Cloth Diaper Subsidies

We recently had a customer in Ontario who after ordering cloth diapers from us was able to get a $200 cloth diaper subsidy from her local government. We are based out of Manitoba where as far as I know no such grants/subsidies exist. Owning a cloth diaper business where we manufacture our own product, I obviously thought this was a fantastic idea! Curiosity piqued I contacted this customer again with a few follow up questions regarding the subsidy. She said there was some paperwork to fill out in order to get the money and she also needed to provide a receipt/invoice from us other than the one from Pay-Pal, easy enough. She also told me that in her community they were working to raise awareness for the cloth diaper subsidy program.  Apparently every year they have money left over because not enough parents take advantage of it.

I think the main obstacle we have to overcome when talking to parents about cloth diapers is the fear/lack of knowledge on how to wash/care for them. No, actually the main obstacle with the vast majority is for them to even consider something that involves them doing any more work than absolutely necessary, sad but true. A lot of times though, parents who are interested in and even want to use cloth diapers are scared off by the initial investment (if looking at our birth to potty system it’s $400). I guess they are worried that they will spend this money and end up not being able to use the diapers due to the difficulty of washing them/the extra bit of work involved. To me, this notion is crazy. If you want to use cloth diapers:  just make the decision, buy them and do it! The question is… would a $100 – $200 subsidy from the government help offset the initial cost enough to get more Canadian parents using cloth diapers? I would think so, but as I am learning more and more not everyone thinks the same way I do

Quebec is leading the provinces in cloth diaper subsidies with over 100 communities offering $100-$250 grants to parents willing to try cloth diapering. Ontario and BC appear to be slowly getting on board with this. Quebec is the #1 market for cloth diapers in Canada and maybe these subsidies have something to do with it? Maybe it’s the additional exposure/awareness programs like this create?

Why are local governments offering these subsidies? In Quebec I read that it is to offer more affordable options for parents to promote more families to stay in and or move to Quebec. Another is to cut down on the waste disposable diapers contribute to local landfills; approximately 3% of the total residential waste for disposal in Canada.

Do you think cloth diaper subsidies would make a substantial difference?  There already are the parents with a personality type that encourages them to try something different even though it is more work and different from what 95% of their peers are doing.  Could some financial help from the government get another 5% or so to try cloth diapers?

Blog Posts Too Negative?

We recently received an email suggesting our blog is a little too negative and that we “put down” the competition too much. I agree with this point of view. So why do some of the posts have such a negative tone? Simple, I like to write when I’m PMSing. Honestly, I put down the competition because they piss me off! They piss me off because they confuse people who are looking for cloth diapers. They confuse people by offering them way too many different brands and types of cloth diapers and say all of them are great. They give bad information about which diapers to buy and how many are needed. They make cloth diapers appear much more confusing than they have to be. They choose to carry diapers with more complicated care guidelines and they carry diapers that are expensive. In a nutshell, they confuse a lot of women out of buying cloth diapers all together and set a bunch up for failure by telling them they only need 24 diapers or 12 diapers and 24 liners. When I say competition I am referring to the other online cloth diaper retailers. The email responsible for provoking this post also suggested that we may want to encourage cloth diaper use in general regardless of the type/brand. I thought we did? Of course we would rather someone using cloth diapers instead of disposables even if they chose a brand other than ours. It was also said that our blog has her second guessing our true intentions. Our intentions are pretty simple, sell diapers. We didn’t just throw up a website offering a bunch of different cloth diapers designed and manufactured my someone else. We created a system with the goal of making it easier and more affordable for people to use cloth diapers. We feel good about pushing our product because we created it and we believe in it.

Effective Hemorrhoid Home Remedy

I think we all know what hemorrhoids are, so I’m going to skip the gross description. It is estimated that up to 50% of women will develop this irritating, painful and embarrassing problem either during pregnancy or postpartum. Yes, I was one of those unfortunate women. My partner and I were living in different cities at the time and I was visiting him for the weekend when I could no longer ignore the symptoms. I was horrified! I went to speak with a pharmacist (naturally the place was full of people and the pharmacist was hard of hearing) who told me not to use suppositories during pregnancy but recommended a few different creams. At this point I was feeling pretty good, I had this cream and was thinking the hemorrhoids would be gone soon. Unfortunately the cream didn’t work. So I started looking into some natural home remedies and after hours of reading and a few unsuccessful trials I found one that worked! Not only has this remedy worked for me but for many other women as well. I have no idea how or why it works but it definitely does!

Banana Peel Tea

- 2 cups of water

- 3-4 banana peels

Directions

Put the banana peels and water in a pot and bring to a boil, boil down until there is only 1 cup/half the amount of water remaining in the pot, strain and drink the liquid. Make sure to really strain well to get rid of the chunks. To get rid of hemorrhoids do this about 3 times a day the first few days then once a day until gone. To save some time you can make a large batch and store it in the refrigerator.

Warning: It tastes awful and smells bad and I cannot stress enough the importance of straining!

Hmmm…. I wonder if anyone will comment on here about their own embarrassing hemorrhoid experiences? LOL.

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So Many Diapers And Only 9 Months To Decide

A lot of new and expectant parents are really unsure about which diapers to choose. The first decision is to decide between cloth or disposable; even though in my opinion the obvious choice is cloth the majority are still, unfortunately choosing to go the disposable route. For most, convenience (I also like to call it laziness) right now is the deciding factor. Not, thousands of dollars saved, earlier easier potty training, cleaner landfills or any of the other benefits of using cloth diapers. That being said, some parents clearly see the benefits of cloth right away and have a pretty easy time deciding to pass on Pampers. However, once they have decided to go cloth they are bombarded with an enormous selection (mainly on-line) and price range of cloth diapers. So what should they do? If you ask me, it’s easy, save yourself some time, money and avoid the stress of looking and just get the Boobles Bottoms complete diapering system. We designed our diapering system to be affordable, easy to use, trim fitting and really easy to buy since everything you need is in one kit… I almost forgot cute (see picture above). There seems to be too much selection which tends to leave expectant parents believing cloth diapering is really confusing and that there’s a lot more to it than there really is. If cloth diapers seem like the obvious choice for your baby then don’t get confused by all of the different options, just use your common sense.

You Don’t Always Get What You Pay For

It seems that though our Boobles Bottoms are only $9.99 each they have many benefits over the $20-$25 all in one, snap filled, one size diapers. Among the benefits; the trim fit, easy washing and simple sizing seem to be the most appreciated by our customers…. that and the price of course.

Here is a recent customer testimonial:
I have been using my boobles bottom diapers since my daughter was 3 days old. I love how easy they are to fold and adjust for her growing size. They wash really well and I have yet to have one stay stained! After almost 5 months in these diapers my daughter has never had a diaper rash!!! I did have some troubles with them leaking but the Diaper Ladies helped me out via e-mail and that was the end of that. After seeing the issues friends have had with their one-sized snapped diapers and the all in one diapers I am very glad that I chose Boobles Bottoms!

Cloth Diapers Winnipeg???

I find it somewhat comical how long it takes people to warm up to the idea of using cloth diapers… not actually using them just warming up to thinking about using them. A few weeks ago I was talking to an acquaintance who just so happens to be an expectant father. When I told him about our cloth diaper business here in Winnipeg, Manitoba he right away said, “oh I don’t think my fiance would go for that.” Since then he has slowly been asking more about cloth diapering… so does it take most people a while to warm up to the idea or is this just a Winnipeg thing? The only customers we actually get to meet in person are here in Winnipeg and the rest across Canada and The States we only speak with over e-mail and sometimes phone. We’ll probably never know, well we definitely had Winnipeggers love of a great deal in mind when we priced our complete kit.