mama cloth

I have to say that it's only been about a year since I made the switch over to mama cloth, maybe that's why I'm still so excited about it!

My thought process went something like this:

Ugh, that's a lot of plastic waste...
Well, I'm using cloth for my baby...
Why wouldn't I use cloth for myself??

Actually, the first thing I did was buy a Diva Cup - this was one of the top 10 best purchases of my life, easily (I'll have to actually make that list later...). There are some different ones, like the Keeper, that are all pretty much the same thing.

(Go check out Crunchy Chicken, she has a Diva Cup challenge going on sometimes!)

Menstrual cups aren't mama cloth at all, instead they take the place of tampons, but they all accomplish the same thing - less waste in landfills.

They are really comfortable and easy too, and my favorite part is that I no longer have to carry a bunch of "products" around with me all the time.

Then there are the "true" mama cloth, cloth pads. It took me a little longer to totally switch over to cloth pads, mostly because the price on the "name brand" cloth pads is so high.

Enter: eBay!

Just search for "mama cloth" or "cloth pads" and you'll find TONS of handmade pads for way cheap. I think I got all of mine for under $20. A lot of them are made by stay-at-home or work-at-home moms.

And pads are really easy to wash. I just throw mine in with my diapers, but if you don't have a baby in diapers you can just keep a wet bag (try the smaller ones from Cotton Babies) under the bathroom counter... you don't need to soak them or anything, just stick them in the wet bag and when you're ready to wash, just do a cold wash with about 1/2 the normal amount of detergent. If you want to really make sure they're super sparkling clean, you can do another low-water level wash on hot with 1/2 amount of detergent again, but it's not really neccessary.

And you'll have something to feel good about every time "that time of the month" comes around!