Archive for the ‘Cloth Diaper Advocacy’ Category

We had a lot of fun doing The Can Challenge with our local dads.  Quite a few days took up the challenge we issued to show if they were the fastest diaper changing dad for Nappy Shoppe.  While no one was able to beat the National time of less than 1 second!!!! (I am super skeptical on that one!), we did get a winning time of 3.66 seconds.

Travis Grannan with his son Hendrik, and their basket of prizes for their 3.66 second diaper change!

Our winning dad won two bumgenius free time diapers, a Sweet Pea wet bag and a tube of Grandma El’s diaper cream.  The next 8 dads all won a bumgenius free time diaper.  Thanks to all of our wonderful dads who came in and took up the challenge.  It was a lot of fun.  One classic was one of my employees being hit with a diaper thrown over one dad’s shoulder.  We learned not to stand behind the dads after that!  You can see how our Dads did compared to others across the nation on the official Can Challenge Leader board.  It shows the top 50 dads nation wide.

Our top 9 dads!

Employee’s husbands were exempt.  And in full disclosure we ended up hiring Travis’ wife (the winner), but she did not start work until after the event was done.

And employee’s were disappointed that their husbands or significant others could not show their prowess.  So we will be having an in store competition for the rest of this month for the store dads (or granddads or uncles).  Winner of that timed event will win a $20 gift card for dinner at Covinos Italian Restaurant.  They have until August 31st to prove themselves.  Who do you think will win it?

To celebrate Father’s Day, Nappy Shoppe is participating in The CAN Challenge, a chance for the man in your life to compete for the ultimate title – The Fastest Diaper Changer! This epic showdown between man vs. diaper will take place from June 16 to August 4! Whether it’s a proud papa, grandpa, friend, or brother, we want to put his diaper-changing skills to the test!

The CAN Challenge is a fun and unique competition designed to help broaden awareness of cloth diapers and showcase the benefits of cloth diapering to its toughest critics – men.

The gloves are coming off… or maybe, in some cases, dad is putting them on ;). The quest for the title will begin on Saturday, June 16 and ends on Saturday, August 4!  See our classes and events schedule for times when we are going to be running the event.

In the end, there will only be one winner nationwide. Cloth diaper-loving men from all over will be competing for this sweet grand prize:

Don’t worry guys, your effort won’t be in vain! Every participant will receive a mail-in entry form for a chance to win a FREE bumGenius Freetime cloth diaper**. One in 10 will win!

Additionally, the top 9 men who make it to the top of our store leader board will all receive a bum genius free time diaper as a prize!  And our first prize winner will receive our winning gift basket that includes:

• A bum genius free time diaper
• A tube of Grandma Els diaper cream.
• A black sweet pea wet bag!

As a mom who has used cloth diapers for both of her children and also wants to pass on the fluffy butt love to other parents, I feel that I have to write this. This is for all of us, myself included, so that our cloth diaper advocacy efforts are not in vain.

I love my cloth diapers and we solely use them when we’re home and out and about. I use disposables, however, when I’m at other places where people who are not familiar with cloth diapers. I do this as a courtesy to those who are taking care of my child and as a way to show them that I am flexible. I can be flexible. Why? Because in the grand scheme of things, in the big picture of my daughter’s life, wearing a disposable for two or three hours will probably not cause her any harm.

I’m involved in a mother’s group at my church. We have two times that our groups meet and we watch each others kids at least twice a semester. There is a mother whose kid is in the “walkers” room – meaning that most of those children are one years old and walking steadily. Her child wears cloth diapers to our group when they’ve asked that all children be placed in disposables. They do this because our childcare works on a volunteer system and to be nice to the two hours that our volunteers are already giving up to watch our children they want to make life easier for them.

Unfortunately this mom is known as a crazy cloth diapering mama and I’ll tell you why. She is so focused on her child that she doesn’t see how her frequent visits and check ups to the room her child is in wreaks havoc to the rest of the kids in there. One year olds have a hard time separating from their parents. After a little while they overcome their anxiety and almost forget that Mom or Dad left them. All is peaceful…that is until the door opens and a mother walks in. It doesn’t have to be their mother; what that child knows is that someone’s mother is in the room which then reminds them that their mother is not. Chaos explodes and suddenly half of the 13 children you have in there who were happily playing are now upset. And the cause of the now chaotic room is because a mom who uses cloth diapers insisted that no one else change her child or put them in a disposable.

While the cloth diaper movement is gaining serious momentum I think it’s important to keep in mind that we are still living in a disposable world. Cloth diapering, while its roots are classic, historic even, are not the norm right now. Those who don’t use cloth diapers already have preconceived notions about us. I’m sure some of those ideas are probably that we’re tree hugging, granolas who only wear everything organic and wash our hair with mayonnaise. Some of us do live that way but not all of us just like some disposable using parents eat organic and all natural.

In order to spread the word about cloth diapers and show how they are really more beneficial economically, environmentally and emotionally (okay I added the emotionally part because they are just so stinkin’ cute!) we have to be willing to not be extreme with our cloth diapering. We cannot and shouldn’t insist to have our way especially if it causes problems or chaotic situations like the one that I described above.

I guess what I’m saying is that if a public place like daycare, church nurseries, the gym, etc. have a disposable only rule don’t try to bully your way into getting what you want. It only makes you look fanatical. Since we’re not the societal norm we have to not be over-zealous so that we can attract others to this lifestyle. If we act in such a way that we come across as self-righteous and pious about cloth diapers our efforts to continue to spread fluffy love will be in vain. Who wants to join something so that they too can be self-righteous? Probably no one. I think we need to be up for change from our fluffy needs and try our best to not insist on always getting things done our way.

You do catch more flies with honey. If we are loving, accepting and flexible, I think we’ll all find that more parents will jump on the bandwagon because they too will realize that the switch to cloth really isn’t as hard as they thought it would be. Plus, the community of cloth diaper lovers is just fabulous!