Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Where to Shop: AKA, The End

This is, sadly, my last planned entry here. :( Being a busy momma to two (soon to be three!), keeping my home, teaching my son, and doing all the other things that I love to do, not to mention keeping up with our family blog, this is proving to be too much. Plus, I'm at a place in my cloth diapering journey where my new experiences are kind of stalling out. I have a system I like, I have my brands I prefer, and I'm not in a position (financially) to be trying all sorts of new things just for kicks. Even though I'd like to.

I'm not shutting the blog down, but I'm definitely not planning on continuing to update. So if you've been reading or following in anticipation of having kids one day, but don't yet, you can still leave the bookmark in your computer to refer to later! :)

But I mentioned in my previous post that the 2 most common questions I hear regarding modern cloth diapers are (1) where did you hear about these?; and (2) where do you buy those? I've actually had people come to me, frustrated that Babies R Us was "out" of my kind of cloth diapers when they went. {smile}

You may be fortunate enough to live somewhere with a brick-and-mortar cloth diapering store. All this means is that you have an actual store building somewhere in your town or within a reasonable driving distance. I am not so fortunate; in fact, I don't know of anywhere in the state of GA that sells any cloth diapering stuff, save for a small midwifery practice, but they're far away from me and don't have a wide selection.

No, the truth is that if you're wanting to buy some fluff for your kids, you're going to be doing it online. The good news is that most cloth diaper e-tailers (like retailers, but online...get it?) offer shipping incentives for orders over a certain amount, ranging from as low as $49 to as high as $99. And really, when it comes to ordering cloth, you can reach that total in a hurry.

So where to? Here are some of my top choices for places to shop, order from, or even browse. IF YOU HAVE ANOTHER STORE THAT YOU LOVE, PLEASE SHARE IT IN A COMMENT!!

Nicki's Diapers. This store has my heart. I think most fluff mamas end up really preferring one place over another, and ND has pretty much always had everything that I have wanted to try in stock. They offer free shipping on orders over $75, and they actually have a new "15-Day Wash and Return" option, to allow you to try out cloth products. If you don't love them, you can return your stuff for store credit, and she offers lots more than just diapers!

Cotton Babies. This is another wonderful store, and I actually did the giveaway on here through them. They offer free economy shipping on all orders, every day.

Jillian's Drawers. I have never actually ordered anything from JD, but the thing that I've always loved about them is that they offer a VERY comprehensive try-it-out kit, which allows you to try cloth diapers at home for 21 days. If you decided not to stick with it, you can return everything and get all but $10 refunded.

Green Mountain Diapers. This is another site that I never actually ordered from, but I love their site! They have some really comprehensive and thorough information on prefolds, too, which is really helpful! And they have super simple, flat rate shipping.

Kelly's Closet. Kelly's Closet has a very wide selection of products and prints. She also offer an incentive program, where you earn points for every dollar spent, and your points add up toward store credit for you to get free diapers! You also get free shipping on orders over $99.

Nurtured Family. This is one of the first websites I ever looked at! They offer free shipping within the US on all orders over $75. They offer tons and tons and TONS of stuff besides cloth diapers!

Banana Peels Diapers. I haven't ordered anything from here. Yet. ;) This site contains all my current wish list items. They offer free shipping on orders over $50, which is one of the lowest places around!

And don't forget, if you're looking for gently used, pre-loved cloth diapers, you can always check out the forums on Diaper Swappers and the Diaper Pin.

And here's my big push:

Please check out Etsy and Hyena Cart's categories of online boutiques that feature handmade fluff, made in the USA by work-at-home-moms. You can help to support families like yours while making the switch to cloth. I have a lot of WAHM diapers, and I've loved all of it! And the prices are waaaay better, and it's fair trade to boot! (To get a list of Etsy shops that sell cloth diapers, go to this blog here, and there's a complete list on the left-hand side of the page.)

All these links should open in a new window.

I've enjoyed doing this blog while I did, but I kept on feeling bad that I wasn't updating as frequently as I thought I ought to. And really, there's just so many great places to find information out there! Thanks for sticking around, while we were both here. Cheers! :)