Cloth Diapering

Well, I know I said my next post was going to be on the emotional postpartum-ness, but I don't feel like blogging about that just now, so I wanted to blog about my cloth diapering experiences. We've been cloth diapering full time for few weeks now and I have to say I love it!! It really is super easy and not a lot of extra work. I kinda enjoy diaper changes, if that is even possible!

I started the cloth diapers after his umbilical cord fell off and his circumscision healed. The first day I put him in pockets and he kept leaking onto his clothes even though I changed him every 2 hours or so. Then I realized how huge of a gap there was around his skinny little legs! My sunbaby's (I have 2) were the only pockets that fit him really well because of the hip snap. My Kawaii covers fit him better, so we used those a little bit with a microfiber insert with a liner on top to keep the microfiber away from baby's skin. Then, someone reminded me about prefolds, so I used those with a cover over it, and they worked great so I ordered about a dozen or two high quality prefolds (I just had some gerber ones, not the best). But, by the time I got them in the mail, the pockets were fitting him great. So I am currently trying to sell the prefolds...and if I don't I'll be gifting them to my little sister who I think I've convinced to cloth diaper as well. Anyways...

Jake's not a heavy wetter, so he can go about 2-3 hours before a change, but the thing is he's had a cold and has had super bowels and has pooped atleast twice every hour. It concerned me, it looked like breastfed poop, but I'm not BFing, so I thought something was wrong. I think he just had a cold and it was just super strange and mucousy. Anyway, sorry about the poop detail. My point of telling you that, is I am soooo glad I made about 30 flannel liners for my diapers. I made them mainly for my diaper covers that use the microfiber inserts but those liners have really protected my diapers from neon orange baby poop stains! And my hubby installed my diaper sprayer and that makes cleaning them off super easy!

Washing them has been great too.  I wasn't sure exactly how I was going to pull it all off. We recently bought a washer and dryer set, a front loader, and I think we probably bought the only one in the world without a "just rinse" setting. I wanted to rinse the diapers in cold first before washing in hot with detergent. So, what I do is put the diapers in the machine, run a "speed wash" cycle on cold with an extra rinse. That takes about 30 minutes total.  Then I put in my country save detergent and run a hot cycle, on heavy soil, with an extra rinse. I have been hanging them on my wooden drying rack if I can get them out early enough (I only get sun on my deck until noon). So far I've had no issues with ammonia smells, no funky smells, and the sunning has gotten rid of any stain on the diapers or inserts. Oh, and by the way, the diaper pail really does not smell. I mean it does when you open it, but you cant smell the diapers at all when it's closed, and I was very skeptical about that before!

I am so glad I decided to look into the cloth diapering thing. We only had to buy 1 pack of disposable diapers since Jake was born, and that was b/c he still hadn't healed completely from his circumscision, but that's $9.99 that we spent in 7 weeks! Awesome!!  This week I am going to start using my cloth wipes. I've just been using disposables b/c I had a ton left from my son needing them. My hubby is not too keen on the cloth wipe idea for some reason, so I'll probably still by sposie wipes to appease him, but I'll use the cloth. Anyway, that's all for now. Enjoy some cute fluffy bottom pics below!

 Harley Davidson cloth diaper by TKCuddlers

 This cow print is actually and ebay diaper from China sold by seller Grape-Apple. I love these diapers and they were less than $5 a piece!

 Jake in a green Kawaii cover

Jake in a blue and white sunbaby 4.0