Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Cloth Diapers, Cloth Wipes and The Two Month Old

Okay. Well, I couldn't show you pictures of her diapers and wipes without showing you some pictures of her. Here is two-month old Miriam. She is SUCH a good baby. I can hardly stand it. At around 5 days old she started sleeping though the night. No joke. The other two did not do that. She's been doing that ever since. I'm talking 7 hour stretches here, folks. Without even waking up to nurse. I wake her up to nurse about half the time (because I'm leaking). She has a very sweet disposition, puts up with two older siblings well, doesn't spit up or ever have gas (that she lets on). She's making up for the trouble she gave me in utero, that's for sure.



Diapers. Right. That's what I wanted to talk about. About a month ago, we started Miriam in cloth diapers. I so sooo soooo wish I had used them on Sam and Sadie when they were little now that I know how easy they are. There have been no leaks. The diapers don't smell (she's not eating solids yet). They are cute as can be. No diaper rashes. They are just great.


We have had to make one adjustment. We are using gdiaper covers and plastic liners and bumgenius inserts. The inserts are too big for her little bottom, even when folded in half. When I folded them in half, they went on her okay (inside the gdiaper cover), but they made her bow-legged because it made the diaper too thick. So, a good friend lent me her tri-fold regular cloth diapers. Folded in thirds and then in half, they fit perfectly and are not nearly as bulky. So, this is what we are doing until her little bum becomes a bigger bum. Then we'll use the Bumgenius inserts. They (the inserts) worked great on Sadie.

In terms of washing the tri-fold diapers, we are using the dry bucket method with sprinkles of baking soda now and again. Then, they get dumped into the washer and are washed with cold water and a little detergent. Sometimes, I wash them twice, sometimes once. I'm drying them on the line or in the dryer depending on which time of day I realize we've run out. No bad smell. This is easy.

If the plastic liners become soiled, I rinse them out and let them drip dry over the tub- I do not put them in the pail because I've read they can get smelly quickly. The cloth covers rarely get dirty, but if they do, I lay them aside, not in the pail. If I have plastic liners and covers that need washing, I throw them in with the cloth diapers on the second cycle, so they are never in with the poop and pee- this keeps them fresh. Always make sure to fold the cover's velcro tabs in on themselves so they don't catch and pull the cloth diapers.

We are using cloth wipes as well. This is a first for us. I asked our moms if either of them had any extra flannel material on hand and Jamey's mom not only offered us an old set of flannel sheets, but she...are you ready??...are you sure???...cut the wipes out for us and stitched the edges to keep them from fraying!!! Thank you, Mom.

So, here is what we do (sorry I have no pictures of these)...I take a stack of about 50 single-layer flannel wipes (cut rectangle size to fit in a disposable wipes container) and put them in the wipes container. Then, I mix water and a few drops of Miriam's baby wash. Next, I pour the solution generously over the wipes, saturating them completely and letting them stand in water a bit. Then, I lift out the whole, sopping stack and gently wring them out over the sink. Next, I dump the excess water out of the container and return the wipes to the container.

As we use them (they work great), I throw them into the diaper pail and wash and dry them right along with the diapers. When the wipes container is empty, I have a nice, clean, dry stack waiting. Very, very easy they are. Pin It

7 comments:

  1. What a sweetie pie!

    I like your wipe solution. We did the same thing, though we weren't quite as evolved as you---we just had a stack of rags that we wetted as needed and then threw them in with the dirty diapers. Cloth diapers are much easier than people make them out to be...

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  2. What detergent do you use (for washing the diapers)? It sounds like this is working out great!

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  3. I do the same with little wash cloths (we got so many as baby gifts!) but I do as JJ does...wet them as I need them.

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  4. Anonymous, I usually use Method brand, the unscented variety. You can find it at Target. Currently, though, we are using some other variety that is scented- someone gifted us this detergent because they were moving to another country. It doesn't seem to matter which detergent. So far it's been easy to get the odor out (breast fed baby), although there are the occasional stains. I don't care about them- no one sees them and it's the smell that matters to me:-). Bleach has worked to get the stains out- I tried this once because I was curious- although I will not be doing that often.

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  5. She is so cute---I used cloth diapers jeez though it's been 26 years ago--Your right they never had a diaper rash and I also saved a lot of money !
    Vickie

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  6. I found that baby gets potty trained much quicker if they used the gdiaper. A cup of vinegar to the rinse water will give a fresh smell to the diapers & help soften them.

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