Cloth diaper 411

Here is my cloth diapering routine:

1. Select cloth wipe from container. Spray with wipes solution.

2. Remove old diaper from baby. Immediately place velcro closure strip onto laundry tab. (It is well worth taking the extra couple seconds to do this with care. Otherwise, your velcro tabs will do one of two very annoying things: attach themselves to anything and everything in your wet bag, or curl up, which can make them very scratchy.)

3. Wipe baby's bum clean; leave dirty cloth wipe in diaper. Put dirty diaper aside.

4. Re-diaper baby with clean diaper.

5. Remove diaper liner from dirty diaper, unsnap the fold-down snap on the liner, and toss the whole business into the wet bag.

Here is my cloth diaper laundering routine:

1. Collect diapers in wet bag for two days.

2. Dump entire bag, including bag, into washer. Turn bag inside out as you empty it.

3. Run diapers through a cold rinse.

4. Add a very, very, very small amount of recommended detergent. For me, this is Tide Original powder, and the amount is barely two tablespoons. Run diapers through hot wash and rinse.

5. Run additional cold rinse. This was a great tip (from Laurel!) that helps to get any detergent residue off the diapers... which means they are less likely to repel.

6. Place all diapers, liners, wipes, and bag into dryer on low heat, on the 'towels' cycle. No fabric softener! I recommend dryer balls.

7. When cycle is complete, remove diapers and wet bag, but leave cloth wipes and liners in dryer. (The liners take a long time to dry.) Finish drying diaper liners and cloth wipes on hot.

8. When dry, it's time to assemble those bad boys. Because Matt is on the second snap of the diapers themselves, I go through and snap every liner on the second snap (the middle liner in the picture below). "Stuff" each diaper with one liner, but the green diapers (I have three of those) get two liners. These will be overnight diapers, and they keep Matt extra dry! This way, I don't have to change his diaper in the middle of the night if I am up feeding at 3 a.m. And it is easy for me to distinguish which diapers are set up to be the overnight ones, because I only double-stuff my green ones.

9. Put 'em away!

Notes:

*The Happy Heinys diaper I have is worthless. It has leaked every single time I have used it, save one. I thought I might be applying it incorrectly; it has four rows of snaps instead of three like the bumGenius diapers that I have. I tried different snap settings. I tried really strapping it on Matt tightly. I tried stripping the diapers. I tried doubling up on the liners. Leaked every time. Josh says I should throw it away. (He never liked that one anyway, the cheetah print and all.) I only keep it for back-up.

*I far and away prefer the bumGenius diapers to the Fuzzi Bunz. I prefer the velcro tabs to the snaps, I prefer the fit (Matt is right in between two of the snap stages on the Fuzzi Bunz; one is too small and the bigger setting leaks), and I think they are most similar to disposables. I find bumGenius diapers easier to stuff, too.

*You don't have to unsnap the diaper itself when you wash it. I did this for the first few washings and it is really annoying to re-snap each and every one when you are assembling them. You can leave it snapped up, like the two green diapers in the picture below. I do, however, always unsnap the liner. It collects all the smelly stuff, so I want to be sure it can get really clean. And the liner would probably take even longer to dry if it were snapped.

*Speaking of taking forever to dry, the two all-in-one diapers that I had for Matt (which were Thirsties brand), while providing a superior fit for a tiny new baby bum... took FOREVER to dry. Longer, even, than the liners from the pocket diapers. Very annoying. I don't see much point to all-in-ones since pockets are so very easy, are size-adjustable, and dry so much faster.

*There is no magical perfect detergent for everyone. Detergent selection is VERY important, to avoid your diapers building up detergent residue, which makes them repel fluid... i.e., leak urine. A detergent which works for most people may not work for everyone. It depends on your water (hard vs. soft, minerals, etc.). I had a very, very frustrating first few weeks of cloth diapering (Josh actually asked me, "When are you going to give this up?" to which I replied, "Never!") because my diapers kept leaking. Whole outfit changes with each diaper change... not fun. And who needs more laundry?!

*The differences between cloth diapering and disposable diapering, for me, are as follows:

1. You have to 'handle' a dirty cloth diaper more than a dirty disposable one.

2. You have to do a lot more laundry. If you have a well with a slow refresh rate (like we do), this might mean a little extra planning when it comes time to wash diapers.

3. Cloth diapering is cheaper!

4. Since I've started using cloth wipes, I can diaper Matt forever and ever with absolutely no waste. I think that is so cool!

*I purchased a set of 20 cloth wipes from a seller on Etsy. I also have about 10 other wipes, handmade by a cloth diapering friend, Kara. This is more than enough to get through my two days between washes. To me, it was worth the price of the wipes I bought (even though I could totally have made some myself), because they are really, really cute... and are my favorite part of changing a diaper. :)

*I have decided not to cloth diaper Ben at all. I had planned on putting both boys in cloth once Matt came, since I would be able to wash diapers more frequently. The truth of the matter is, toddler urine and stool is exponentially smellier than baby pee and poo, and the stench is overwhelming from the hallway outside the room where your diapers are! I reserve the right to switch Matt to disposables when his waste begins to smell so powerfully strong that I can smell it when I walk in the door to our house. I will still have saved our landfills from hundreds of diapers and saved our family hundreds of dollars.

....and that's that! I think this was my last cloth diapering post. If any of you cloth diapering hopefuls have questions about anything I've written, or just in general, comment me or find me on Facebook. If I can't answer your question myself, I've got a few gurus whose expertise has come in handy for my own troubleshooting!