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Hey there friends. Welcome to the better postpartum podcast. I’m your host Angel Swan, crunchy mom, coffee addict and postpartum doula turned new mom, coach. This podcast is your audio guide to not just surviving but thriving during those early and newborn days. If you want to care for yourself, your household and your baby with confidence, grab your earbuds because this is the only podcast that you need. So what do you say? Should we get started with today’s episode? Let’s do this. Hey, friends, thank you for tuning in today. Before we get started, I just wanted to read this lovely review submitted by Helen she says Angel really knows her stuff. And this is an excellent podcast with lots of tips and methods to help new moms and their journey highly recommend. Hey, thank you so much for that review. If you have been loving this podcast and learning from it, please go to Apple podcasts and subscribe. Leave me a five star rating and a written review telling me something that you’ve learned a message that really stuck with you or just let me know what your favorite episode has been so far. Leaving a rating and review is the best way to support the show. And it helps other new moms find this podcast too, so that they can learn from it. So thanks again, Helen now for today’s episode. So this next part of our minimal and sustainable postpartum series, we’ll continue on with our diaper chat. So last time, I told you all about cloth diapers and cloth wipes, why I love them why I think you should try them. And today we’re gonna talk about all the other products that you might need for diapering your baby. Remember that we are being minimal. So this is a small list, a list of essentials, okay, no extra fluff, just the necessities. Because, you know, there are so many products out there and it’s confusing as a mom to try to figure out what you actually need. So my goal with this series is to help you figure out what you need and what you don’t. In addition to the cloth diapers and cloth wipes, for your diapering purposes, you’re probably going to want some diaper cream, obviously, right? All babies get diaper rash, it’s gonna happen so you should be prepared. If you’re using cloth diapers, I highly recommend using Burt’s Bees diaper rash ointment because it’s safe for use with cloth diapers. And by the way, all the products that I mentioned in today’s episode are going to be in links in the episode description. So if you want to try anything, feel free to go on there. They’re all links to Amazon you can just click and buy put it straight in your cart if you want to try any of these products. So the Burt’s Bees diaper rash ointment is perfect for cloth diapers because you can’t just use any diaper cream with cloth diapers, it has to be petroleum free. Most diaper creams on the market are actually petroleum based, which is going to ruin your cloth diapers and make them leak. So be careful about which cream that you get. Then next thing that you will need is a changing pad. And I don’t just mean a changing station, baby registries you know, they try to recommend all the things right, they want to recommend this entire piece of furniture called a changing table which is totally unnecessary. And then when you think of a changing pad, you’re probably thinking of the waterproof like cushions style changing pad. But you might be surprised to know that you don’t even need one of those. Those cushion style pads are bulky. You can’t take them around with you they’re not transportable, and while you can set them on top of a dresser as like a DIY changing station. You don’t even need to do that. Get yourself one of the portable waterproof changing pads. You know the kind that you can fold up and pack away in your diaper bag as a travel changing pad. That one those are perfect. As all you need to protect your furniture your floors during a diaper change is the waterproof mat. So those portable changing pads are perfect. Just lay the mat down on a bed, on the couch, on the floor on top of her dresser like literally anywhere that you are going to be changing your baby. And if you want to give their head a little cushion so you can put a folded blankets bottle under their head. You know, you’ve made yourself a little a little pillow for them just with a swaddle, no big deal soon I mean, you don’t need all the fancy baby gear to get by. You just don’t. All that extra gear. It takes up so much space and a lot of it is really unnecessary.

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So just be mindful of that when you are packing up like all when you’re picking all the things that you might want. Just be mindful, do I really need that? Try to be creative Okay, next thing that you need is a diaper pail. So you’ve got to have somewhere to put those dirty diapers. Now, if you’re using disposable diapers, you might not even need to buy a diaper pail at all. You could easily just put a small trash can with a lid on it. Right where you’re you’ve set up your little changing station and call that your diaper pail. Because to be honest, those diaper genies are not all that they’re cracked up to be. I personally don’t think that they hold the smell any better than a trash can with a lid and you have to open it up anyways to put a diaper in and the smell is gonna escape during that time you open it up so it’s just like, whatever I don’t think you need a special Diaper Genie. Now, if you’re using cloth diapers, I really love and recommend the decor plus diaper pill and they have cloth pail liners to go in it. So this is just a larger diaper pail that is the perfect size to hold cloth diapers, and they make a waterproof cloth pail liner that fits perfectly inside of it. So when you wash your diaper laundry, you just toss the cloth pail liner in with it and wash them all together. It is genius. I love it. Some other great tools to have for cloth diapering are going to going to be your diaper sprayer for when your baby starts to have solid poops. Trust me. I honestly don’t think that I could use cloth diapers without my diaper sprayer. Some people do this old school like Duncan switch method and it just grosses me out. So I have a diaper sprayer it hooks up to my toilet. It’s basically a bid day with a long hose and he just you hook it up and you can spray the diapers right there into the toilet. It’s wonderful. Okay, another thing that you should get for cloth diapers are some wet bags and those are going to be helpful for in your diaper bag. Just because you know when you’re out and about like what do you do with the dirty diapers they go in the wet bag and let’s say you have to bring home some poopy diapers with you. They stay in the wet bag and then you take them home and you can always spray him out before you put them into your diaper pail. Easy peasy. And then of course, you if you’re if you’re cloth diapering, you need to have the right inserts for your diapers. There are some awesome awesome affordable options out there for you. I really like the naturally nature brand. They have charcoal bamboo inserts that I love that I use. They’re made with bamboo which is great and the charcoal is I mean they’re just black. So if you you know, you don’t have to worry about poop stains like you would with a regular white colored insert and the bamboo you know it’s a great sustainable resource. It’s a great material and they’re more absorbent than microfiber inserts which is typically what comes for free when you purchase a cloth diaper microfiber. It honestly sucks as a cloth diaper insert, they are prone to compression leaks and I hate them if you use a cloth diaper with microfiber insert and you’re like why am I having all these leaks? I hate cloth diapers to get a different answer that is exactly why because it’s it’s microfiber. Now if you’re on a tight budget, you can simply buy some flour sack towels and fold those up and use them as inserts. I’ve seen them as cheap as like $1 per flour sack towel like you can get a pack of 12 for $12. A lot of people like to buy them at Walmart. But they’re awesome. You just fold them up you stuffed it in the diaper just like you would any other insert and you’re good to go. They’re super absorbent. And they’re just a great, affordable insert. I can’t say enough good things about the flour sack towels and I know a lot of moms

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actually recommend using flour sack towels inside of all the cloth diapering groups that I’m in so definitely consider those if you’re on a tight budget. Now for overnight if your baby is soaking through their cloth diaper which has happened to me before and it took me a couple tries to figure it out. But eventually I discovered hemp So invest in four to six hemp inserts thirsties brand is great. And you can use those as a part of their overnight diaper as a doubler. So when you have a doubler you layer their daytime insert which let’s say you have a flower tech towel. You layer that on top of the hemp answer and then you stuff the diaper with their flour sack towel closest to the body and then the hemp is underneath that so the flour sack towel insert the is quicker absorbing it holds not as much liquid as hemp But it absorbs faster, which is what you want because when they’re peeing, it’s kind of a heavy, heavy flow happening. And then the hemp holds a lot more liquid, but it doesn’t absorb as quickly. So that’s when you use the hemp as a doubler. Because if you use the hemp on its own, your baby would pee, they’d flub the diaper, and then the Hambledon absorb it fast enough, and you just have a leaky mess on your hands. So if you want to learn more about cloth diapers, just go back and listen to episode 15. There’s a ton of good stuff in there. And I can also post the link to my free cloth diapering checklist. Again, if you’re interested in that, it’s everything that you need to start cloth diapers and stick with it. It’s perfect for beginners. And that is it for today’s installment of a minimal and sustainable postpartum series. So if you like all the tips that I gave on this podcast and you want to work with me so you can find balance in your new motherhood journey, get your baby on a predictable schedule, prioritize yourself care and stop feeling overwhelmed by a never ending to do list as Mom, go to Angel swan.com/back to you and you can choose to work with me through my group coaching, go to Angel swan.com/work with me if you are interested in one on one coaching. I’ll also have all these links in the episode description for you. And as always, don’t forget to hang out with me on Instagram at Angel dot swan. You can grab all of my free resources on my website, Angel swan.com. And of course don’t forget to go on Apple podcasts rate review and subscribe. Thanks so much for listening. I’ll talk to you soon. Buh bye. Thank you so much for listening to the better postpartum podcast. Here’s what I want you to do next. If you loved what you heard today, would you do me a giant favor and leave me a written five star review? Those little love notes that you leave are the perfect way to thank me for putting out these episodes just for you. Seriously, it would mean the world to me. Next, take a screenshot of the episode you’re listening to right now and share it on your Instagram stories and make sure you tag me at Angel dot swan. That’s SW o n so that more moms can find this podcast and hopefully get the advice and encouragement they need to truly thrive with their babies. And don’t forget to come back every single week for more nuggets of wisdom and truth bombs about the early motherhood journey. I’ll talk to you next time. Bye bye