Category Archives: Theme Week

Holiday Greetings

Posted on by
2

I love the holidays.  Holiday music, baking opportunities, community events, Christmas lights–all of it makes me smile. I don’t enjoy shopping during the holidays at all, though. The crowds give me headaches, so I’m usually done procuring gifts well before Thanksgiving.

One of my favourite activities at the end of the year is sending out holiday cards. Since becoming a mother, I haven’t been nearly as good at keeping in touch with friends around the world, and our holiday greetings are an annual opportunity to remind the people we care about that we love them. For nearly six years, I maintained a public blog, but there are plenty of folks for whom the blogosphere is a huge mystery. The act of addressing and stamping envelopes, filling them with our family’s good wishes, is very satisfying. I know that Christmas cards end up being a chore for many people, and I’m very glad that I find the whole experience to be fun!

I usually order photo cards with a photo from the year. When my husband is home for the holidays, I send out a family photo, but more often the picture is of our twin daughters alone. After all, my husband and I look pretty much the same year after year. Getting nice family photos is a challenge all its own, and after the first year, I elected to leave it to the professionals. A couple of years ago, we invested in an amazing photo shoot with the talented Brandi Nellis, but most years, we just hit up the Sears or JC Penney photo studio.

Although our nuclear family celebrates Christmas’s religious significance, we have many relatives who are Muslim, several friends who are Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist, and many more friends and relatives who are altogether secular. I try to pick a winter-themed photo card rather than a Christmas one, and add a handwritten note to recipients who we know will be celebrating Christmas or Eid, if it happens to fall in the winter.

Along with the photo card, I include a family letter, describing the highlights of our year. The majority of the letter usually ends up being about the children’s interests, milestones and accomplishments. This year, I invited our daughters to make their own contributions to the annual letter, and they each drew a picture and wrote a few sentences about the holiday season this year. It was pretty amazing to see them as excited about reaching out through the mail as I am every year.

How do you handle holiday greetings, and do you include your children in your efforts?

 

Sadia, her husband and their 5-year-old girls, M and J, send their holiday greetings from El Paso, TX, where they have just experienced their first Texas desert snow. Sadia’s husband told her about desert snow during his first tour of duty in Iraq, but it has to be seen to believed.

Mum Connections

Posted on by
3

A month ago, we had dinner at the Calgary Airport. What better restaurant to have our last meal in oil and beef-heaven than at a steakhouse?

The waitress greets us with a cheery smile, asks us how many we are. “Four adults, two children,” I answer, pointing out L and R. My parents are sending us off before they head to Montreal the next day.  As the waitress walks us to a booth, she asks if I prefer high-chairs or booster-seats for the children.

“What are booster-seats?” I ask, fully aware of my ignorance. “Little seats that you can move around. They add height to any other regular seat,” she replies, without a hint of condescension.

The booster-seats sound perfect. My kids hate high-chairs.

“Great! Come on over this way. I’ll get the brown paper laid out first, and then bring out the crayons.” She smiles as she walks away in her black pants, and black t-shirt; her blond pony-tail bobbing along behind her.

“Here’s the crayons, and some menus. You need anything else, give me a shout. I’ll be back for the order in a few minutes,” she assures us. How wonderful! L and R sit at the table happily, unrestricted; and they draw pictures with my parents.

When she returns, Maher asks if she can suggest any vegetarian options for my mum. She pulls her pen out of her apron and uses it as a pointer, “There’s the garden salad, the coleslaw, there’s a veggie fajita, and we can do most any of the starters’ vegetarian. You just ask me, and I’ll request it in the kitchen.”

“Fantastic!” he replies.

“One chicken fajita should be enough for the two children right?” I ask her.

“Plenty. Portion’s big here.”

We place the rest of the order, and just before she turns around to leave, she asks if we want the fries out first. Maher and I looked at each other and then up at her. She understands. “Yes please, and the guacamole, and anything that’s ready. They’re hungry.” We didn’t mention that they won’t stay put for very long.

She smiles, winks, and asks, “They twins?”
“Yes, 23 months old,” I reply.
“I have three kids. A four year-old, and two year-old twins. All boys.” She says with a gleam in her eyes.
“Really? That’s wonderful. So you know!” I sigh with a sense of relief that sweeps across me.

I don’t usually stress out about being at a restaurant with my toddlers. In China it’s easy. Children are welcome everywhere, easy-going restaurants for sure, fancy places are no exception. The hosts, even the guests happily chat and play with them. That’s not to say that I’ve had any criticism in Canada over the last 3 weeks, neither in Montreal nor in Calgary; but it’s on my mind that they have to behave a bit differently. I do my best to keep the situation as much under-control as possible, without making a big deal out of it. And with my parents there to help, at least we’ll all get to eat.  But the mess we leave is always bigger than at the other tables, and our sweet waitress is the one who’s got to take care of it.

My stress dissipates after she hangs out longer, and after she tells us about her children. I feel a connection with her just for being a Mum of Twins. It’s not rational. But she understands what it’s like to be at a restaurant with excited twin toddlers. She’s not fazed by their loud chatter, their need to switch seats as they spill the water, and their desire to reach for the knives.

Part way through the meal, L needs a change of diaper. As we walk back from the washroom, the appropriately positioned toy store – right across from the restaurant — with a large poster of a crocodile eating a monkey, sucks Leila in. Before long, Rahul and two adults in our group join her. 15 minutes into the discovery, and a number of different dynamics later, I am back at the restaurant finishing up my meal, with my mum. I pick at the colourful bell peppers and onions from the children’s fajita, after I’m done with my own dish. It’s time to go though; time to say goodbye to my parents. I ask for the bill.

While I pay, the sweet waitress and I have a little chat. She’s the kind of woman who calls you honey. Not in a patronising sense.

“Who helps you with the kids?” I ask.

“My husband. He takes care of them in the day while I’m here, and he works at night. I was just talking to my co-worker over there,” she tilts her head towards another waitress, “Was just tellin’ her it’s been a week since I saw him. ‘N’ we live in the same house.”

“Man, that’s not easy,” I sympathise. She looks up at me, shrugs her shoulders and smiles. That’s when I notice the dark circles around her eyes.

“Have a good flight!” She waves.

“Thanks, and good luck with it all,” I pat her shoulder, and push our over-packed stroller out of the restaurant.

My mum and I walk over to the crocodile and monkey toy shop to pick up the rest of the gang. We slowly make our way to the security check.

Just this morning, L and R talked about a crocodile eating a monkey.

Have you had random mum connections that you still remember?

—————————

Natasha, mum of Leila and Rahul was an Ashtanga Yoga teacher until her little yogis became the teachers. You can find more of her thoughts and stories at Our Little Yogis.

Ask the Readers: Handling Picky Eaters

Posted on by
8

It’s been a while since we’ve Asked the Readers. Please, help us out in the comments!

What is your favourite trick for tempting a picky child at mealtime?

I was quietly ecstatic when my kids first took to solid food. Fish, spinach, fennel—they loved them all. I thought they were set for a lifetime of adventurous eating. I hadn’t read far enough into child development books, though.

At around age 2, kids tend to get pickier in their eating habits. It makes sense. The hunter-gatherer argument is a compelling one. 2-year-olds stop putting anything and everything in their mouths, including many foods, because that is the age they would start straying farther from their mothers in hunter-gatherer societies. This pickiness is a survival instinct that lasts until they are old enough to make mature choices regarding what is safe to eat.

Whether their pickiness is explainable or not, picky eaters present an enormous challenge to parents. When M was at her pickiest, she could go two days on nothing but milk if nothing struck her fancy. I worried that she would starve. She’s only recently begun enjoying food again.

Please share how you deal (or would deal) with picky eaters.

Saving Money with Multiples Theme Week Round Up

Posted on by
Reply

Thanks to all the bloggers for sharing their posts on our theme of saving money with multiples.

Here’s a summary of what’s been posted over the theme weeks:

Every Little Bit Helps by Leslie H.

Avoid Throwing Money Away in the Diaper Pail by Jen Wood

The New-to-Us Shopping Method by Rean Bean

Cloth Diapers for Two, Please by Bonza

Homemade Baby Food by Sadia

Pimp My Ride! by Jamie

DIY Haircuts by Jenna

Practice at home with your little yogis by Natasha

I hope you enjoyed the Theme Week. We’re planning to do more, so please let us know what you’d like to read about it.

Practice at home with your little yogis

Posted on by
4

The yoga industry has become a multi-billion dollar industry, attracting hordes of us to join the trend. It’s wonderful that more people are benefiting from yoga, but it’s not so straightforward to know what you really need. Some studios are looking and acting like high-end spas. Yoga clothing and equipment is becoming specialized, even hyped. There are whole lines launched by big-name designers. You can buy yoga tank tops, bras, pants – long, short, wide, or tight. Then there is everything you can put on top of your practice wear, skirts, jackets and hoodies. There are scarves to keep you warm and looking good while you walk to and from the studio  and then to use as a blanket in Savasana the final relaxation. There are yoga gloves and shoes that grip. Not sure what the deal is with those, that you can practice without a mat on a ship maybe?   There are eco-friendly yoga mats,  funky bags, chakra-balancing jewelery… There are  hundreds of yoga magazines featuring hot, fit models in wild postures. They must eat healthy, organic, and take strangely named supplements.

And then there are as many studios as corner stores offering many styles. There is Vinyasa, Iyengar, Ashtanga, even Chocolate yoga, and Doga (Yoga for dogs). How do you choose? And all teachers say different things don’t they?. Taking a yoga class can be costly. A single class can range from $10-$25. Multiple class passes or monthly memberships are more affordable, but depending on the studio, still quite pricey. And how many times a month can you, MoM get to the studio anyway? What’s supposed to be an ancient method to simplify and unify our thoughts and outlook has become a daunting world to join. How can you start simply, without either running for your life or falling for all the crazy marketing?

My suggestion: develop a self-practice. Do it on your own floor or on 1 good quality yoga mat (they wear out quickly otherwise). Wear comfortable clothes that you find in your cupboard. Do it any time other than right after a meal. Take ten minutes or an hour, by yourself or with your little yogis alongside. More likely they’ll end up on top of you, under you, or both.

Whatever style of yoga you do, you can find something to do on your own, it’s the premise of a real yoga practice anyway.  In Ashtanga Yoga, which is the style I chose, self-practice is encouraged from the start. Owning your practice, your breath and movement, is the basis of the Mysore- style practice. In such a class people move at their own pace, through the sun-salutations, a set-sequence of poses, a closing section, and Savasana the final relaxation. Each person’s practice grows in length and depth over time. There is a teacher in the room who guides, assists, and adjusts the postures. Depending on the teacher, Ashtanga can be taught quite militantly, and the name Mysore for the South Indian city where it was developed has often been mistaken to represent “my sore!” So it is important to seek out a teacher who feels right.

But also a teacher who can guide you to do it on your own. It’s certainly not easy to do day in and day out without the combined energy of the teacher and other students. It’s  do-able though. One of my students, a mum of two, initially held back from self-practice because she wanted to leave her brain outside the class and just do as she was told (in her words!) It was her time off. I can understand that now. Others are afraid to forget the sequence, or afraid that they’ll hurt themselves from bad alignment, all issues that can be surpassed with some guidance, practice, and confidence.

Try to remember a few things you like from a class, and take them home mindfully. Following a teacher’s instructions while your thoughts are wandering from your neighbor’s strange clothes,  to why she can balance but you can’t, to whether you’ll cook broccoli or spinach when you get home isn’t really getting us any closer to yoga.

 

Other than finding time for it and the random thoughts, there are other obstacles for us mums practicing at home. Except when both children are asleep, I have to deal with their fights, my hair being pulled, or face scratched. I’ve was once ambushed in an inverted posture by my two and had to call for help. They often hug my standing leg just when I am in the hardest one leg balancing posture.

I also get the adjustments though. They sit on my back in forward-folds. I haven’t gone as deeply into postures since I was pregnant.

It’s good fun when they imitate me. The first time Leila copied some of my arm movements she was under four months old. I was shocked, and realized the value of practicing with them around. Today I asked R what he was doing on my mat. “Yoga,” he said while his hands, feet and head connected to the ground in his tenth down dog of the day. Having them around lets them know my practice is for me, but that they are welcome to join in, even if it is just lying on my mat underneath me. The postures come naturally to them. If I didn’t know better I’d be jealous of their flexibility. I’m hoping that my hyper-active yogis will also  imitate me in the final relaxation some day.  Here are more of our Mat Moments.

I can’t lie, there have been times I wish I could be in a studio and not have to deal with screaming, running toddlers dropping food on my mat, not to mention the number of times I have to stop part-way through because someone can’t handle it. When we travel and there are studios around, it is my break to go to a class.  We just spent ten days in a Canadian city where the studio down the road offered a first-timer two week unlimited trial for $25. Good deal for the five classes I managed.

A friend of mine on a tight budget did that for months. She took classes by shopping the deals at yoga studios in her city. She took the discounted one-month pass at one studio, and then a holiday special price at the next one, and the free class at another…

If you are seriously inclined to start some yoga on your own, even for a few minutes a day, I’d recommend the initial investment of studying with a teacher, someone who can guide you through a self-practice that would suit you. Eventually, you know what’s best, and the cost drops.

Workshops with senior teachers if they are available at your studio are great. They’re packed with tips that you can take home and work on for months.

Or buy a DVD that you can watch and re-watch. If it’s a good one, it won’t be surprising that you catch new tips every time.

David Swenson’s “Ashtanga Yoga -Practice Manual” is a comprehensive book available at his on-line shop for $30. It has 650 photos, including variations for all poses. It is worth it both for beginners and experienced practitioners. He is one of my favorite teachers, funny, and down-to-earth.

This is the Yoga Journal’s online home-practice page.

Just a note: learning solely from a DVD or teaching yourself from a book is not comparable to having an experienced teacher visually check in with you.

Your self- practice could be an hour of asana, 15 minutes of sun-salutations, a session of breath work in a seated position, or a 5 minute Savasana lying on your back. Whatever it is, it’s yours and it’s worth it.

Do you do your activities at home around your little yogis? How do they react? Do they participate?

Related articles: Little yogis  by Wendy Altschuler (www.yogachicago.com)
My children and yoga  by Paul Dallaghan (www.yoga-thailand.com)
What is “Mysore Style”?  by Paul Dallaghan (www.yoga-thailand.com)

 

Natasha, mum of Leila and Rahul was an Ashtanga Yoga teacher until her little yogis became the teachers.

DIY Haircuts

Posted on by
5

Our twin girls are now 2.5 years old.  They didn’t get their first hair cut until they were 22 month old.  Their first haircuts were done by my hairdresser. She did my hair when I started kindergarten, when I graduated high school and when I got married. She gave our older son his first hair cut at 14 months. There was no doubt in my mind that she’s the one I’d choose for their first hair cut too.  She was willing to come to my mom’s house and cut their hair while they sat in their booster seats at the table.

At that point, they barely had any hair. They just need the bottom trimmed to make all the hair the same length. About 6 months later, I started thinking they needed another trim. We weren’t travelling to where our hairdresser lived, so that wasn’t an option. Our girls are quite shy with strangers and new situations, so taking them to a new place with unfamiliar people didn’t appeal to me. I also thought about the cost, not just of this haircut, but of getting their few hairs trimmed every few months for years and years. It costs at least $10-15 at the cheap place where we take our son for haircuts. At the fancy, kids salon it is $15-20 per child, and I can only imagine how overstimulating it would be.  So, I decided, I could probably manage the basic hair trimming myself.

S - Before

R - Before

I turned to the Internet for help. I found a series of youtube videos.  I watched all 4 videos, and figured I could do it. The equipment needed was minimal: a good pair of hair cutting scissors (I paid $10 on sale for mine), a towel, a comb (I had to buy a package for $3 because mine had all disappeared), and a spray bottle for water (optional). I set them up in their booster seats, one girl at a time. I let the other girl hold the extra combs and the water bottle. It took less than 15 minutes to trim each one’s hair.

Was it perfect? No. What it fancy? No. Were the spots I wanted to fix after? Yes.  Did it look much better than the shaggy, stringy “style” they had before? YES!  By the time they start to care how their hair looks, I’ll have had lots of practice. I think there’s got to be away to make their hair cuts different enough it will help people tell them apart. With practice, I’ll figure that out too. Cutting our son’s hair concerns me more than our daughters’ hair. I don’t know how to use electric trimmers and the equipment that seems to come with boys’ hair. That might be something to try another day.

S - After

R - After

Do you cut your children’s hair?  What advice do you have to share?

The New-to-Us Shopping Method

Posted on by
6

It’s that time of year again! The seasons are changing and spring/summer clothes will soon be put away with fall/winter clothes taking their place (or vice versa for those in the southern hemisphere). Outfitting two (or more) kids can be costly. Here are the methods I use to keep my kids looking good without breaking the bank.

I accept any and all hand-me-downs. We’ve been fortunate to have several family members and neighbors offer us hand-me-down clothing from time to time. Some batches are better than others, but it’s always fun to go through the bags and see which items still have some wear left in them for my kids. Now, while I do accept all hand me downs, I don’t necessarily keep them all. I toss aside the ones with large stains or rips and anything that I just don’t want to see my child wearing (we are all entitled to have our own tastes). Often, the clothes we receive are a size or two ahead of what my kids are currently wearing, so like Leslie H., I have an attic filled with bins of clothing sorted by size (currently 3T to size 6). With everything organized in bins, it’s really easy to find what I need when my kids are ready to move into the next size up.

Hand-me-down shirt with $1 pants purchased from another twin mom.

I shop for clothes at yard sales. Yard sale shopping is part of our Saturday morning routine from mid-May through early September. Most clothing at yard sales (at least in our area) are super cheap. I recently bought brand name t-shirts and pants, still in great shape, for a quarter a piece! At that price, I’m willing to pick up anything we might need in my kids’ current size or larger. This is, by far, the cheapest way to add to my kids’ wardrobes.

I shop from other mothers of multiples. Many mothers of multiples clubs have tags sales in the fall and/or spring. Prices vary, but often clothing is priced $1-$5. These MoM sales are great places to shop for quality second-use clothing, but I’ve taken it even one step further. After realizing that I bought most of my clothing from just two sellers, I contacted the sellers and asked if I could shop their clothing before the sale. Both readily agreed and it became a win-win situation for all of us- they have less to tag and cart to the sales, and I have smaller piles to look through.

Pink Carter's coat and navy Tommy Hilfiger coat for $3 each purchased at a MoM sale.

$1 spiderman shirt and $1 shorts purchased from another twin mom.

$2 outfit purchased from another twin mom.

I shop at resale shops. The prices at resale shops tend to be higher than what you’d find at a yard sale or MOM tag sale, but they’re still considerably cheaper than buying new from retail stores. I only shop at the ones that are choosy about their merchandise- the ones that sell name brand clothes and check thoroughly for rips and stains. The best is when our local resale shop has their buy a bag sale. For $5/bag, I can take away as many pieces of clothing as I can stuff into the bag(s). I have gotten some incredible deals shopping this way, and I always shop one to two sizes up at these sales.

Hand me down shirt with $3 Old Navy jeans from a resale shop.

I do buy new from time to time, but when I do, it’s usually from end of season clearance racks or in stores where I can combine a great sale with an additional 25-30% off coupon. Of course, if my kids really need a particular piece of clothing and I can’t find it through any of the above options, I’m not above paying full retail prices. But my kids don’t know the difference. They love getting new clothes whether they’re brand new or just new to us.

Homemade Baby Food

Posted on by
5

This post on homemade baby food was previously published on my personal blog in April 2009. Still, I decided to commit the sin of republishing a stale post in the interest of this week’s theme of trimming the budget with multiples.

A very messy baby.I made a lot, though not all, of our twins’ food when they first started solids.

I had nothing against jarred baby foods, but I wanted to provide M and J with fresh foods and more variety than I could get from the baby food shelves at the store. I started out using the jarred stuff, but soon realized that with two enormous baby appetites, it was far cheaper to make purées in larger quantities. At age 18 months, our twins averaged an even 12 lbs in weight, but could down the equivalent of three jars of baby food per meal, three times a day, each. That could easily have me spending over $100 per week on baby food.

The girls’ daycare didn’t start providing meals until kids started table foods, and was very accommodating of the frozen or fresh purées I’d bring in every day. It actually wasn’t that much work. Once M and J were exposed to a pretty large variety of foods, I’d simply leave half of each dish unpuréed, salt it, and eat it myself. I don’t think the girls were any better nourished than kids fed Gerber or Earth’s Best goodness, but it worked for us.

There were definitely folks who found my choice to minimize prepared baby food in the girls’ diet to be pretentious. Perhaps it was. One thing that raising identical twins who are far from identical has taught me is that there is no right way to parent.

When new and expectant mothers tell me that they’re considering it and ask how I made it work, I give them a list of my favourite tools. Here’s what goes in my baby shower gift for friends who’ve asked my advice on how to start making their own baby food:

  • Annabel Karmel‘s book, Top 100 Baby Purees. The recipes were good, but even more helpful to me was the idea that baby food didn’t have to be bland. Onions and garlic in baby food? Cinnamon in fruit purées? Why not? I didn’t introduce salt or refined sugar until after Jess and Mel’s first birthday, but used other more mature flavours with abandon. Note that Karmel is British and follows Great Ormond Street guidelines on introducing new foods to children, so the age guides don’t always correspond to the recommendations of the American medical establishment.
  • KidCo food mill. This produces food that corresponds to a Gerber Stage 2 texture. The mill comes apart completely and can be washed in the dishwasher. There are no sharp edges, which is a necessity for someone as clumsy as me. It’s perfect for taking to restaurants so that you can share your meal with your baby. You turn the mill upside down, pop in your food, insert the base and set it on the table. Then you push down gently while turning the handle, and the ground up food gets pushed up into the bowl at the top of the mill. You can feed baby straight from the mill, and then pack it up in its carrying case to take home and wash. It’s the perfect size for one child; I did have to refill it to get enough food for both girls.
  • Ikea flexible icecube trays. Unfortunately, Ikea no longer carries the triangular icecube trays for portions that fit perfectly in Ziplock sandwich bags. Whenever I made a new batch of baby food, I’d keep out enough for a couple of meals, and freeze the remainder. Once the cubes were solid, I’d pop them out and store them in the freezer in Ziplock bags labeled with the contents and date. Three to four fully defrosted cubes made a full meal for both J and M.

There are a few generic tools that I consider a necessity.

  • A good quality blender. This is how you get the smoothest purées for a first introduction to solid foods.
  • A full-scale food mill. I used a handcrank food mill that I still use for applesauce and apple-pear-sauce. When I first started to introduce texture in the girls’ food, I’d process half of each batch of food through the blender and half through the food mill and mix them back together. Once they were ready for chunkier foods, I switched to the food mill.
  • Small bowls with lids and, yes, baby food jars. You’ll want to transport baby food from time to time. Baby food comes in jars for a reason! They’re a great size and very sturdy. I reused baby food jars many many times. I also loved Gerber Bunch-a-Bowls with lids.

Do you have any other tips or recommendations for cutting food costs without compromising nutrition and taste? Please share!

Cloth Diapers for Two, Please

Posted on by
4

As we all well know, multiples can really drain your wallet/check book/credit card/(non-existent) life savings/etc. As Jen noted earlier today, using cloth diapers is one way you can exert some control over the financial drain of diapering two or three or more babies. In my family we also found cloth diapers to be the best choice for us. Here’s why.

My mom cloth diapered all of her children, so I was intrigued about cloth diapers from the start. Cloth diapering certainly uses water and energy (and bleach at times), but I personally believe that it does less damage to the environment than using disposables. I also was somewhat uncomfortable with the chlorine and urine-absorption chemicals found in most disposable diapers.

My husband made it clear that I had to make a viable financial case for cloth diapers. I took this as a challenge and figured out how to make cloth diapers easy and affordable for us. Now that we’ve been using cloth diapers for a year and a half, we both agree that it’s been a great decision.

Cloth diapering is easy. I am fortunate enough to live in a city where I can enjoy a fabulous diaper service. Every Friday morning by 8am my bag of dirty diapers is picked up from my porch and replaced by a new bag of freshly cleaned diapers. I fold the diapers into fourths and lay them in adorable Velcro-tabbed diaper covers. When it’s time for a change I dump the diaper and all of its contents into a diaper bin and lay a new folded diaper in the cover. When the cover is dirty I throw it in the laundry basket. I wash a load of my girls’ clothes, including diaper covers, once or twice a week. Now that they’re eating solids, I rarely have to do much pre-scrubbing of the covers since most of the mess gets dumped straight into the diaper pail and the diaper service does the rest. That, for me, is the best part about using a diaper service.

Cloth diapering saves me money. Back in the newborn days, when we were going through many more diapers than we are now, the diaper service was especially cost-competitive with disposables. We were paying about 7 cents less per diaper than we would have with the disposables I priced at our local Target. Now that my girls use fewer diapers, we’ve lost some of that economy of scale with the diaper service, but the benefits of the cloth diapers more than make up for that. We also use cloth wipes, which I just throw in with our regular laundry, so we aren’t buying cases and cases of baby wipes on a regular basis either. In the summer I dry the covers, wipes and clothes on the line.

Using the free dryer

Cloth diapering has many ancillary benefits. In my experience, these include:

  1. If breastfeeding, cloth diapers give you a much better sense of how much urine output your babies are producing — and thus how much milk they’re consuming. Urine can “hide” better in disposables. I liked being able to see exactly how much my girls were producing.
  2. Cloth diapers keep messes inside the diaper so much better than disposables. The only major blowouts I’ve had were when I was using disposables while we were away from home on trips.
  3. Cloth diapering lets you control exactly what comes into contact with your babies’ most sensitive areas.
  4. Cloth diapering frees up enormous space in your garbage can. This also saves us money, because in Seattle the larger your garbage can, the larger your monthly utilities bill. Cloth diapering (and city-sponsored composting!) allows us to use a very small garbage can.
  5. Other moms have told me that cloth diapering makes potty training much easier, because kids begin to notice their wet diapers and dislike that feeling. I’m seriously hoping this rumor proves true! The sooner we potty train the sooner we stop paying for diapers all together.
  6. Cloth-diapered bums are freaking cute.

I see a plumber's bum

Of course cloth diapering is, as with everything, probably harder with twins and triplets than with a singleton. Here are my tips for cloth diapering with twins:

  1. Have backup disposables on hand. I probably buy one small box of disposables every two months or so.
  2. Buy used diapers and/or covers. The baby consignment stores here in Seattle sell tons of used diaper covers, and I often find $15 covers for $4 or so. If you don’t have nearby consignment stores, diaperswappers features a forum where moms sell their used diapers and diaper covers to each other.
  3. Make sure every caretaker is instructed on how to use your cloth diapers. Don’t allow anyone the excuse, “I don’t know how to use those diapers.” It’s easy to learn, and it frees you from being responsible for all those diaper changes!
  4. If you’re overwhelmed with the decisions to be made regarding cloth diapering, start with disposables. There’s no reason you can’t revisit cloth diapering after a month or two. Plus, your children will be bigger and you may be able to skip over the smallest sizes of cloth diapers.
  5. If you have a diaper service available in your area, it’s a great baby shower gift to ask for. People can prepay for service and you can begin the service whenever you’re ready.

Avoid Throwing Money Away in the Diaper Pail

Posted on by
6

As we drove home from the fateful appointment where we found out we were expecting not one baby but two, my husband sat quietly seemingly forever. He is usually thoughtful and easy going, but perhaps this time a tad overwhelmed. When he did speak he said, “We have to buy two of everything… like BIKES!” He had already fast-forwarded through the pregnancy, infancy, toddlerhood and arrived at bikes. In reality we haven’t had to buy two of everything. We have tried to minimize doubles and shop frugally. One of the big ways we have saved a ton of money is by using cloth diapers.

PICT0016

Yes, we use cloth diapers. No, it’s not disgusting. When I was pregnant and checked out stacks of books from the library, one book suggested that twins could go through as many as 16,000 diapers before potty training. Sixteen Thousand! At nearly 25¢ each before coupons or sales, I could not imagine buying something so expensive with the primary intent of throwing it away. For two babies. While we did spend a chunk of money up front on cloth diapers and accessories, we calculated we broke even by the time our boys were six-months old. For well more than a year now, our diaper changes have been essentially free. (And what is more frugal than free?) Plus the additional bonuses: less garbage, no late-night runs for diapers, our kids never outgrow them half-way through a box, and no blow-outs. (For real. Never once had the up-the-back situation.) Yes, there is a little more effort. And a little extra laundry. But it’s small potatoes compared to the savings. When people ask how we could possibly use cloth diapers with twins, I generally respond, “How could we not?”

IMG_1903 DSC_0297

On the left is our duo just before 4 months old, and on right at almost-18-months — wearing the same diapers they will wear until they are done with diapers.

We started with cloth when our boys were about 2 weeks old, once the freebie hospital diapers ran out. We have used them almost exclusively since then. (We have been on two different road trips that required stays in hotels, so we did use disposables. I estimate we have used about 200 disposables since our boys were born 22 months ago.) Ours are not like your grandma’s cloth diapers. There are no pins. No scrubbing on a washboard. No plastic pants. Cloth Diapering has come a long way and fits into our modern life. Our diapers go on with hook-and-loop closures, similar to disposables, and are one-size, adjusting from 8 to 35 lbs., which should take us through to potty training. We wash them ourselves in a high-efficiency washer and saw no noticeable increase in our utility bills. There are lots of different modern cloth diapers, and a ton of information available online. If I had it to do all over again, there are lots of baby “essentials” we could totally live without, but I would not hesitate for one second to use cloth diapers. Cloth Diapers work for our family, we love them, love the savings and we can’t imagine it any other way.

DSC_0048

If you want to know more than you ever thought possible: More than you ever wanted to know about cloth diapers is my little cloth diaper manifesto on the topic from my own website, goteamwood.com where you can also read all about our family adventures.