Posted August 12, 2006 
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Check out the new cloth diapering detergent chart where we rate different detergents and their effectiveness in being used with diaper laundry.
Posted August 12, 2006 Comments(0)
Posted August 11, 2006 Comments(0) August 10, 2006
The piece gives instructions for how to diaper an infant.
“Spread the diaper in the position of the diamond with you at bat. Then fold second base down home and set the baby on the pitcher’s mound. Put first base and third together, bring up home plate, and pin the three together. Of course, in case of rain, you gotta call the game and start all over again.”
Posted August 10, 2006 Comments(0) HomeGrown Baby may be only 4 months old, but the new retail and educational center is already standing strong.
By Laura Wahler
NIAGARA GAZETTE (NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y.)
BUFFALO, N.Y. — HomeGrown Baby may be only 4 months old, but the new retail and educational center is already standing strong.
Located in Kenmore, N.Y., HomeGrown Baby is dedicated to bringing Natural Family Living to local families.
Natural Family Living is a parenting style dedicated to raising children without interference from modern-day traditions. It’s also growing in popularity, according to HomeGrown Baby co-owner Andi Hamus of Buffalo, N.Y.
“There has been a big trend lately to go natural for everything, especially in our health and diet,” said Hamus, a mother of three children aged 18 months to 6 years. “It also has crept into motherhood.”
Hamus, 26, has taught natural childbirth and Natural Family Living in the area for several years, and frequently fielded questions about where they could purchase items such as cloth diapers and baby carriers.
That’s when the idea for HomeGrown Baby was conceived. The store, which Hamus co-owns with Mindy Purdy, opened April 1.
Besides no-pin cloth diapers in leopard print patterns (”These aren’t our mothers’ cloth diapers,” Hamus said), the store offers a variety of classes for parents and parents-to-be, including lessons on baby-wearing, natural childbirth and infant massage.
The store is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursdays.
Children are not only welcome, but they’re encouraged to accompany their parents to this store. A special play area will keep them entertained while mom shops.
Call (716) 353-3159 or visit buffalobirth.com for more information.
Posted August 8, 2006 Comments(0) Sunday, August 6, 2006
By DUNSTAN PRIAL
STAFF WRITER
Jerry Davis of Dumont has chosen as the slogan for his company: “We’re Number 1 in a Number 2 Business.”
That’s right, Davis’ business is poop — baby’s poop, to be precise. He operates Bottom’s Dry Diaper Service, one of the few remaining services in northern New Jersey that deliver and pick up cloth diapers at the homes of new mothers.
For the most part, cloth diapers have gone the way of the hula hoop and the skate key. The thick cloth rectangles, folded just so and held in place by safety pins, were staples of domestic life up through the 1950s.
But after disposable diapers were introduced on a mass level in the 1960s, the cloth diaper virtually disappeared, and with it the many profitable services that catered to millions of mothers who have since traded in the hassle and mess of cloth for the convenience of the throwaway model.
“It’s a very small business,” acknowledged Davis, 62, who has been involved in the laundry industry for most of his adult life.
With that in mind, Davis has expanded his service to include delivery of all major brands and styles of disposable diapers, as well as breast pump rentals. In fact, of his 190 or so regular clients in Bergen and Rockland, N.Y., counties, fewer than 20 hire him to deliver cloth diapers.
And he doesn’t expect that number to rise.
“The cloth side I know is going by the wayside,” he said one recent afternoon, standing in his basement amid shelves piled high with cloth diapers, biodegradable disposable diapers, diapers for swimming, tiny diapers for newborns and larger pull-up diapers for toddlers not yet potty trained.
He even shows visitors diaper-themed cartoons clipped from the newspaper.
Davis entered the laundry business after leaving the army more than three decades ago, joining the industry leader Consolidated Laundry in the Midwest. He moved to New Jersey in the mid-1980s and opened Bottom’s Dry from out of his home in 1989.
At first, the diaper delivery service was a side business, used to bring in a little extra money to supplement his full-time job as head of laundry services at the former Bergen Pines County Hospital.
It has been his full-time career since 1998, when he left a job on Long Island because of the commute, which on a bad day might take up to five hours.
The timing was right, he said, because most of the larger cloth diaper services had already gone out of business and the new, smaller landscape was ripe for a one-man company.
“This thing really flourished at that point because the other big companies were dropping out,” he said.
He’s been his own boss ever since.
Davis isn’t getting rich — his revenues in 2005 were $110,000, down from $135,000 in 2004. But he makes his own hours and he reports to no one.
“I’m the boss, that’s the big thing,” he said.
For his cloth customers, he starts them off with 70 diapers when the mom arrives home with the new baby.
He then delivers and picks up on a regular basis based on the needs of his clients.
For the first-time mother, Davis also provides instruction. For instance, cloth diapers are folded differently for baby boys than for baby girls: “Little boys pee out, little girls wet down,” he explained.
And there are no more safety pins to fool with — instead, the folded cloth is held in place by a waterproof plastic encasing secured by Velcro straps.
The dirty diapers are taken to an industrial cleaner in West New York.
Old diapers are sold to landscapers for cleaning their tools and to automobile detailers for polishing their cars.
Davis said he isn’t concerned about losing his cloth customers to disposable diapers. He’ll just persuade them to buy their disposables from him, he said.
His disposable clients see him once every three weeks, when he drops off their allotted supply of diapers. “I’ve got it down to a science,” he said.
Parents who have their diapers delivered, Davis observed, never face the terrifying prospect of running out late at night and finding all of the local drug stores are closed.
The only stores that compete with his prices are the superstores, such as Costco and BJs, because they buy in much larger numbers than Davis. But the superstores don’t deliver, he noted.
Customers who rent breast pumps from him can expect the same personal attention he gives to his diaper customers.
He delivers the pump to the new mom’s home, shows her how to use it, then picks it up when she no longer needs it.
“This is a very personal business,” he said.
Davis is pragmatic about the cloth side of his service. If the trend of the past 40 years is any indication, the numbers will continue to fall off.
But he’s not worried. There probably will always be a small niche of environmentally conscientious parents to serve.
“I get a lot of calls each year around Earth Day,” he said, smiling optimistically.
Bottom’s Dry Diaper Service
Address: 106 Berkley Place, Dumont
Owner: Jerry Davis
Employees: 1
Revenues: $110,000 in 2005
Motto: “We’re Number 1 in a Number 2 Business”
