CLOTH DIAPERING, MOM’S GOT THIS!!!

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!