I love Abby's Lane!

Just a quick review of one of my favorite stores for cloth diapering items and other natural parenting items...  Abby's Lane. I first ordered from them because they offer FREE shipping for all items in the US. But I LOVE them, because the owner is very nice and every order gets personal attention. I have received all my orders so quickly, and she has extra discounts and special offers if you sign up for their mailing list or join the Facebook Fan page.

They have a great selection, competitive prices, and offer a lot of helpful tips related to cloth diapering. The owner responds to personal emails and actually encourages people to contact her if they are having stink issues or other washing dilemmas. She also carries PediPeds baby shoes (which are amazing), baby carriers, and other items. I bought a lot of our cloth diapering supplies from Abby's Lane, but I wish I'd known about this store from the beginning! It would have been awesome to do a baby registry at Abby's Lane. :-)

Baby Registry Advice

Last year, a friend of mine who was pregnant sent out an email to several people asking for input on putting together her registry. I have referred back to my responses and passed them along to a few other moms, so I thought I should just go ahead and post them here for future reference. These are her questions, and my responses, plus a summary of the feedback she got from everyone she asked.

Introducing straw cups and sippy cups to breastfed babies

Since I'm a SAHM, we never really had a need to introduce bottles to the Little Missy. We took a few bottles when I went to a wedding when she was 6 weeks old, but then by the next time we tried to offer one, she had decided she only liked her milk from the tap. I tried every bottle out there, but she was too smart for my tricks.

Feeding Meat to Babies & Toddlers

Recently, studies are showing that meat should be introduced to babies earlier in order to provide them with this excellent source of heme iron. In our family, we have taken an approach to introducing solid foods called Baby-Led Weaning, a concept where babies are given food in their normal form instead of pureed. We still did some purees, but pureed meat did not go over very well with the Little Missy. So we opted for pieces of steak, hamburger, and chicken instead, and let her gum on them. Although her tastes are constantly changing, some of her favorites have been:

• steak fajita strips
• baked or rotisserie chicken
  
• chicken fingers
  
• shredded chicken taco meat (see recipe below)
  
• Mild Italian sausage
• breakfast sausage (I found some with no MSG and no nitrates in the freezer aisle.)
  

My favorite recipe for the Little Missy is Shredded Chicken Tacos. It's very simple...

1. Place 3-4 boneless chicken breasts in a crock pot. Cover with water.
   
2. Add packet of taco seasoning (McCormick brand says it has no MSG, for what it's worth).
   
3. Cook on high 3-4 hours or low for 6-8 hours, then shred chicken with forks.
   

* Baby can eat chicken just like that, or with some shredded cheese sprinkled on top (once you've introduced dairy). For the adults, I put it on soft taco shells with taco toppings.
* Variations call for adding green peppers, onion, and salsa in the crockpot, but we never do this, because I don't like all that stuff in my tacos.
* Recommended sides include black beans (I get the low-sodium variety for the Little Missy), corn, and guacamole (which is of course excellent for babies, due to all the good fats in avocados).

Favorite cloth diaper inserts/doublers

I've used a variety of different inserts and doublers in our diapering adventure so far. We mostly use prefolds at home, but we use pockets for convenience when we leave the house and when I dare to try cloth overnight.

With our prefolds, I bought some Hemp Babies doublers at first, but found that my daughter only really wets up front, so I wanted something smaller just for the front. I found the perfect solution is a Happy Heiny Stuff-in Oval. I like the Hemp Babies large doublers for pocket diapers still though. The Hemp Babies small doublers are shorter, but oddly wider, which bugs me, because the Little Missy has a narrow crotch.

My favorite inserts are hemp and microfiber combined. This is because microfiber absorbs quicker, but hemp absorbs a lot more. If you put microfiber over hemp, the microfiber absorbs almost instantly and then the hemp can slowly soak up the wetness. In this category, the LoopyDo inserts are definitely the trimmest that I've used, both in width and thickness, but with great absorbency. We have several of those that I use in all our smaller diapers. (The sizing runs a little off I think, because I use the Large inserts in my medium diapers and they seem like a great fit.) I also LOVE the super absorbent Blueberry one-size hemp/microfiber insert. It is amazingly trim despite how big it looks unfolded, and the way the one size feature works, you can have the hemp portion double thickness in the "wet zone". This has worked very well for us. These inserts come with Blueberry One-Size Deluxe pocket diapers, or you can buy the inserts separately.

NOTE: I buy from www.abbyslane.com whenever possible, because she offers free US shipping on all orders and great customer service.