Organic Car Seat Cover

After buying the organic cloth diapers I thought about what else I can do to limit the amount of chemicals that are in contact with my new baby. Around the same time we were trying to decide if we should use Liam's old infant car seat or buy a new one. We bought Liam's car seat at a garage sale so it was all ready pretty old. In my search for a chemical free car seat cover I found Nollie Covers fairly quickly. They're pretty amazing. They are padded with 2 layers of organic wool and 1 layer of organic cotton padding. Then they are covered and lined with organic cotton. It was love at first sight. But when I showed Bill the price he was not as thrilled. So, I looked around for something cheaper. Here's what I found:

 The Vermont Bundle-Up is made of organic wool in Vermont for only $99 + $5 shipping and handling. Wool is a great insulator keeps you warm when it's cold and cool when it's hot. But it doesn't replace all that yucky foam stuff in the car seat it just goes on top of it. Not exactly what I was looking for.

The Organic Car Seat Covers by The Bumble Collection are a step in the right direction they're organic cotton (not certified though) and they replace the original yucky cover. It comes in several pretty cute colors. But, they are not fitted to individual car seats. There is just one for infants and one for toddlers. Not very safe in my opinion.

The Baby Ritzy Rider™Infant Car Seat Covers in Baby Bamboo is a cool idea bamboo is eco friendly, it grows super fast and it doesn't need pestisides or fertilizers to grow. It seems more things are made of bamboo than organic cotton these days. But again these are just slip-covers not replacement covers.

I found Nature's Purest™ Body Support at Buy Buy Baby for $29 I almost bought it, just because it's so cheap, until I read the label and saw it was stuffed with polyester. You can find it for $21.29 on amazon. But I if I'm going to buy something I don't want any plastic. 

So, that's when I went back and looked at Nollie Covers again. I had gotten some money for my birthday and I hadn't found anything even remotely comparable in the several months I had been searching. The awesome thing about Nollie Covers, besides being 100% organic, is that the covers are tailored to each individual car seat. They replicate the original car seat cover. So it fits perfectly. But that means you have to have one of the car seats they make covers for. We debated about what to get infant or convertible. Liam had an infant, then a toddler and now a booster, all garage sale finds. I liked the idea of a convertible car seat 5lbs to 100lbs you only ever need one car seat sounds pretty awesome. The cheapest one was Safety First's Alpha Omega Elite I bought it on sale at Buy Buy Baby for $99. The cover was $223 I also bought the seat belt covers and belly pad for $19.99 + $15 shipping and handling. Here's a picture of Ella in her new car seat and cover.

I love the people at Nollie Covers I must have sent 20 e-mails back and forth before I bought the cover asking questions. They were great they always answered my e-mail by the end of the same day. I told them how much I love an appreciate their product they made up a discount coupon code for me! Type code kara for 5% off.

Cloth Diapers

I did a lot of research before Elizabeth was born to decide which kind of cloth diaper to use. I had wanted to use cloth diapers with Liam but we didn't have the money to make the initial investment. Overall cloth diapers are much cheaper than disposables, not to mention better for your baby and the planet, but instead of spending $30 every month for a big Costco box of diapers you are spending $300 or more in one shot. I received a $2,000 scholarship my last semester of college most of which went to pay off the car loan and $300 went to buy cloth diapers.

At first I was looking at all-in-ones (AIO) which I still think are a great option. I wanted organic cotton, because I figured if I'm going to buy cloth diapers I'm going to buy the healthiest ones I can find. Here were my options:

Swaddlebees Econappi
It comes in some super cute patterns, in snaps or velcro. It's an all-in-one (AIO) which means it works just like a regular diaper no folding, stuffing covering, etc. And it's a one size which mean it will fit from birth to potty training. But it's $28.95 each! I've found it for $26.95 and as cheap as $22.80 Still you need minimum 12 diapers if your washing them everyday. That's $273 - $323 !



bumGenius Organic One-Size All-In-One
These are also organic cotton AIO and one-size and come in velcro or snaps. Not in patterns though only solids. Also kind of expensive, pretty much always $24.95 unless you buy in bulk then they can go down to $21.95  So a little cheaper than swaddlebees, about $263 - $299.












Then I thought AIO are really convienent but the out side waterproof layer is plastic if I'm going to spend all this money on an organic cloth diaper. I want it to be 100% natural not polyurethane laminated polyester. So, I had to keep looking. Basically what I found was that it was impoosible to make an AIO that is 100% natural because the only 100% natural waterproof thing is wool, and wool is expensive and can't be thrown in the wash.

So, I had to change what I was looking for. I really liked the one-size idea I didn't want to have to buy newborn, small, medium, large, extra large diaper. I knew that would get expensive. But non AIO's were alot cheaper than AIOs.

I found Green Mountain Diapers which doesn't have the best prices for cloth diapers but does have the best information about them. Almost any cloth diaper they make you can find on here with pictures of that diaper on different sized babies and the pro and cons of that diaper an amazing resource. I found a couple options there:

These organic prefolds are only $28 a dozen for newborn! They go up to $40 a dozen for large. You fold them, use a snappi (in picture) or diaper pins and then put a cover over it. I was really considering this for a while, but it seemed like a lot of work (in retrospect I ended up getting a much more complicated diaper system) and it's not one-size so I would have to get different sizes as Elizabeth grew. If I was to do laundry everyday I would end up spending about $137 plus the cost of covers.

Growing Green's One-Size Diaper - Organic Cotton
These diapers are one-size and they have snaps so you don't need a snappi or diaper pins. I really liked them they're $18.95 each which isn't too bad. They're fitted so you don't have to worry about folding them right. They're pretty cool, and I would have bought them if I hadn't found these:



Disana Diaper System 
I fell in love with this system. I found the wool covers on green mountain and I looked up the company that makes them. "We at disana have spent much time with midwives and children's nurses to learn exactly what is needed to create the most comfortable and natural nappy/diaper just for babies. The result is our disana nappy/diapering system." Organic cotton diapers with organic wool covers and raw silk liners to prevent diaper rash. They are one-size, tie-on, which means no plastic snaps or velcro. They are 100% pure and natural. Still green mountain sold the covers for $25 for newborn up to $32 for large. A little pricey, and green mountain didn't sell the tie-in diapers.

After a little research I found the whole disana diaper system at A Small Green Footprint their logo is, "their foot may grow but their footprint doesn't have too." How cute! They sell the tie-on diaper in a 3 pack for $17.99, the flannel liner in a 3 pack for $11.99, and the wool covers for $20.95 for newborn (extra small)and $1 extra for each bigger size. Plus the covers come in different colors: pink, blue, green, orange brown, and of course natural.

I ended up buying from a small green footprint because of their great prices. They had a deal where is you buy 4 covers or 4 diapers they give you the 5th free. So I bought 5 packs of diapers (15 diapers), 5 packs of liners (15 liners) and 5 covers (1 extra-small in pink, 2 small and 2 medium in natural). I also bought a wool bag ($19.99) to hold dirty diapers while I'm out, and a mei tei baby carrier ($45). All together I spent $320 and I got free shipping and handling. Pretty good :) My only complaint is, I should have spent to extra $17 and gotten the bigger wool diaper bag because the one we got barely holds 3 diapers.

It took a couple days to get the hang of how to properly fold and tie the diapers so they wouldn't leak. But now it's no big deal even Bill loves them and says he wishes we used them for Liam. Me too! Here's how it works for us.

Super cute diapered newborn!

The only part of disana system that a small green footprint didn't have was the silk liners. Green mountain had them for $17.95 for a 3 pack but I saw them selling for as much as $30! I ended up buying 3 of them from a British website for £2.19 each and shipping was only like £1.50 for all of them. Great price.

I also bought 2 packs of 10 Kate Quinn organic cotton wipes from PurBebe for $8 each. I figured I have 15 cloth diapers I'll get 20 wipes incase there is a big mess a couple times and also to use in the bath.


Read http://www.diaperjungle.com/why-use-cloth-diapers.html for more information on why you should use cloth diapers.

Phew! That was a long post!

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I recently found wool covers that look exactly the same as disana's on hessnatur's website they are selling them for only $15 each! and they come in several colors as well. I've been using the diapers for 8 months now and I still love them. I've had them for a year and I haven't found better prices on anything else. My only problems with them are that they are a little bulky, especially on a newborn and that the ties get tangled up in the wash so I have to detangle them before I put them in the dryer or they won't dry properly and lastly you can't really wear shorts with them because the wool "legs" stick out the bottom and it looks silly. But they are cute under a dress like little bloomers :)