I haven’t chatted about cloth diapering in a while. I am still happily using cloth diapers. My go to diaper is a prefold and a
cover. My favorite covers are Thirstie’s,
but I have some Kawai’s and Sweet Peas as well.
I do have some AIO (All In One) diapers and some AI2 (All In Two’s) that
I had custom made by Sugar Britches Nappies from her Etsy store. I mainly use these diapers for church and
babysitters since they are as close to a “disposable” diaper as they come.
Wearing his red AIO diaper.
LOVE the camo AI2 Diaper!
Gotta love a cowboy fluffy bottom! All the diapers above came from Sugar Britches Nappies! LOVE THEM!
Surrounded by prefolds....
In a Thirstie's cover with a prefold on under it!
BUT, I’m not here to talk about what I’m using or why I LOVE
them! I’m here to chat about what I am
getting more and more often, the comments and questions about WHY I’m cloth
diapering! Most people when I say that I
am cloth diapering just stare, then comes the comments. Most often the comments are the same, with
some wording variation. Usually they
start off with:
Wow, I could never do
that!
I didn’t
know you could still do that!
How do
you clean them?
And my personal favorite………….
What
about the pooh?
And on that note, I always want to respond the honey bear or
baby pooh? The answer is always the baby pooh; as in the cleaning of the baby pooh. Yep, that's the answer, always!
Ah yes, the dreaded pooh diapers, that is really the heart of the matter when it comes
to cloth diapering. People want to know
how you handle the mess that can be in a diaper, or more to the point, why
would you! Easy, I’m a MOM!
Let me preface this by saying that as a mom, I lost all my dignity when I found
out I was having my first little one. I
had morning sickness almost anywhere. I
lost all my dignity when I was in labor, and it was the same with each
subsequent pregnancy. As a mom you have
to get used to icky situations from the get go.
Then the baby arrives and the ickiness morphs into a new form. That precious baby spits up and then pooh’s
and they pooh a lot! That pooh is what
makes someone squeamish about cloth diapering.
BUT, here are some things that a lot of people don’t realize.
With cloth diapering the dreaded blow outs aren’t as
frequent. Yep, blow outs are a dreaded occurrence
for any mom. BUT, since I’ve been cloth
diapering I’ve had only two blow outs, and that was when we were starting out
on solids and the baby’s tummy was still adjusting to new food and not just breast
milk. After his first two diapers, we
got into the swing of things and that the blow outs ended. So
what do I do about pooh? Easy, I change
his diaper and we go…….just like in a disposable.
Not the answer you were
looking for was it? Goggle cloth diaper washing routines and you will find a
million different ways to wash diapers and deal with pooh. People can make this so difficult. I know my mom told me her wash routine and I
was almost in tears. Here’s what most
people think you must do…..
A.
Rinse the
diaper in the toilet.
B.
Soak in
water for 24 hours or overnight at least.
C.
Rinse in hot water.
D.
Rinse in cold water.
E.
Wash in hot water with specialty soap that costs
more than disposable diapers every month.
F.
Wash in cold water with regular soap.
G.
Bleach.
H.
Don’t bleach.
I.
Rinse in hot water.
J.
Rinse in cold water.
K.
Don’t put in the dryer until the diapers have
spent at least 10 hours in the sun on your clothes line.
L.
Stand on your head!
M. Jump up
and down!
N.
Do a rain dance!
So, are you turned off from cloth diapering yet? Umm, yeah, I would be too! But dealing with messy diapers IS not that
complicated, no more so than dealing with spit up or blow outs. When the baby is just breast fed or on
bottles, the first few steps aren’t always necessary, but once solids are
introduced they are. This is my diaper washing routine, including dealing with those pooh diapers.
A.
Get a
diaper sprayer. I know that these are
luxuries, but for me, they are a must.
B.
Get some gloves.
Yep, those wonderful yellow cleaning gloves come in handy when baby
starts solids.
C.
Rinse all pooh diapers off into the toilet and
throw the diapers into a bucket next to the toilet. Most people LOVE the Home Depot buckets for
this charge since they say “Let’s Do This” on them! I just use an empty bucket that has a lid
that Robert got from work.
D.
All diapers that are just wet diapers or diapers
that are breast fed pooh can be tossed into the wet bag in your diaper pail.
E.
Wash day start off rinsing your diapers. I use warm water for this, but you can use
whatever you want.
F.
Wash the diapers.
Now this is where things can get tricky. Most people insist on special
soaps but really Tide or whatever you use is just fine!
G.
Rinse your diapers.
H.
Hang on the clothes line or dry in the dryer.
I.
Put your diapers away, folding is optional. (I do like to fold mine!)
Yep,
it’s that simple. And in reality, dealing
with pooh is the least of my worries as I deal with a teething and grumpy
little one. To be honest, I have to wash
Robert’s work clothes in a more “intense” way than I do diapers. So in answer to the question that I know
everyone is wondering…..YES, I do still enjoy cloth diapering. I’m a mom, diapering and cleaning up after kiddos is really no big deal!
