  This is the definition we use:

Sustainable: A resource that meets present needs without compromising those of future generations.

Which is great – but we want you all to know how we translate this idea into action.  One major way we practice sustainability is in our vendor and merchandise selection. We made this pie chart to illustrate how our current vendors fit into Bootyland’s sustainability categories.

Look, we made a chart!

As you can see, the majority of the companies we buy from use either Organic Fabrics (like cotton, bamboo and hemp) or other Eco-Friendly Materials (like sustainably harvested wood, natural rubber and non-toxic paints).

We are also committed to supporting local artisans and local economies. 12% of our vendors are local designers, crafters and artists who are producing their merchandise right here in the Pacific Northwest. We feel lucky to be able to showcase so many beautiful, handmade items in our store.

Recycled and Upcycled content is a growing part of our business – 9% of our current vendors are using recycled and upcycled materials.

Flood Hat - made from upcycled materials!

Upcycling is a kind of recycling – designers take gently-used garments apart and use the materials to create something new. Flood Hats and Ricicli Clothing are two examples of designers using upcycled materials.

The final category is small but important. Living in Seattle means needing rain gear, but most raincoats and pants are made from vinyl (PVC).

Vinyl off-gasses toxic fumes, contains endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and is difficult to recycle, so we are excited to be able to offer PVC-free rain coats, pants, hats and mitts that are certified to be free of over 100 harmful chemicals. And they’re comfortable and cute! Our rainboots are also PVC-free and fully recyclable.

The Bootyland Crew scours the world looking for great products that fit our criteria. And we look at the manufacturing process as well as the materials, only purchasing from companies who treat their workers fairly.  We practice sustainability in other ways too – all of the paper products we use are recycled, we use soy based inks in our printing,  eco-friendly lighting in the store and we even clean up with green cleaning products. We want you to have an awesome time while you’re here, and be able to leave with a clear conscience.

So now you know what we mean by Sustainable. In my next post, I’ll talk about “urban fashion” and how you don’t have to sacrifice style to be eco-friendly.

PVC-Free Rain Gear @ Bootyland

It’s that time of year again in Seattle – rainy season. The weather is turning colder and the clouds are back, but the kids still need to go outside and play. We’ve got great options to keep your little ones safe and dry while they have fun splashing in the puddles.

Puddlegear by Abeko is made of a soft, light, tear-resistant fabric called Atek. Atek is a polyurethane-coated stretch fabric that is wind and watertight. It is PVC free and is certified by Oxo-Tex to be free of 100 harmful chemicals. It is light, comfortable and flexible so it’s great for active kids, and it’s easy to launder which is nice for parents.

Why PVC Free?

Lots of kids’ rain gear is made from PVC, so what’s the big deal?

According to the Center for Health Environment and Justice,

PVC (polyvinyl chloride) plastic, commonly referred to as vinyl, is one of the most hazardous consumer products ever created.  PVC is dangerous to human health and the environment throughout its entire life cycle, at the factory, in our homes, and in the trash.

Our bodies are contaminated with poisonous chemicals released during the PVC lifecycle, such as mercury, dioxins, and phthalates, which may pose irreversible life-long health threats.  When produced or burned, PVC plastic releases dioxins, a group of the most potent synthetic chemicals ever tested, which can cause cancer and harm the immune and reproductive systems.

PVC is also full of toxic additives that off-gas or leach out of products. These additives are harmful to our health and they also make it nearly impossible to recycle most PVC products.

Puddlegear by Abeko is a safe alternative to raincoats and pants made from PVC. We have raincoats and pants available now in select colors and sizes, and we are able to special order other colors, sizes and styles as well.

Adorable Alpaca Hand Puppets

If you’ve ever been in Bootyland, you’re probably familiar with the rack of sweet little alpaca wool finger puppets that lives near the cash register. These puppets are so cute and so soft – they’re practically irresistible. Our customers love to play with them while we ring up their purchases…and I’m not talking about the kids.

Now finger puppets are great fun, but sometimes you just gotta have a hand puppet for your puppetry needs. So I’m excited to tell you that we now have four different hand puppets available in the same soft alpaca wool.

Just like the finger puppets, these hand puppets are hand knit by women in the Andes of Peru in an artisan workshop that follows fair trade practices. The yarn is hand spun from organic raw alpaca and is machine washable.

The four hand puppets available are:  Zebra, Dog, Giraffe and Rabbit and they retail for $20.00. They meet or exceed ASTM safety regulations and are for ages 2 and up.

organic kids clothing for back to school

We have been searching for hip, eco and organic kids fashions (as always) and we recently found a company that makes eco-friendly clothing for boys and girls, sizes 2-12, manufactured in the USA.

It has become common to buy local and
organic produce; we are also trying to bring that focus into other areas. Many people have not considered the clothing industry as an area where we can be more eco-friendly, but we can by choosing organic cotton, hemp, soy or bamboo clothing made with low-impact dyes.

Conventional cotton is one of the most chemically-dependent crops, sucking up 10 percent of all agricultural chemicals and 25 percent of insecticides.  This is hard on the enviornment as well as on anyone who works with the fiber or the thread or the eventual fabric and garments themsleves.
With all of that in mind we are happy to have found a great line that brings in organic, green spun, and upcycled fabrics. They do it with style and have kids clothes from 2 to 12. So your eco- conscious family can find a hip urban style that is ethically produced and made in the USA.  Sustainable Kids donates $1.50 of every purchase to the Hands and Feet Project’s Children’s Village in Haiti. The company also supplies a box with prepaid shipping to Haiti, for kids and parents to fill with small donations, teaching the value of community support.

Prevent Lice Organically

Rosemary Repels Lice

Yesterday we talked about what to do when you find out your kid has lice. Now I want to tell you how to keep the bugs away.

Back when I was in elementary school, kids got sent home if lice were found in their hair. And they weren’t allowed to come back until all the lice and nits were gone. But that’s not the case today in most  schools.

According to Seattle Schools Health Services, “a student who is found with lice may stay in school and in class until the end of the day.” Which is not a big deal really, since lice are not harmful…just really, really, aggravating. Lice don’t jump or fly, so as long as an infested student keeps their head away from other student’s heads, and they don’t share hats, clothing, or brushes…it should be fine. Right.

Sure, that’s great…in theory. But my first-grader can’t help but hug her friends,  they all love to play dress-up and snuggle up together in the “quiet corner” reading books. There’s no way of knowing how many head lice outbreaks occur in a school year, because it’s not a “reportable” situation so no one keeps track. I’ve heard estimates of 6 to 12 million cases per year nationwide though. That’s a lot of nitpicking.

So what can you do to help prevent your child from bringing home the little buggers?

Fairy Tales Hair Care’s Rosemary Repel products contain essential oils that have been shown to repel head lice and other insects. The line is available as a shampoo, creme conditioner, styling gel, and leave-in conditioning spray. I’ve been using the leave-in conditioning spray on my daughter’s hair for the past 8 months, and since then we’ve escaped several school head lice outbreaks.

Bootyland has had lots of great feedback about these products from desperate parents who were at their wit’s end about the whole lice situation. Plus, the products are gentle and leave hair soft and shiny.

Say Goodbye to Lice…Without Pesticides

Lice Good-Bye

So your kid brought home the dreaded “lice letter” from school today, and sure enough, she has lice.  What do you do now?

All the moms at Bootyland have been through this, and we feel for you. We’ve found a great product that will help you eliminate lice and nits (eggs) without harsh chemicals – and it really works.

Fairy Tales Lice Good-Bye is a non-toxic, pesticide-free mousse that uses naturally occurring enzymes to remove lice and their nits from the hair.

If you’ve dealt with head lice in the past, you might be skeptical of this claim. How can it possibly get rid of lice without using poison?

The thing is, killing off the live lice isn’t the major hurdle to getting rid of a lice infestation. The adult lice and their nymphs can be stunned motionless, making them easy to comb out of the hair, but the nits are glued to the hair shaft, making them quite difficult to remove.

This is where the Lice Good-Bye product really shines. The mousse stuns the adult lice and then the enzymes work s to loosen the nits so they can be combed out quite easily. Pesticide-containing lice shampoos can’t do this – even if they do kill the lice, you’re still left with the arduous task of “nit picking.”

Removing all of the nits is the key to getting rid of head lice. Lice Good-Bye helps you accomplish this without exposing your child to toxic chemicals, and is available at Bootyland in Seattle, WA.

Please feel free to contact us with questions at (206) 328-0636, or email us at info@bootylandkids.com

Say No to Bugs

How can you tell if your child has head lice? The most telling symptom is head-scratching, but sometimes kids don’t start itching until the infestation is bad. During the school year, we check our daughter’s head once a week, just to be safe. Check behind the ears and at the nape of the neck. You’re looking for nits – small, grayish-brownish, oval shaped eggs attached to the hair shaft near the scalp. Nits are hard to remove, unlike dandruff flakes. Other signs

This is your enemy - destroy!

are red bite-marks, swollen lymph nodes, and feeling creepy-crawlies on your head. Lice and nits are hard to see, so check in bright (preferably natural) light. I like to just run the lice comb through my kid’s hair when she’s done washing it – it’s easier than trying to see them in her hair.