I thought I would reflect on the ease of cloth diapers now that I have had a few months of experience.
I am not sure what I expected, really, but it is truly easy.
After using disposables for several weeks when Alder was in casts and when we were on vacation, I could not stand to see all that waste going out of our house.
I will still probably use disposables when on long vacations (more than a couple of nights), and he is using them at daycare, but otherwise, it is all cloth on Alder’s toosh!
So, I thought I’d just describe what it is that cloth diapering entails in our house. We wash a load of diapers once every 2-3 days (two cycles – one short and cold with baking soda and another hot and long with detergent) and then hang them on the line to dry. I guess we spend about 20 minutes/week dealing with them altogether. We use Chinese prefolds and have graduated to the premium size (15-30 lbs) that should last quite awhile. At first we used the newborn Chinese prefolds as well as Bird’s Eye flatfolds with doublers. We use the Bummis whisper wrap covers and I splurged and bought a couple of Bum Genius diapers that we use as covers as well. These are the colorful ones that look nicer when we are out on the town….;). We do not use the pins, but this newfangled contraption called a snappi to hold the diaper in place before putting on the cover. It is not really necessary to use anything to hold it, but I like to have it secure. There are soooo many cloth diaper options out there and I had no idea what to choose. I basically made my choice based on cost and then learned some from a few other moms after the fact. I bought some diaper covers on Craigslist and I have a friend that bought a lot of hers this way.
Here is the snappi
Here is Alder chillin in his Bummis cover
Here is Alder sporting his Bum Genius cover on the quilt our great friend Jenny made for him
And yes, cloth diapers are not very slimming, but after all, Alder is a baby and we would not want him to look slim! In fact, Jason says they make Alder look like Grimace (narrow at the top and wide at the bottom), but that’s ok!
8 comments:
You guys are so funny. Congrats on the success with the cloth diapers. One thing you may want to comment on is whether or not he has had an skin issues with them. You haven't mentioned this, so I assume he is still doing just fine in that area!
Love, Mom
Les can remind me if I am forgetting anything, but the only thing to come to mind is that recently after he is carried in the B. Bjorn or other carrier for awhile and is wearing the tri folds, his wittle dingly wingly will look red. We think its where the seam rubs him just beacuse of where it falls b/c of how we have to fold them at the size he is. But this goes away fast with some A&D and a few hours and does not seem to bother him at all. Other than that nothing really I dont think.
ok...that is too much info about alder's privates for the internet! He has had no issues with his skin in cloth diapers, but you do have to be more on the ball with changing the frequent wet diapers in cloth compared to the disposables with that weird gel that soaks it up so well. We are hoping that cloth diapers may help us to potty train Alder easier than the others because he will understand the immediate link between elimination and the feeling of being wet/dirty...we'll see.
Oh yeah, and another thing ...when breastfeeding, you do not have to clean the poop out of diapers in the toilet or anywhere. All I do is put all the soiled diapers (wet and poop) in a dry pail next to his changing table and then dump them all in the wash. It's amazing how it all just washes out. Once he starts eating solid food, this will likely change...I'll keep you posted.
Hey Leslie, Jason and Grimace, The pre-school I used to teach at used cloth diapers only, so there are centers out there with cloth friendly environments. So needless to say I know way to much about the little Grimace's of the world. I was going to use fuzzy buns for Porter, Have you checked those out? Kinda pricey though. Oh, at the center we had to change the kids every hour, quite time consuming. How often do you change at home? Keep up the impressive work! Love, Kelly
I forgot, Porter's wittle dingly wingly gets a little red after our morning hike in the baby bjorn too! And that is in disposables. It's just a wittle dingly wingly kinda thing, I think. Your really not going to call it that are you? Kelly again.
Hey cool and good to know. Not so cool for Porter and Alder but... cool for us to know.
And no I dont think we will call it that but just what, hmmm, cant say... hesitantly, I will end here.
Hey cool and good to know. Not so cool for Porter and Alder but... cool for us to know.
And no I dont think we will call it that but just what, hmmm, cant say... hesitantly, I will end here.
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