Cloth Diaper Update

One month in and I have to say, I am loving this cloth diaper thing!  Honestly, if I were a stay at home mom, I would seriously consider cloth diapering full time.  Unfortunately I work, and the idea of my daycare provider handing me a bag full of dirty diapers that I then have to wash every other day is still a bit too much for me.  If we could guarantee that Guinevere would only pee during her time at daycare, I might be able to handle it, but the thought of scraping/spraying out a poopy diaper after a long day of work is just absolutely unappealing.

I decided to keep all of the diapers that I purchased using the cloth diaper trial.  I think I’ve decided that I like the pocket and AIO styles best.  I think the AI2 seem a little complicated to Aaron (even though they’re not really that complicated, I can see why he might think that).  So I ordered 6 more BumGenius 4.0 (pocket) diapers to help fill out my stash.  Guinevere was so excited about them that she even decided to start crawling to play with them. 

Ok, so I think she’s technically “creeping.” I like to call it “inchworming” – though she’s gotten significantly better in the past 2 days and now she looks like she’s swimming across her playmat!

Look at that cute fluffy bum!

Here is the current weekend MO:  On Friday night, when we get home from daycare, I change her into cloth diapers.  I move all the disposable diapers and non-cloth diaper safe diaper cream (i.e. Desitin, or anything with petrolatum) into  G’s dresser so that Aaron doesn’t have to stress about accidentally using the wrong cream.  We use California Baby diaper cream and/or a small Tupperware container with some coconut oil as our CD safe creams.  The coconut oil seems to work well for preventing diaper rash, but when she does break out, the California Baby works amazingly at clearing it up!

As for storage of the dirty diapers, I’m currently using an extra trashcan as a diaper pail.  It’s just an open pail, no lid, no deodorant or anything.  So far, we haven’t had any odor issues, but then we only have diapers in there for a couple days a week.  I think we will eventually need to get a bigger diaper pail and/or trashcan, but for now this works.  We have not invested in a diaper sprayer.  However, we have a showerhead in the guest bathroom that comes off and can reach the toilet.  So I’ve created a sort of work-around using the showerhead.  I lay the dirty diaper on the toilet seat while I take the showerhead down.  Then I hold the showerhead over the toilet bowl while I turn it on (this step is very important, otherwise you end up with water ALL over the bathroom!).  I use the showerhead on its power setting (where the water comes out in a concentrated stream as opposed to “rain” style) to spray all the yucky out of the diaper.  Then I wring out the diaper to get rid of excess water and put it in my diaper pail.  Oh, I should mention that I wear rubber gloves while I do this.  Some people might not, but I haven’t gotten over the yuck-factor yet.

On Sunday night, we change Guinevere back into disposables before we put her to bed and then do the diaper laundry.  To wash the cloth diapers, I do a quick wash cycle using warm water, no spin and no detergent (this gets rid of most of the “stuff” that would be stuck to the diapers).  Then I do a regular wash cycle using warm water and add an extra rinse cycle.  It takes about an hour and a half to do a load, so it works out almost perfectly to start the laundry right after putting her to bed.  That way it’s done and I can spread the cloth diapers out on our drying rack right before going to bed.