Diaper Trick for a Super Leaky Kid

My daughter is 2. She is the only child I have had that leaks throught her diaper every. single. night. Not kidding. It does not matter what kind of diapers I use-- Huggies, Pampers, Luvs, generic...(ok-- some generics are especially bad) but even the best of the brand-names can not contain this child! Every morning I was faced with a wet smelly kid and needing to wash all her bedding, pajamas, and her favorite blanket. That's the main problem. Listening to her cry for 2 hours while her "blankie" gets washed.

Desperate for a solution, I wracked my brain thinking of what else I could do. Enter cloth diapers. -- don't give up yet......KEEP READING--- I bought a pack of cloth diapers from Wal-mart, 12 in the pack for $11.99. Not too bad. Then I bought diaper pins (4 in the pack for $1-2) and plastic pants (6 in the pack for about $5, I think). I did NOT want to wash out stinky, poopy diapers. That just is not something I can deal with at this point in my life, so I got creative. I put a regular Huggies diaper on her and then I pin the cloth diaper OVER the top of the disposable diaper. Put on the plastic pants and pj's and put her to bed. Every. single. morning she has a wet cloth diaper, but it does a good job of absorbing the "excess" that leaked out the regular diaper, and the rest of her bedding, blankets, and PJ's are dry. It has turned out to be cheaper to wash one cloth diaper each day with my regular laundry than to do an extra load every day to wash all her bedding. Total cost was under $20 and I know I have saved that in laundry detergent, water, running my dryer/washer, the wear & tear on my items, and simply my sanity!!

I realize not everyone has this problem. And BLESS YOU if you don't. But for those of us who do, here's a possible solution. If you have other ideas for a kid like this, please pass them on. Potty training will be facing me soon, and I don't know what I am going to do then!!

Diapers and Generic Items in General

A website I really like is Meckmom.com. Her post yesterday is about generic brand diapers, and there are a lot of comments below the post about generic items in general and how they compare to their brand-name competitors. Just thought I would pass it on to those of you who may be interested in checking out her blog. She has a lot of great ideas for families and organization as well.

I have personally found that generic medicines are almost always a good buy. I prefer to buy most medicines at Costco because the price is so much cheaper per ounce/pill, etc. I have tried the generic brand diapers from Smith's (Kroger) and they were terrible! Very thin, very cheap and they leaked like crazy. I, however, liked the generics from Macey's (Associated Foods in Utah). They are called "Cozy Care" and the diapers are just fine. (I will share a diaper trick I use for my super leaky girl in a separate post).

So.. if you are interested, check out MeckMom. And please, if you want to post what generics YOU use and how they stack up (or DON'T stack up), post them here for us to see. Thanks for sharing!

Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Waffles

Ingredients:
2 and 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
4 teaspons baking powder
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 and 1/2 tablespoons sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 and 1/4 cups whole milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
cooking spray
Directions:
Mix the first 8 ingredients
Preheat a waffle iron. Spray it with cooking spray.
Fill a medium size ladle with batter and pour it onto the waffle iron.
Cook
Serve with maple syrup and/or fresh berries

I made these Saturday for dinner and they were a hit all around. There were leftovers, so I stuck them in a ziplock bag in the fridge. Max, my little boy, loves them warmed up with a little Reddi-Whip on top. The slight peanut butter taste is so good. It's a great way to use the whole wheat in your food storage!

Homemade Syrup

I made this today. SOOO....easy. So "healthy" :-). Pretty good.

2 cups brown sugar
2 cups white sugar
1 cup water
1 tsp. maple flavoring (I used almond because that is what I had. It was really good)

Whisk together in a saucepan over medium heat until the sugar is melted. (Make sure not to walk away while the burner is on high. It will boil over a bit if you do this. Burning sugar isn't the best smell...oops!)

This makes enough to fill a 24 oz syrup bottle. I figure that it costs about half as much as regular store-bought syrup. Make sure to store it in the fridge.

Bike Facelift

I admit, I stole this idea from my brother-in-law...,..... a man who is, I might add, the LAST person I would think of as "frugal." Several years ago, my daughter inherited a bicycle from his children. It is a girl's bike, but he had 2 girls in a row, then a boy, and he didn't want to shell out the money for a boy's bike. So my brother-in-law spray painted the pink bike a more "boyish" dark green. Well, my daughter has loved this dark green bike, but often wished it were pink. So my husband bought a can of spray paint, and returned it to its "girly" glory. He taped some plastic bags around the handles & chains to keep the paint out of them. Our daughter... well she thought she'd died and gone to heaven, now that she has a pink bike! Woot. Just an idea you might want to try. Get as creative as you want and use your imagination (or your child's!)

Sorry, I don't have a picture of the finished product, but I will try to get one tomorrow. Not bad to get a brand-new looking bike for the price of one can of spray paint, eh?

Diapers

I have tried discount diapers in the past, but they haven't worked for us. Recently, I purchased a box of Target-brand diapers. We have been using them on our little boy for about two weeks, and I really am satisfied with the results. At 15 cents a diaper for size 4, I think I'll stick with this brand for now!