On Cloth Diapering a Newborn

To be fair, A was 5 weeks old in these photos.  I did, however, have her in cloth from 5 days old.  A lot of people are intimidated by the thought of cloth diapering a newborn.  They figure that they will try when the baby is a bit older and life is less hectic.  This is crazy talk.  Newborns are the easiest of all babies to have in cloth.  Here is why you should give it a try on your squishy little one.

- Laundry is super easy.  For reals.  Yes, you might have to do it every day for the first month.  If your baby is as spitty as mine you might have to anyway.  But it's not that hard.  You just dump it in the wash and then throw it in the dryer.  If you feel like crap you don't even have to fold it, you can just fish the diapers out of the laundry basket all day.  I won't tell anyone.

- They go through a million diapers.  Ever had your kid poop 20 times in 24 hours?  It's amazing!  That's almost a package of diapers in one day.  Eeeeee.  You will get a ton of your money back in that first month or so (after that, my kids started pooping once or twice a week...very nice).  Oh, and did you know that you can sell them when your baby outgrows them?  Makes it even more affordable.

- Less blowouts.  It makes me laugh when people say they won't try cloth because they are afraid of the poop.  In cloth, S only blew out once.  Ever.  Little A has maybe twice.  In disposables?  Every single time they poop in one.  You end up changing the whole outfit.  And sometimes your outfit.  And occasionally the throw pillows on the couch.  It's gotten in their hair.  So gross.  Also, you can throw cloth diapers straight in the wash without dunking them or anything when they are still on straight breastmilk.  The poop is an argument for, not against cloth.

- And finally, they look super cute sticking out the leg holes of your onesies.  Such cute colours! 

Little has 13 size one Applecheeks covers, 12 newborn prefolds and 12 Applecheeks microterry inserts (and I love these stay-dry inserts and will pick up a couple more packs soon).  If you want to know why I picked Applecheeks, I wrote about it here.

P.S.

It doesn't have to be all or nothing.  I keep sposies in my diaper bag (takes up less room, and doesn't cut into my cloth rotation) and often have my kids in them at night for their princess skin.  Sad, I know, but everytime you use cloth, that's money in your pocket and one less nasty diaper in a landfill!

Cloth Diapering Confessional and Why I am Loving Rockin Green.

Time for another cloth diapering post.  Because I feel that it's good to be honest, or else people think you are super woman.  Hmmm, I wouldn't mind some super powers this week.  Here goes:

- My adorable little S has the most sensitive skin known to mankind.  If she eats tomatoes her face goes red where the juice touches it.  If she has a wet diaper for more than an hour she gets red.  If she has a wet diaper for more than 8 hours she develops open sores that take weeks to heal over.  At one point she got a bacterial infection.  I am not willing to wake her up during the night a few times to change her diaper (strange, I know).  Thus she wears disposables at night.  Always, for the past 6 or so months.  And she has no rash.  This killed me, as I am very stubborn....but her poor little bum.  And believe me, I tried everything (stripping the diapers, treating for yeast, elemination diet, various creams, stay dry liners...).  I don't even use super eco-friendly disposables as they don't hold as much and she rashes anyway.  We use the Huggies Pure and Natural because they are unscented and gentle on her princess skin.  I really hope that #2 will be in cloth full time, I hate throwing those things in the trash.

- We are crap at early potting training.  All three of us.  Being pregnant so doesn't help.  She still doesn't get it.  She's starting to understand a bit...but not enough to actually tell us that she needs to go to the potty.  I am trying not to get too frustrated about this, but I honestly thought it would have clicked by now.  Still she spends half her home time in panties because of the whole rash issue.  It's fine.  I've made my peace.  I really wish she would just pee on the potty.

Confessional Over.

Recently our local baby boutique started carrying Rockin Green detergent and I have to say, I think my diapers are staying nice for much longer between stripping then they were with Natureclean.  I think it's just tougher.  We have pretty average water and so I use the Classic Rock  in Bare Naked Babies (unscented).

Then I pulled out the size one diapers to prep them for #2 and after a good really hot wash they still smelled...just a little off (only a cloth diaper mom can understand sniffing your laundry as you shift it to the dryer).  So last week I picked up their Funk Rock - Amonia Bouncer and after soaking with that my diapers smell like...nothing.  Which is of course, the point.

I also picked up the Shake it Up pail freshener for our wet bags (in Mighty Mighty Marshmallow scent) as I am not doing laundry quite as often with the whole disposables at night, pretending to potty train during the day fiasco.  Again, it works!  Less stinkies all around.  I don't notice a marshmallow scent, but I also don't notice a diaper scent, so all is well.

Dear Rockin Green, thanks for making our lives smell a little bit nicer.

Continuing Adventures In Cloth Diapering

For today's classy photo, here is S in her pj top and underwear playing with shoes in the entryway. Her favourite game ever, by the way. I thought it was time for an update, considering that she's in panties part time these days and my cloth diaper last post was at the five month mark. So here's how it's going.

- I'm still using only Applecheeks diapers and I still love them. She never leaks or blows out of them. Love the colours. Love that all my diapers are the same. This makes it an easy learning curve for everyone in her life. Also, she can't get the snaps undone and she can pull a disposable off.

- We constantly battle rash. I don't blame the cloth diapers for this, I blame the eczema. She also rashes in disposables but yeast rashes are trickier with cloth. I find that if I boil all my inserts and then dry them in the sun it kills the yeast. But you can reinfect the diapers again if the rash isn't cleared up. So lame. Thus if she get's a yeast rash she usually gets a week in disposables while it clears up. I hate this, but it works.

- I can tell the difference if I don't put her in unscented hypoallergenic (read: expensive) disposable diapers. And I have to change her every couple hours still. There is no way we could afford disposables full time (we use them for rashes and when we will be out of the house for more than a couple hours...to prevent rashes), even if we wanted to.

- S has a skinny bum but is tall for her age. Cloth diapers keep her pants up!

- As mentioned, she has been battling diaper rashes since she started solids. We've tried taking her off dairy and wheat (she doesn't get any soy to speak of anyway) and it doesn't seem to help. She has also had nasty peanut butter poo (sorry, but this is a diaper post) since around her birthday. This makes her rash more, and us crazy. She often screams bloody murder when we change her. We are all so over diapers, no matter how cute.

Thus:

Early Potty Training
We started at about 14 months and I'm using the method from Diaper Free Before 3 in which you pretty much just get your baby used to sitting on a potty at regular times and they gradually get the hang of it. It requires a consistency I've been having trouble with at this point but I'm hoping to get her daytime trained this summer. She hates being wet and seems pretty aware of her functions, so I think we can do it. She gets pretty excited when she pees on the potty :)

I'm not trying to train her early to prove how awesome we are, I'm just really tired of fighting diaper rash. I think it will be healthier for her to be potty trained and I don't really care if "I'm the one who's trained, not her" as everyone says about early training. I have to deal with the mess anyways, it might as well be in a potty!

Hrm, so yes, that's diaper time over here. Exciting, neh?

Cloth Diapering Update: 0-5 months

I get asked fairly often about how our cloth diapering adventures are going, so now that little S is nearly 5 months old (I know!) I thought I'd give you guys an update. If you need a refresher, we are using the Applecheeks system. I started with what I posted here: Diaper Stash. I found it really hard to find any info on cloth diapering newborns online, most people seem to start a bit older, so I hope this will be helpful.

In general it's been great. We started when she was about a week and a half old, giving time for the stump to fall off. We were doing laundry every day there for a bit, but it really wasn't a big deal to me. I mean, I was in pretty rough shape postpartum so if I can do it? Not that hard. Also, breastfeed baby poop doesn't need to be rinsed off, I just throw the whole thing in the wash. Pretty sweet.

What I love:
-The fit is great. She's only ever blown out of them once. We sometimes use disposables when we are out and about because we were given some and it seems that every time she poops in those I have to change her entire outfit. Gross. I'm always paranoid when she's in them. The elastic in these covers really does the job.

-Also, they are so cute! I love how they look peeking out of her onesies (it's pretty hot these days, there are no pants). They feel like real clothes instead of paper underwear.

- When we use them as a pocket diaper they do a great job of keeping S's bum dry. She seems very prone to rashes (more so in sposies!) and using them this way cleared them right up. You go through more covers this way, so we just do this at night.

- I love the little wetbags, I have two to rotate through in my diaper bag. It's really easy to change her when we are out this way. I just keep a couple extra liners and an extra cover in my bag.

- She's never leaked through at night with the hemp insert, no matter how soaked the diaper is.

- We also have the swim diaper which is great!

Things I adjusted:
- When she was a newborn the covers fit great but the inserts were waaaay to big. Like, so big her bum was up in the air and the diaper went down to her knees. So I made my own inserts with an old towel and a flannel blanket. Took about an hour. If you are less cheap and less of a sewer, I would guess that these boosters would work. They no longer make the hemp inserts that I have because apparently they shrank sometimes. So maybe the bamboo ones are less bulky, I have no idea, the store I bought them from only had the hemp. I realize that they do it this way to make it more affordable, (which is cool!) but it was a whole lot of diaper.


- Because she was rashing so much and haaated being wet (as in screamed whenever she peed) I made a bunch of dry liners. I could have bought some but I do know how to sew so I just used two layers of a thin whicking sport material I got at fabric land and serged the edges. Works like a charm, I can go longer without changing her and she hardly ever rashes. She currently wears one of these (triple folded) and a homemade liner during the day, using the cover as a cover, and the two ply hemp inserts at night as a pocket diaper.


- They say that the inserts will agitate out in the wash if you use them as a pocket diaper. Unfortunately in my washer this only happens about half the time, I have to pull one end out to have them separate in the wash. As my child currently only poops once a week it's not a big problem (too much info?).

- I found that after I washed the laundry bags a couple times the drawstrings became harder to work. This will be a problem when she starts eating solids and gets stinkier so I might get use them as a hamper liner them with a lidded laundry hamper.

So to sum up a very long post here: Cloth diapering is not hard (trust me, you'd be doing lot of laundry anyway!), it costs less money and is better for the environment (especially if you use an HE washer and line dry). Also it's cuter. You couldn't pay me to switch to disposables and I really love Applecheeks so I'm happy with the choice I made!

If you have any questions that I didn't answer, leave me a comment :)

Diaper Stash

Diapers diapers diapers. I hear changing them is the most fun thing about having a baby, right? Feel free to skip this post if you think diapers are boring, I won't be offended. I'll try to post something pretty tomorrow to make up for it. If you are still reading, here are some things to know about me and how I made my diaper decision:

I decided to use cloth diapers sometime at about 13. When I heard about the landfills and whatnot. Gross. I know people argue about cloth diapers and the energy usage to wash them and blah blah blah but when I am done I will be throwing out less than a garbage bag of waste. After 2 kids (maybe three if they survive to be passed on). Also I will have saved thousands of dollars. I like all these things. And those statistics created to make people feel good about disposables don't factor in HE washing machines or eco-friendly detergents. By the way.

If you have ever thought about using cloth diapers you will have noticed that there are about a million kinds. It's crazy. Tons of types and brands and colours. Some people love this. Some women collect cute diapers like most of us go after shoes and handbags. Some people love having different kinds to go with different needs (travelling, overnight, babysitters, rashes). This gave me a headache. I do not want a million kinds of diapers. I do not want to hunt down the newest cutest print and beat all the other mothers into getting it.

So I decided to go with one system. If it is so much more work than disposables I just won't know. If it's not the best system ever invented by mankind, I also won't know. Thus I will be happy, because ignorance is bliss. Craig is on board with this, by the way, which is helpful.



This said, I decided on Applecheeks. Because:
- They are designed and made in Canada. As opposed to China or who knows where. This means decent quality and excellent customer service.
- They are very highly reviewed. I've spent hours online researching this and very nearly everyone loves them. Those who didn't don't seem to have read the directions properly.
- They are midrange in price. I will have to buy two sizes of covers (which ensures a decent fit) but only one set of inserts. I will end up paying about...$700 for all the diapers I will ever need for two kids.
- They can be used as pocket diapers or covers and inserts. You might not know what this means, but it's the best of both and much cheaper than just pockets.
- They are cute. And not in a "I have Disney characters on my bum!" way.



And here is what I bought (about $500) for those of you who are curious about how to start out with this sort of thing. This should be enough that I will only have to do laundry ever three days.
- 12 covers. A varity of gender neutral colours. I like the cherry tomato and St Lucia best. Also the chocolate brown.
- Hemp Inserts. 30 two layer and 6 three layer (for overnights).
- Two hemp boosters and a stay dry liner.
- A roll of flushable diaper liners. You put it on top of the insert and then when it's dirty you just flush it. So that when I change diapers at the restaurant I don't have to carry my poo home with me.
- A large laundry bag in turquoise (because it's Pantone's colour of the year and I like to be fashion forward about these things) and a small chocolate brown bag for the diaper bag (which is awesome and will be discussed later). I will be buying one more large laundry bag for when this one is in the wash.

There you go. Will it be awesome? I'll keep you posted! (Because you care about my baby's bum, I know it.)