Blog — parenting

Many of our customers have expressed their sadness at the discontinuation of the Perfect Size FuzziBunz diaper. Some say that they truly do offer the “perfect fit:” trim and slim and easy to pop on and off. And we share your sadness, and agree that they were a great product, but there is a reason why the Perfect Size aren’t selling anywhere near as well as our new First Year Adjustable diapers (which are now our best-selling diaper!).

Our First Year Adjustable diapers are designed to fit children from about 6 - 24 pounds, or approximately newborn - 18 months. This means that you are able to size the diapers to the equivalents of our Newborn Perfect Size, Small Perfect Size, and the smaller end of our Medium Perfect Size diapers! This also means that it will save you a lot of money since you don’t have to keep sizing up like you would need to with our Perfect Size diapers.

The First Year Adjustable diapers are nice and trim in the crotch - no more spread-eagle babies who can’t close their legs due to a bulky diaper! This also offers more flexibility to the kiddos who are starting to move and groove. They have the same super soft interior fleece, sturdy PUL, and strong snaps that the Perfect Size diapers do, with the added benefit of fitting your baby perfectly at multiple stages and sizes.

Our Adjustable diapers are the most customizable multi-size diapers in the industry, 3-times more to be exact! This is due to our Fantastic Elastic® system. The waist and leg elastics are fully adjustable to give your child the most perfect fit for his or her individual body type. This means security and protection against leaks. They are also fully removable so that when the elastics finally wear out, you don’t have to throw the whole diaper away or spend frustrating amounts of time ripping seams and sewing new elastics in! Simply take the old elastics out, put fresh ones in, and your diaper comes back to springy, well-fitting life!

There are some days when I feel like I can't get anything done. My house is a mess; my kids want to play, but I don't have the time; meals consist of bacon and eggs because it's quick, easy, and I know my kids will eat it.... etc cetera and so on. Then there are days when I feel like Super-Awesome Mom, and I come up with all kinds of ridiculously awesome things for the kids to do while I clean my house till it sparkles and make a huge, nourishing, delicious meal. I'd like to share some of those awesomely creative ideas here, and I would like to hear about some of YOUR awesomely creative ideas, too, because it's nice to share. 1. Build a Fort! I know, most of you have probably built forts for your kiddos, but it never gets old! We have built some pretty epic forts using the couch, the kitchen table chairs, huge blankets, pillows, those big giant foam blocks, and whatever else is sturdy that will hold things together. One of my girls' favorite things to do is lay a blanket down underneath the "roof" of their fort and have a snack while watching their favorite movie. They also like to play pirates, which brings me to my second idea... 2. Build a Pirate Ship! I sometimes fulfill orders for returns/replacements from my home office, and sometimes when I receive an office supply order it will come in a big box with these really huge flaps on them. I took one of these the other day and made a super fun pirate ship out of it! We made portholes, a pirate flag (because you have to have one of those) and the girls spent quite a lot of time coloring the inside and outside of the ship. I had planned to attach one of their Barbies to the front of the boat as the figurehead, but we got so wrapped up in everything else that we forgot. Remember the figurehead! Note: Boxes can be used for so much more than pirate ships. One day we put together a pretty large box-building with really random sections. I hung long socks from the interior "ceiling" of the main box so that it would tickle the girls as they crawled through, and we had another section dedicated to Weeble Wobbles, and another section dedicated to talking on the "box phone." You get the idea, and it was a blast! 3. Paint the Bathtub You may have just cringed reading that, but allow me to elaborate: I allowed the girls to bring their watercolors into the bathtub one day, and they had so much fun! The bath water swirled with color, they used their fingers to make pictures on the tiled wall, and they painted whiskers and cheetah spots and all sorts of things on eachother which rinsed right off because they were already taking a bath. 4. Make Magic Water Fill up a water-table or other big, clean vessel with water, a little Dr. Bronner's, and some glitter. During the warmer months, the kids love splashing around and washing their bikes in the "magic soap." The glitter sparkles in the sunlight and their hands splashing around make more bubbles! The girls literally play with their water table for at least an hour usually. And as an added bonus they're clean when they come inside! 5. Create Nature Bouquets My girls love picking flowers, and I don't blame them! It's fun to go out into nature and gather interesting-looking greens and beautiful flowers. In our yard, we tend to have a lot of Yarrow, Dandelion, Bluets, Wild Mint, Clover, Sweet Grass, and other various grasses that I haven't yet identified. Put the bouquets in a little mason jar or other vase (or you can decorate your own.... another creative idea!) and enjoy the bounty of nature for days to come. These are just a few ideas, though there are thousands of others. What are some of your favorite crafty ideas to help your kids have fun during "boring spells?"

Time alone. Oh how glorious that time is... how relaxing... how rejuvenating... and how utterly INFREQUENT. But, oh, when that time does come, how I revel in it. How I relish it! How I bask in it's rare and shimmering splendor. And do you want to know what I do with this heavenly time? As of late, I have been known to lounge luxuriously in bed with whatever edible delight I happen to fancy in the moment (like really salty tortilla chips... apples with honey and cinnamon... spoonfuls of nut butter with dapples of chocolate chips... ), watching whatever the hell I want on Netflix. No Caillou fo' YOU! I might get creative and sit down to draw something worthy of a picture frame.... like a tattoo design for my uncle! I often find myself turning on my favorite music and.... CLEANING! (Wait, what? Cleaning???) It's true. You know why? Because for once, I can get really into what I'm doing and not be interrupted by little people wanting to eat or be picked up or have a fight mediated or all of those other needs that are totally valid and important, but oh so distracting when I have my hands in a toilet bowl. Plus, once a room is clean, it will actually stay clean for the entire duration of the time that I'm all by myself. On really nice, warm days,  when the flowers are blooming and white fluffy clouds are lazily drifting overhead, I will go out onto my front deck, hang up a big towel so the neighbors can't see me, and lie naked in that nourishing sunlight. This is one of the truly luxurious things that I do (though not nearly as often as I'd like) when I get time alone. As I lie there, I express gratitude for the solitude. I give thanks for all of the blessings and opportunities in my life, and affirm that I am worthy and open to receive even more. And then I eat cookies. I have had to break the habit of frantically trying to figure out what activity would be the most fulfilling to me, knowing that my time alone is limited. For awhile I would find myself pacing around the house, contemplating whether to clean, cook, watch a movie, go for a walk, paint my toenails, etc. because ideally I wanted to do all of those things, but in reality I'd have to pick and choose. In the end, I would accomplish nothing except hastily cleaning up something and then starting a movie that I wouldn't be able to finish while worrying that I'm not doing something else that I'd like doing better. Not very fulfilling. What I learned is that whatever I feel like doing most in the moment - whether it is starting an involved arts and crafts project, cleaning my house uninterrupted, or sitting on my arse the entire time watching episode after episode of American Horror Story, the fact is that it's what brings me the most joy and relaxation, and so I do it. No guilt. No regrets. Just pure, unadulterated bliss.... and cookies. So now I want to know: what do YOU do when you can do whatever you want?

Sleep deprivation. It seems rampant among parents of infants and toddlers. In our foggy, groggy, bleary-eyed quest to get more sleep, some of us feel desperate to find "the one thing" that will finally get our children to sleep through the night. One of the most controversial methods that has gotten quite a lot of attention over the past few years is the "Cry-It-Out" method. In a nutshell, you allow your baby/toddler to cry until they fall asleep. This method can enlist different variations which included intermittent comforting, or "camping out," when you stay with the child as they cry themselves to sleep. When I first read about this method - almost five years ago - I was horrified. I could not imagine leaving my daughter in her room to cry until she exhausted herself and "gave up." At one point when I was desperate for sleep (my daughter woke up every 45 minutes to an hour to nurse until she was almost a year old), I tried letting her stay in her room for 10 minutes while she cried to see if she would fall asleep. It was the longest 10 minutes of my life, and she didn't go to sleep. She actually got more and more upset until she almost threw up. I felt awful. This topic is something that I really had to research because I never followed the method and so I couldn't say 100% whether it was beneficial or not. And the truth is, there will always be those who say it works and is harmless, and others who stand firm that it will cause long-term damage. From the research I did, however, science seems to prove that it is detrimental. Did you know that children's brains grow the most during the first year of life? That all of the synapses and neurons and electrical signals that form the basis for an intelligent, independent, emotionally-balanced child form from touch? Darcia Narvaez (Professor of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame and Executive Editor of the Journal of Moral Education.) states: "DNA synthesis occurs rapidly following conception and through the first years of life. Nerve growth factor is a hormone that facilitates development. Both are promoted by TOUCH. When mothers stop touching their infants, DNA synthesis stops, growth hormone diminishes (Schaunberg, 1995). Physiologically, the baby goes into "survival mode." Our ancestors carried and held (all the time) and slept with their babies, maximizing growth." Despite what current Western belief seems to be, the more attention and touch you offer to your young children, the more independent they become later in life. By meeting the needs of your child before they become distressed, you are helping them to form a foundation of trust and positive expectation. A child who learns that their caregivers are attentive to their needs, and will nurture and soothe them and provide exactly what they're looking for at all times, will be much more confident in being independent and caring for themselves (and others) as they get older. On the contrary, babies who are left to scream and cry alone become distressed, and during the critical time when brain development is rapidly occurring, stress can do damage that may never be repaired. Cortisol, the stress hormone, is elevated when babies become distressed, and this hormone destroys neurons, which means that those vital connections made in the child's developing brain may not actually be completed. In a study conducted at the University of NorthTexas in 2011, "...5 infants aged 4 to 10 months in a five-day inpatient sleep training program, researchers monitored levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the babies, who were left to cry themselves to sleep without being soothed. The scientists measured how long the infants cried each night before they fell asleep. The mothers sat in the next room and listened to their children cry but were not permitted to go in and soothe their babies. By the third night, the babies were crying for a shorter period of time and falling asleep faster. However, the cortisol levels measured in their saliva remained high, indicating that the infants were just as "stressed" as if they had remained crying. So while the infants' internal physiological distress levels had not changed, their outward displays of that stress were extinguished by sleep training." Even as adults, we know what it feels like to need comfort during times of emotional, mental, and physical stress. Even though we are capable of self-soothing, this is not always the case, and having someone we love and trust care for us during difficult times can bring immense relief to our souls. Imagine the plight of an infant or young child who do not yet know how to self-soothe and are desperate for touch and loving connection. While I would never judge a parent for trying to figure out ways to get more rest (it's HARD not getting enough sleep!), I would implore you to reconsider using the Cry-It-Out method, at least until you do more thorough research on the potential effects on your baby. The article that made the most impact on me can be found here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/moral-landscapes/201112/dangers-crying-it-out, and I would encourage you to read it and - as always - follow your first intuition. Our Resident Mom, Lindsay Lewis

Some children have their own rooms right from birth, and so are used to sleeping in their own bed, in their own space. Many other children, however, co-sleep with their parents/caregivers, whether that be in the same room or in the same bed, and when the day comes to transition to their own room, there may be challenges. When I told our family members that we co-slept with our first child, most of them responded somewhat negatively. The most common response was, "That's a bad habit to start! They're never gonna want to leave your bed!" At first I rolled my eyes, and a few times I got a little irritated, but after awhile I just had to laugh. After all, very rarely do we hear of a 15 year old who still sleeps with his/her parents. And really, if everyone involved is fine with that arrangement, who cares?? (Oh, and my daughter is now 5 1/2 and she sleeps in her own room for the most part.) Still, for many parents who share their room or bed with their children, there comes a day when they feel their child is old enough to sleep in their own room (plus, the privacy is a plus). If your child is reluctant to move to another room, what do you do? 1. Don't force it if your child seems fearful. It is more traumatizing to a child to be forced into something unknown than to gently and gradually make the transition. Listen to your child to see what it is that makes them hesitant about sleeping in their own room, and ask them what might make it feel more comfortable. 2. Try to make it fun! Use this opportunity to focus on the most awesome parts of having your own room. Let your child pick out paint, bedding, and accessories (like night-lights), and furnish the room with all of your child's favorite toys, books, and art supplies. Dream up a theme with your child if they're really into one particular thing (fairies, robots, outer space, etc) and emphasize how much fun s/he will have once their room is finished. 3. Don't bribe them. You want your child to sleep in their own room because they want to, not because they think they're going to get something if they do it. Understandably it can be so much easier to say "If you sleep in your room tonight, I'll buy you that giant Lego set you've been wanting tomorrow!" but this completely defeats the purpose of getting your child comfortable with the idea of having their own room, and it will likely backfire the next night when you don't have something quite so grand to offer as a reward. (On the same token, do not punish your child for not sleeping in their own room. I don't think an explanation is necessary as to why.) 4. Be willing to spend time in your child's room at night. Even if your child is over-the-moon excited about their new room, when night comes and it's time to go to sleep, your child may suddenly begin thinking about the fact that s/he isn't going to be in the same room as you anymore. Comfort your child and offer to stay beside him/her until they fall asleep. Read, sing, or talk softly to create a peaceful atmosphere for them. Over the course of the next few days or weeks (let's be realistic), you can begin to leave the room before your child completely falls asleep, until they are able to fall asleep on their own. 5. Spend some time in your child's room during the day, too! Show your child how much you love their new room by playing with them in it. Build with blocks, make a lego city, dress up Barbies, read, play a game.... By spending time in their own space, they will know that it isn't just a room to sleep in, but a room where everyone can come and play! Remember that your child has been used to a particular sleeping arrangement for some time, so transitioning may bring some hurdles and upsets. Try to remain calm, compassionate, and nurturing, letting them know that you understand their fears and hesitations, and that you will work through it together. Our Resident Mom, Lindsay Lewis