Cloth diapering without a dryer?

[Raene]

And we don't have any sun, either.

Anyone do this? Are we crazy? We're going to mostly to ECing, but for nights and busy times we'll cloth diaper.

Any ideas of how many we'll need if we wash every 2 days but then have to dry inside without a dryer?

[luckygreen713]

Yes, lots of mamas do this. you're not crazy. I recommend flats for this. They dry the fastest. I'm not sure how many you would need, as I don't EC so I don't know how many diapers you go through when you do that. But I can tell you that in my experience, washing every other day, I would want 4 dozen diapers for a newborn. Right now for my 12 month old I have about 2 dozen and I wash every other day, but I have a dryer. I have a feeling a lot of mamas will reply to this thread, so hopefully you'll get a lot of good advice. Good luck to you!!

[Mamato3wild ponnie]

I have prefolds and hang them to dry in the sun...also to belach out the stains...however when i hang them out they get so stiff...wonder if flats would not be as bulky...thus less stiffness?

[SuzyLee]

We do this. We do ahvce a dryer, but we only use it for sheets and towels.

I have a drying rack in the bathtub (we have 2 tubs but only use 1, so this tub permanently has the drying rack). I do wash every 2.5 days and all my diapers are dry by then.

I do not have AIO's though- they take forever to dry.

They are more stiff and not very soft, but eh, oh well. Not a big deal to me. Once they are on him and he wiggles around some they soften up.

[Michigan Mama]

I just posted this in another thread, but if you are partial to pockets, you could do that and just stuff them with flats. Inserts will still dry indoors, but it will take longer. But the shell of the pockets always dry over night for me (I hang them to save the velcro).

[Ifluffedthree]

I have cd'd with no dryer for almost a year in previous days.
I used prefolds -- they were easy pease to hang and dryed super quick. It was the rest of the laundry that took too long to dry.

[AlwaysByMySide]

I use pockets, and line dry more often than using the dryer.

[yamilee21]

We have no dryer, and are now cloth diapering our second child. From late April to early October I can line dry outside most of the time, but during the winter or when it rains I have to dry inside. To speed up drying time, I sometimes have a fan or two blowing on the diapers. We use prefolds, MEOS fitteds and AIOs; all usually dry overnight.

We also EC - with EC, you actually sometimes use more diapers at the very beginning. 24 diapers is the absolute minimum I would have, but we actually have a lot more than that. My daughter used 10-12 a day when we first started EC with her (at 9 days old; before EC, she was using 20+ per day). By 3 months she was averaging about 6 diapers a day, and now at 7 months she usually wets 4 diapers a day on average. But you can't really predict how EC will work out; my daughter has had days in which she never wet a diaper at all, and days when we were both off and she ended up wetting 10. To be on the safe side, I would recommend 36 diapers. If you have infant prefolds, you can continue to use them trifolded in covers well beyond the suggested 15-pound weight limit.

[mommyhopeful3]

I have used a drying rack before on my pockets. Everything was dry the next day for me. My hemp doublers were a little stiff. I just balled them up a few times to fluff them.

[MommaShark]

flats will dry super fast - then prefolds next. We dry inside in the winter and outside in the summer.......the neighbors are used to coming over to a drying rack in the living room........the bathtub idea is a good one but the woodstove is in the living room......we dry everything on it except king sized bedding.....