Fluffdom Express: Mothering Grace: AppleCheeks {CLOSED} Plus a Coupon Code!

To tell you the honest truth, my daughter, has done the vast bulk of all the diaper reading, research, studying, use and washing. It is a real blessing to me to have a daughter who can and wants to help me this way. I have pretty much asked questions, tried to understand and trusted my daughter along the way, providing the credit card, when necessary. For a primer on diapers, she took me to Mothering Grace. I like the way Sara has set up her web site. She has lots of full descriptions and then notes at the bottom from a mom who uses the products about how to benefit most from each one’s features.

It was Sara’s Mothering Grace site that helped me to understand the diaper lingo that my daughter was using to tell me about all the great products that are available for cloth diapering nowadays. And it’s to Mothering Grace I return when I need a refresher or reminder!

Sara also has two SUPER features on her store site that I LOVE. The first is her guide for cloth diaper newcomers called ‘Getting Started with Cloth’. In her guide, Sara lists four steps with links to helpful information to lead us newbies on the path to figuring out modern-day cloth diapers.

My second favorite feature is a link from the first ‘Picking your [diapering] personality’ is a quick way to narrow down your cloth diapering philosophy and see what diapers and accessories fit with that philosophy. I went back and read all the sections, so I could understand each one better and my daughter and I could figure out what was best for us, for J, for our family and our budget. It’s a tremendous resource to any cloth-diapering mom.

Finally, the best feature about Mothering Grace is Sara. She has the BEST customer service! When my daughter won her first Apple Cheeks diaper from Mothering Grace, we thought we wanted one thing and after talking to us about what we were really looking for, she suggested something else, that has worked out better for us (including cost-wise!). When we were looking for larger sized diapers for J, Sara offered to special order them for us at a discounted price. And when J’s surgery was scheduled about a month earlier than we anticipated and we had to order things right away, Sara worked with us to ensure we chose the right shipping method and received our ‘special fluffy delivery’ in time to have all we needed in the hospital. ***One Southern Momma***
*********************************************************

AppleCheeks diapers are very different from any of the other diapers we’ve tried. Because of the elastic in the front, back and legs, the AppleCheeks seem to hold in more mess as well as being trim-fitting. Even double-stuffed, the AppleCheeks still looks trim on J. There are 4 sets of snaps on this diaper and you can adjust when you snap the diaper, to get a looser fit on the waist and a tighter fit on the legs, if that is what you need.

Some of the benefits for the AppleCheeks diaper are: the inserts agitate out during wash, and the ability to reuse the cover as a AI2 (all in two) and thus get more uses out of it. Newborn prefolds also work very well as a insert for a AppleCheeks diaper, not to mention they’re pretty inexpensive.

L: largest setting R: smallest setting with a prefold on top of the microfleece: AI2

While AppleCheeks don’t seem to fit in the Special Needs category, an accessory that AppleCheeks also makes, helps them to squeeze on in! Waist extenders is a rectangular piece of PUL/microfleece with added snaps with allow another 2” on room on the waist. While they’re $7.75 for a pair, if you don’t mind if the extender and diaper are different colors, it’s definitely less than buying more diapers. ***One Southern Girl***

AppleCheeks

Size	Size 1 - Small	Size 2 - Large
Pounds	7 - 20	18 - 40
Rise	11 - 15	13 - 19
Waist	9 - 22	14 - 26
Thigh	5 - 12	6 - 13

Coupon Code: get $5 off your purchase of $75 or more at Mothering Grace with the code ‘SOUTHERN’ till August 31st, 2010

WIN IT: Sara has generously offered one (1) reader their own AppleCheeks Envelope Cover and Bamboo insert from instock sizes and colors.

***Giveaway CLOSED. Winner is Madeline Miller***

This contest is open to the US only and ends August 28st, 2010 at 12:00 PM EDT. The winner will be chosen by Random.org and notified by email as well as announced on Happily Southern. The winner will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen and notified

A HUGE THANK YOU to Mothering Grace for providing the giveaway item! We won an AppleCheek diaper and insert and purchased more later. We were not compensated in any other way and the statements within this post are our own and honest opinions.

My history with cloth diapers...

Since some folks have asked, I thought I'd write a post about how I got started with cloth diapers.

The first time I ever used cloth diapers was about 7 years ago on my baby sister. We used the cheap prefolds and covers from Walmart and diaper pins. In my ignorance, I believed that if the diapers smelled, I should add more soap. Needless to say, the diapers leaked constantly and the plastic covers kept melting in the dryer. Shortly afterwards, we put our house on the market and my dad said 'enough with cloth diapers. I don't want people walking into our house and smelling them!'. I agreed and thought I'd wouldn't use cloth diapers again since they were such a hassle!

In the next few years, I came across some diapers, but the cost of getting enough was a deterrent and I still had no clue about why our diapers leaked and smelled. Fast forward to last October... I came across some giveaways, including ones for cloth diapers. Through the reviews, I learned about using a little bit of soap to wash them and about stripping them regularly. The catch now? In December 2004, my parents had a little boy with Down syndrome. In February of 2007, he was diagnosed with leukemia and was just completing 2 years, 9 months of treatment and... he weighed 40 pounds. In the reviews I had read all the diapers were One Size (7-35 pounds) and there wasn't any way for those to work.

Enter twitter! Like some have said before me, if you ever want something, ask on twitter. A friend sent us a FuzziBunz Perfect Size and that's how we learned that many diapers for special needs kids are 'sized' not one size.

In this upcoming event my mom and I are coordinating, we want to share reviews and giveaways of diapers and accessories for special needs children and diapers that work great in a hospital setting... All the time we spent looking for diapers; we want to help other families save that time.

We are also hoping to have some guest posts written by moms of children with special needs who cloth diaper them. At the end of the event, we'll set up an index page that has links to cloth diapers/accessories for special needs kids. Not all are participating in the event, but will still be linked to. One thing that we'll be including in each review of a diaper is the sizing... and what it is and means. If OS diapers and sized diapers had the sizing instead of or included on the company/retailers web site, it would help so many families. I know it would have helped us.

In the end, my goal is to share as much information as I can from what we have learned, to help other special needs families learn about diapers more easily than we did and to have it all together in one place, where even families who don't have a special needs child can still learn about it and help special needs families as well.

I hope this helps with some of your questions. If your question isn't answered in here, just email me with your questions at happilysouthernreviews@gmail.com

Surprise, surprise! Announcing the Fluffdom Express event and extra entries opportunity!

So, we've kept a secret from you... But don't worry, we're gonna tell you now!

When we would enter giveaways we would see all those adorable cloth diapers and all the great companies. But, J has Special Needs (Down syndrome) and weighed 40 pounds. And for us, looking at those One-Size diapers with the 7-35 pound range, it seemed a no go! Then I actually won a diaper over at Minnesota Mama's Must Haves and in chatting about it with a friend on twitter, (Nancy at Arizona Mama) I complained about finding NO diapers for special needs kids. Less than a week later, a package arived. On the back it read, "you got fluffy mail! ♥ fancygrlnancy". Inside was a FuzziBunz Perfect Size Large in Baby Blue! I immediately put it on J after recovering my breath! His sigh as I stood him up made up our minds to cloth diaper him full time. As soon as we got the diapers!

Today... we unveil the event... geared to helping families of children with Special Needs find diapers for their child and helping families decide what diapers to use in a hospital setting!

We have a great list of sponsors lined up with great diapers and accessories! We're excited to share what we've found with you all. Now that you've read this far... yes it's time for extra entries!

Don't worry about adding your extra entries in... that will be my job, err... pleasure!

Grab 10 extra entries into each giveaway by grabbing the button and blogging!

updated: for those who don't have a blog, grab 5 extra entries by updating your Facebook status with a link to this post and leave as your status for 2 hours.

Grab 5 extra entries for each friend you refer that grabs the button and blogs about the event. (no limit! ;)) Make sure they leave your name in their comment though!



You have until August 1st, 2010 to get all your blog posts posted AND to have your comment submitted here, linking up to your post.

Have a question about the event?
edited to add: Do you have a cloth diaper that is for special needs kids and we've not contacted you?
email me at happilysouthernreviews{at}gmail{dot}com