Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Cloth Diapering: Take 1

For a while now I've been slowly warming to the idea of using cloth diapers. My initial reasons for not using cloth was

(a) I do not want to scrub poopy diapers in the toilet. No way. My mom did it - good for her, but I do. not. want. to. End of story. Oh, and I do not want poop in my washing machine. I know people do it, kudos to those who do, but I don't want to. My washing machine isn't a toilet, Haha!

(b) With coupons and sales I was getting Huggies (my fav. brand) really cheap, so I was thrilled to use disposables.

Now that Huggies isn't trying to give away the old style with the old packaging offering the rock bottom sales and coupons on every corner like they used to, I've been paying more and more closely to the shelf price when I buy diapers. And I'm starting to dread having to pay another $20 for a big box of diapers.

When I got to thinking about it, I usually only change Susannah 5-6 times a day, and most of those times she's just wet. And when she does have a dirty diaper it's no longer the ooey, gooey breast-fed baby poop, but stuff that would be a lot easier to get off the diaper with minimal cleaning.

So... I thought I'd take the cloth diaper plunge, at least part-time. My SIL had given me a huge grocery bag full of cloth diapers back when Susannah was born, so I already had diapers. Friends have loaned me diaper covers and a Snappi.

Yesterday I washed and line dried everything, and this morning I could not figure out the best way to fold the diaper to get it to fit well. These aren't the pre-fold diapers, but the enormous, huge, single-layer diapers. I was a little bit ashamed that I couldn't remember how Mom folded hers! I managed to get it on Susannah, but I think I need to experiment a little and see if I can improve.

I'm not sure what Susannah thinks of it. She has been a royal crab this morning (she's down for a nap now) and I don't know what the deal is. She is not usually this way. I'm hoping it's not the diapers, cause she'll just have to get used to it if that is her problem!

But now that she's wearing a cloth diaper, I'd better go find something to use as a makeshift diaper pail until I can find something suitable...

If you use the huge, non-prefolded diapers, please comment and tell me how you fold it! I think I could do ok with the way I did it this morning if I was going to use diaper pins, but I like the idea of the Snappi better than poking my fingers or Susannah.

5 comments:

Candi said... [Reply to comment]

Miriam you might like to read some of my friend Carrie's posts about cloth diapers. Here's her blog: http://naturalmomstalkradio.com/blog/natural-mom-articles/natural-baby/

Hope that helps!

Georgi said... [Reply to comment]

go to this link - http://www.diaperpin.com/clothdiapers/article_artofdiapering.asp
I hope it works for you :-)

Joanna Shipp said... [Reply to comment]

There are a lot of websites about cloth diapering now. When I was researching last year I just googled cloth diapers and tons of sites had pictures and video to help. We have been cloth diapering since Jenna was born and we love. I have never washed a diaper out in the toilet (get a sprayer) but usually most of the poo shakes off. Can't help with the folding because we use FuzziBunz one size pocket diapers. For all our diaper stuff we spent about $500 and they are working great and I hope to use the same diapers until potty training. Good luck!

Maria D. @ DownrightDomesticity said... [Reply to comment]

Kudos for taking the plunge! About half my diaper stash is those giant, thin diapers (I call them "flats" :-P)! This is what I do, because I'm lazy: fold it in half, and then fold that in half again, so it's now 1/4 the size it was. Then, I fold it into thirds and lay it into the cover. Easy peasy, and you don't even have to use a Snappi. :-P

I don't know how disposables work as far as keeping baby's bottom feeling dry, but maybe Susannah is getting crabby because she's not used to feeling wet when she pees? Of course, if this is a whole-day crabbiness issue, it could be anything. :-/ Hope she's feeling happier soon!

Judi B said... [Reply to comment]

Check out this link I came across in my diaper research. http://www.greenmountaindiapers.com/flat.htm