Washing my Cloth Diapers...

I am back again after not posting in almost a month!  We found out in early December that we are expecting Baby #2.  I have found my first trimester to be a little challenging while chasing a busy toddler all day.  I have been pretty exhausted and nauseous with very low energy...but I am 12 weeks now and finally starting to feel more like myself again.

I am very excited at the prospect of Baby #2, as this one will give me the opportunity to cloth diaper from the very beginning, and give me the opportunity to share newborn cloth diapering options with all of you.  I did use disposables for the first two months with my daughter, I used cloth too, but not for the first few weeks, because I was intimidated by the care and maintenance of the diapers.  Now I know that caring for cloth diapers is very easy, and nothing to be afraid of, which brings me to today's topic, Washing Cloth Diapers:

First, check the washing instructions on each type of diaper that you own-most can be washed in hot water, but there are a few kinds that need to be washed in cold.  The diapers I use consist of the following types and brands-Kushies, BumGenius, FuzziBuns, Kawaii, PouPond, Greenbaby, Babyland, Bummis Whisper Wraps, Kissaluvs and various pre-folds and doublers.  The only ones I have had issues with in washing in hot water are the Babyland and the Greenbaby, which I will discuss more when I review each type of diaper individually.

All cloth diapers need to be pre-washed before use.  This is a very simple, but necessary process.  It is necessary to maximize the absorbency of your diapers, and the waterproofing of the covers or outer layer of your diapers.   Each type of diaper comes with pre-wash instructions.  Some require a cold wash, some a hot, sometimes a cold wash first, and usually will need to be washed two or three times before use.  Just follow the individual instructions.  On acquiring each set of new diapers, I always followed the washing instructions and washed each brand individually.

Now that all my diapers have been washed individually and put to good use, I wash them all together.  I wash a full load every two to three days.
1.  Fill up the diaper pail with dirty diapers (just a reminder, I use my diaper sprayer to rinse out all poopey diapers and wipes in the toilet before putting them in the diaper pail-this cuts down on diaper pail odor and staining on the diapers).
2. The detergent used to wash cloth diaper is very important.  Most regular detergents have chemicals in them that will break down the absorbency of cloth diapers.  Some detergents that I know of that others use are Charlie's Laundry Soap and Rock N Green.  I personally use Original Powder Tide.  I bought a huge box at BJ's before my daughter was born (180 loads).  I only use my Tide for diapers.  My daughter is nearly 20 months now, and I have yet to buy more detergent.  I still have about a fifth of the box left.  This is because when washing diapers you only use about a quarter to a half of the amount of detergent that you would use to wash a regular load of clothes.  This makes washing cloth diapers very inexpensive :o)
3.  I start my machine filling with water and add my detergent.  I usually wash about 16-24 diapers per load.  If there are more diapers, I use a little more detergent, but what I use only fills up the bottom of the scoop, well below the line for a full load of clothes.  I don't add diapers to the machine until the detergent has dissolved in the water.
4.  Then I add my diapers.  I use mostly pocket diapers, so I unstuff my pockets and throw the inserts into the machine separately from the covers.  Any covers that use hook and loop (velcro) need to have the hook and loop secured either with the laundry tabs or on the waistband so the diapers don't end up all stuck together.  Any all in one diapers that I have are simply thrown in the washer as is.  I also throw my Planet Wise Diaper Pail Liner and all of my cloth wipes  in with the diapers.  Then I close the washer lid, and go.
5.  The cycle I use to wash my diapers consists of a hot soak cycle, followed by a hot wash, followed by a cold rinse.
6.  When the diapers are finished, I hang all of my Diapers on a drying rack to dry.  The inserts, doublers, pre-folds and wipes all go into the dryer.  It is important to air dry your diapers and covers because they will last much longer.  In a pinch if I need them right away I will toss them into the dryer on the low setting, but I only do that if I have to.  Never dry your diapers on high heat.
7.  When my diapers are all dry and ready to go I stuff all the pockets and put them all on my changing table so they are ready to go the next time I need them.  It really is that easy, and only is a few extra loads of laundry a week.

Cloth Diapering Accessories...

So now that the holidays are over, I thought I would take some time to post, since it has been awhile.  Things have been kind of crazy around here lately. 

I am preparing to review the different kinds of diapers that I use, including posting photos and links so you can do further research on your own to figure out what kind of diapers will work best for you.  But I am sure that there are many other questions that you have about what exactly do you need to cloth diaper.  Some supplies are necessary and some are just nice to have:

1.  A diaper pail.  This was a major dilemma for me in the beginning.  I started off with a Diaper Genie II.  It worked okay when I was just using pre-folds and covers, but when I started using pockets they got caught in the mechanism.  I also found that the genie did not hold very many diapers and my pail would be full well before I was ready to do a load of wash.  I also did not like having to change the plastic lining so often, and pay for refills....so I abandoned the Diaper Genie and moved on to the Diaper Champ.  This also did not work, for the same major issues, the diapers got caught in the mechanism and it did not hold enough diapers.  Finally...I went to Target and bought a 43 quart, slim profile, pedal, plastic wastebasket with a top.  I step on the pedal, toss the diaper in and go.  And this one holds 2-3 days worth of diapers, which is exactly when I need to wash so it works out perfect, and because it is a slim profile wastebasket, it fits nicely in a corner.

2.  Diaper Pail Liners-I also bought two Planet Wise Diaper Pail liners.  These are great.  They fit perfectly inside my diaper pail, and I alternate them, so one is washed with the dirty diapers while the other one is in the pail.  They have the same washing instructions as my diapers.  I have also used these pail liners when traveling to collect all the dirty diapers.  These pail liners inside the pail, hold the odor very well, but when I am traveling I do put the stinky diapers in ziploc bags, so we don't have to smell them the whole vacation :o)

3.  Wipes.  To me it doesn't make sense to use disposable wipes, because you have to throw them out in the trash, and sometimes they smell.  I only use disposable wipes when I am out and about, because I need something accessible and wet for cleaning up messes, and we all know that wipes come in handy for lots of things.  At home I use baby washclothes.  I know some people that make a solution out of water and baby soap and keep it in a bottle by their wipes and spray it on the wipe during changing.  This is also a good solution if you want to use cloth wipes when you are on the go, instead of using disposables.  I just wanted my wipes to be warm, wet and accessible.  I purchased a Wipes Warmer.  I saturate a pile of washclothes in water and put them in the wipes warmer.  I always have plenty of wipes ready to go when I need them, and I refill the warmer about every other day.  I then tossed the used wipes right into my diaper pail and wash them with the diapers.  (If you don't have a lot of washclothes and you are crafty, a friend of mine made her own wipes from flannel receiving blankets).

4.  Diaper Sprayer:  This is one of my favorite accessories!  The diaper sprayer looks very much like the sprayer in your sink, but you attach it to the toilet.  I have mine attached to my upstairs toilet just a few feet from my changing station.  Poopey diapers and wipes are sprayed down right into the toilet and put right into the pail.  Solids can usually be shook out into the toilet, but I have sprayed out wet and mushy poop from the beginning.  It cuts down on the amount of feces being washed out with the diapers and definitely cuts down on the smell of poop in the diaper pail between washings.  It just makes cleaning up so much easier.

5.  Wet Bag:  This is a useful accessory for traveling and they make them in all different sizes.  I have one wet bag that holds 4-6 dirty diapers in my diaper bag.  For changes on the go, you just zip up the dirty diapers in the wet bag and toss them in your diaper pail when you get home.  I only have one wet bag, so if I know I am going to be out for more than 5 diaper changes, I also toss in a few Gallon Size Ziploc bags which work well for back up, and I only use them if I have to.

One of my favorite websites is a store website called jilliansdrawers.com.  It has many different kinds of diapers and accessories and is very easy to navigate.  It is a great place to go to research cloth diapers and see what things look like.  And if you decide to go with cloth, you can register on the site for everything you need.  I used it for my baby shower and it worked great.  I didn't have to explain to people what I needed and why, they could just go to the site and order exactly what I wanted.

I hope that you have found this posting helpful.  Next time I will talk about washing your diapers.  Happy New Year!!

CBS Early Show Anchor is converted to cloth.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7131550n

Check out this video on the CBS Early Show...very informative...

Last month the Early Show showed a segment comparing cloth diapers to disposables.  Cloth diapers were so poorly represented that there was an outcry from the cloth diapering  community.  The anchor took the challenge from the community to cloth diaper her son for one month...and now says that she is a convert.  Hooray!  Now more people can see that cloth really is an option that can work.

Why I cloth diaper...

There are many choices that we all make as parents, and we have to make the ones that work the best for our own families.  I chose to cloth diaper for a variety of reasons.  My mother used mostly cloth on all five of her children...the old fashioned kind, pre-folds, pins and rubber pants.  When I originally thought about using cloth, that is what I thought that I would have to use too.  But I figured if my Mom could do it, so could I, because I had so many reasons why I thought that I needed to use cloth. 
1.  The environment did play an important role in my decision.  I just couldn't get out of my head the sheer numbers of disposables sitting in landfills, and how much more my one baby would add to all that trash.
2. Money played a larger role in my decision to cloth diaper.  My husband and I were struggling financially at the time, things are better now, but still very tight.  When I was pregnant I couldn't stop thinking about the three main things I would have to provide for my baby:  Food, Clothing and Diapers.  Food was easy, I planned to breastfeed, so that took care of a huge expense right there, Clothing...well we were fortunate enough to have friends with a baby girl exactly one year older than ours...that left diapers, so cloth seemed the logical and inexpensive, and necessary way for us to go.
3. There are so many kinds of cloth to choose from.  When I was sure that cloth was the way I wanted to go, I met with a good friend of mine who was cloth diapering her baby.  She showed me the different types of diapers that she had in her stash and showed me how to use them.  She gave me tips on caring for the diapers, and showed me exactly how many diapers I would need if I wanted to do wash about every other day.  When I saw how many different choices I had...I started to get excited about building a stash of my own. 
4.  My baby's health.  This factored in a little later for me.  I was a little overwhelmed at first with my baby, being a new Mom and recovering from an unplanned c-section.  I used cloth sporadically for the first couple of months.  I was still not sure how easy cloth was, and I didn't really have enough newborn size diapers, and people gave us disposables after my daughter was born.  However, on several different occasions, I felt that I literally had to peel the disposable off my baby after a bowel movement, enough so that the mesh marks were imprinted in her skin.  This really bothered me.  And she also got several nasty rashes in those first couple of months.  Since I switched to cloth exclusively, the only rashes we have had have been directly related to teething.
The choice to cloth diaper was a very personal one for me.  I understand why many families choose to use disposables, people have to make the choice that is best for them.  However, my main source of frustration, as I stated in my previous entry, is that people do not have the information necessary to make an informed decision to use cloth or disposables.  When most people think of cloth diapers they still have the vision of diaper pins and rubber pants.  My goal, and the goal of many in the cloth diapering community is to give people the information that they need to make an informed decision.  As someone who has struggled financially, I really don't want other families to feel like they can't provide diapers for their babies.  Cloth diapering is an easy solution, with so many different options to choose from.  Over the next few weeks I plan to share with you how I cloth diaper.  I will describe and review the diapers and accessories I use, to help you make an informed decision about how you want to diaper.  I will also provide you with some resources to do further research on your own.

The Truth About Cloth Diapers...

The truth is that the big companies that own the big disposable diaper brands like Pampers and Huggies know how to market.  They carefully word things to keep the truth from the public.  The truth is...cloth diapering is easy, affordable, better for environment, better for your baby, and much better for your wallet.  Consumers can only learn this truth if they hear about it from someone like me...a Mom who uses cloth diapers exclusively, every day!  The truth is the cloth diapering movement is growing, parents who use them are telling other parents and the word is spreading.  The bigger companies that make cloth diapers like BumGenius and Fuzzi Buns can't compete with Pampers and Huggies, but they are using social media to spread the word.  The truth is, parents who cloth diaper are passionate...so passionate that they are spreading the word on Facebook and on their blogs, and converting other parents.  The big disposable companies are feeling threatened by this movement and provided the public with skewed information about cloth, portraying it in a negative light.  A recent parenting spotlight news segment on CBS sparked such rage in the cloth diapering community by it's blatant bias towards using disposables that the reporter actually agreed to try using cloth for a month...the question remains as to whether or not CBS will air a new story based on her experiences.  We will have to wait and see.  Until the media starts airing accurate reports, using experts who actually have experience using cloth, or interviewing parents who use and love cloth, it is up to people like me to try to get the word out on the internet.  If you are considering using cloth...talk to parents who know.  Do some Google searches...go on Facebook.  Cloth diapering blogs are everywhere and full of the right information.  Cloth diapering is easy, it is better for your baby's skin, it reduces landfill waste and most importantly it saves you money.  I plan to use this blog to share my experiences on cloth diapering.  I will share with you why I chose to use cloth, how I learned how to use cloth, and I will review my experiences with different the different types of diapers that I have used for my daughter.  I will also share my experiences in troubleshooting some cloth diapering issues.  My purpose is to inform and save other people the time of doing all the research that I had to do in the beginning, but most importantly, my purpose is to help families save money.  Times are tough...you don't have to break your bank to keep the little bottoms in your house clean.  The big disposable companies aren't going to give you this information because their only intention is to make money, not to help you save yours.  Please stay tuned for more posts!  Happy Diapering :o)