Thursday, June 21, 2012

Adventures in cloth diapering: part II

Dear Readers,
It's been a long time since I've done two posts in one day, but the stars aligned today and gave me both a long nap and an early bed time, so I'm taking advantage of this extra free time!

So we've been exclusively cloth diapering for about seven weeks now. I have to say I am really, really loving it. Okay fine--more like weirdly obsessed with it. I know it's not for everyone and honestly, it's not like I think I'm saving Mother Earth or improving society or whatever by doing it; I just find it much more enjoyable than using disposables. I change a lot of diapers everyday, so if I can find something that makes it, dare I say, fun to do, of course I'm going to be all over it.

Anyway, I just thought I'd do a little update on how things are going and what I've learned about cloth diapering, now that I've been doing it for a little while. If cloth diapers aren't you're thing, I apologize in advance because this will probably be the most boring post you'll ever read, ha.

I already wrote about how much I love the Flip system here. They are still working out great for us. I really like that you only have to change out the inserts, and not the whole diaper for most changes. The cover is straight-up PUL (waterproof material), so unless poop gets on it, you don't have to change it. Just pop in a new insert (the white part, below), and you're good to go. The Flips are great for on-the-go because you only have to bring a couple clean inserts and maybe one extra cover when you're out and about, and that really doesn't take up much room in a diaper bag.



The only issue we've had with these is that they don't hold enough to last more than a few hours. Now that Elliot is sleeping 10-12 hours at night, with just one 15-minute nursing break in there, we need something that lasts all night long. I've found that if I change his diaper after his middle of the night/early morning feeding, he wakes up and it takes forever to get him back to sleep. So obviously we want to avoid having to do that. Using two Flip inserts was making his diaper so bulky, so I ended up buying these 'hemp doublers' from someone in the MN cloth diapering group I'm in on facebook:


They are really absorbant but very thin. We have been using two of these, plus a Flip insert in a Flip cover for night time, and so far its been working really well. The brand of these hemp doublers is Runpkinz, but I think any brand would work just fine.

In addition to our Flips, I've tried out a couple other types of diapers recently. I got some Alva pocket diapers through a co-op group on facebook. I ended up only paying about $2.50/diaper and $1.50/insert (super cheap!!). The pocket diapers have--you guessed it--a pocket that the insert goes into:



The nice thing about this type of diaper is that the insert can't slide and move around like with the Flips. The downside is that you have to change the cover and the insert pretty much every time you do a diaper change, since the inside of the cover, the part that goes against baby's skin, is a soft fabric and not the exposed waterproof PUL like the Flip covers. 

I actually really like these diapers, especially for at home. They are really nice and trim-fitting, and absorb surprisingly well. The liquid (pee) gets sucked down into the insert, and the fabric touching baby's skin somehow stays really nice and dry. Pretty cool. They are also pretty adorable and super fun for no-pants days around the house :)

El rocking his cow print Alva. We also got denim (hilariously adorable), giraffe, and bumblebee prints

If anyone out there is interesting in ordering some of these on the cheap, let me know and I can add you to the co-op group I am in :)

Along with the pocket Alvas, I also got three 'all-in'twos' (AI2s) from Cow Patties Cloth Diapers. I first heard about Cow Patties back when I first started Faces of Loss, and the wonderful woman who owns the shop contacted me because she wanted to do a charity auction to benefit Faces for Oct. 15th Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day--super awesome :). She does custom diapers (meaning you choose the style and fabric you want) for really reasonable prices, and her stuff is incredibly cute and well-made. The AI2s have soft inner and outer (the waterproof PUL material is hidden between layers), and the insert snaps in and out:



These are really fluffy and comfy, but obviously less trim and take up a lot more room in a diaper bag. That said, I love love love them for around the house. I put Elliot in a t-shirt and one of these diapers all the time and its like he's wearing the most cozy and comfy pair of little shorts ever:

Dolla bills

Star Wars

Trees and rainbows in one diaper?? Of course I had to get this one :)

And finally, I've tried using 'fitteds' which are basically a fabric diaper that needs a cover over it because there is no waterproof PUL material around it:



I know some people really love fitteds, but I kind of don't get them. It takes forever to snap up the fabric diaper, then snap on the cover on top of it (I just use our Flip covers), and they always leak all over the place for me. Elliot soaks the whole thing super quickly and then he has this wet fabric diaper pressed against his body. Maybe I'm doing something totally wrong, but I just don't like them.

Oh! And a couple people asked for more details on the cloth wipes. I use cheap baby wash cloths from Babies R Us, roll them up, and put them in my wipes warmer. Then I mix about a teaspoon of cloth wipes solution with 16-20 oz of water and pour it over the rolled up wipes. I can usually get 2-3 days worth of wipes each time I refill the warmer. The wipes come out nice and moist and they seriously work so well. 

For the solution, I started out using Magic Bum solution (sooo nice!), but you can make a similar one of your own with coconut oil, teat rea oil, olive oil, and a little bit of baby soap. I have also heard that Dr. Bronners castile soap diluted with water works great as well--that's next on my list to try!



Well there you have it. Hopefully this was helpful to at least one person out there! Let me know if you have any questions and I will try to answer them in a future post. As always, tips and recommendations are always welcome too! :)

Have a good Friday!

XO,
Kristin





6 comments:

Hope's Mama said...

I love cloth! And do you know for wipes, I just have a huge stack of cheap face cloths and I just wet them each time. I never bothered with any oils or anything and the water works perfectly well. I just have a stack of them next to the tap. That's another way to save a bit of $$.
I love seeing Juliet wear nappies (we don't call them diapers!) her big brother wore. Something very satisfying about that.
xo

Melissa said...

day late and a dollar short as my mom would say...

i've been searching for a wipe solution and found some websites...what I'm about to concoct is quite a bit more complicated that what you're using. :-/

Super jealous of 10-12 hours a night too! yikes, I'm freaking out right now on his 2nd 5+ hour stretch in the last week. Babies are so individual.

hoxn said...

So stinkin' cute! $2.50/diaper?! Please tell me more about your diaper co-op group.

tisha said...

i love cloth!!!! definitely love to check out the co-op.

im in this one: https://www.facebook.com/groups/FluffyBumsPlusCoOp/ and absolutely love the girl that runs it!

Tina said...

hey kristin,

i have been following your blog for quite awhile, since i found it when i was a couple of weeks pregnant with my son. your blog in a strange way prepared me for the the hardest day of my life... when we found out my son no longer had a heartbeat at 26 weeks due to a blood clot in his umbilical cord. i actually remember sitting in the hospital thinking "i am living out what i read in her blog!" anyways, we are hoping to conceive again at some point and i have always been interested in cloth diapering. your posts are super informative and make me very hopeful that i will have a rainbow baby soon too!

Nicole said...

I actually recently obsessed over researching cloth because I was interested in trying it. I liked the Flips and possibly the GroVia systems because I liked that inserts being a separate piece and that the cover stays on. I still haven't purchased anything... I can't really afford it all at once, unfortunately so I keep buying disposables. And I almost wonder if Jude is too old to bother starting cloth now. :/ One of my other worries is that I would hate the washing routine, especially with poopy diapers. And storing the dirty cloth until it's washing time. Also worried about if it's easy to deal with out in public with an older baby. I don't know... lol. I love Elliot in his cloth. He looks so cute! :)

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