Not feeling the CD love

[milkmamamerina]

I'm trying to make the switch to cloth. It's taken me until my 2nd child is now 14 mos old to wear down my DH to even give CD a chance.

So here I am with a toddler trying different borrowed dipes in order to see how it all works before paying the big bucks

1st try was a Swaddlebees aio (with a soaker insert--which I learned I didn't need for daytime) It held the pee so well I couldn't tell she was wet until after I changed her tiny quarter size poop. I sprayed it of into the shower drain since it was very small...I'm thinkin, hey I can do this...and I started hunting for affordable AIO's...ha ha...still looking

2nd try was a cuddle bug-- all in two? i think.-- it had the PUL on the outside, no real padding but a snap in folded insert. I'm thinking "hey, maybe I can just swap the insert when it comes time for a change." She poops and I go to change it, and it wasn't even that big, but I definitely see the "swap the liner" idea is not gonna happen. So I leave the changing table and head for the bathroom to rinse the dipe and insert. I tried using the handheld shower head to rinse the poop into the toilet...she's not making very solid poops yet. and that was when disaster (ok maybe that's exaggerating)

The second I start to spray off the diaper into the toilet, the water is everywhere, the poop starts to fly, my DD is trying to get in on the toilet fun and my 3 yo DS (predictably) freaks out demanding that he has to pee that second. So by the time the majority of the poo is out of the diaper, I've got poo all over the place and I'm yelling at my DS about how he has to wait. My nerves are frayed and I'm thinking my DD is going to be using the toilet in about a year anyway, so why go through ALL this?

So, I'm pretty discouraged about the whole CD idea now, but i'm thinking maybe I did something the hard way or something. I mean CDing can't be that bad or so many people wouldn't love it.

Any thoughts or encouragement?

[Gabes Mommy]

Once you get in a routine, and get organized, it isn't that bad. When you rinse the diapers in the toilet, hold them down almost like you're dunking them to try to keep the spray water contained. It does splash from time to time though. If you decide to go with CDs, you may want to look into a diaper sprayer. Ours has saved our lives!

Pockets and AIOs can be pricey, but I've found them to be the closest to disposables. You can prestuff pockets so they're more like AIOs. You can find some used on diaper swappers, or look for good sales/coupons/discounts.

Remember too that if you keep your diapers in good condition, you can resell them at the end to recoup some of the cost. =)

[CHoney]

I tried using the showerhead to clean the diapers, but found it difficult so I bought a diaper sprayer. I would recommend buying one if you're planning on using cloth. I found that the water pressure on the sprayer was better at getting the poop off the diapers. My showerhead wasn't powerful enough to blast the poop off.

What I do is put the soiled diaper on the inside of the diaper pail lid (which is a small garbage can from the grocery store) and bring it in the bathroom. If my DS is being a monkey, I will wait and do it later, or I will put him in his jumperoo for a minute so I can clean his diaper. If he's anywhere around me in the bathroom, it gets really stressful keeping him away.

I bought these fleece diaper liners which are really handy, so I just peel them off and plop the poop into the toilet. If you're handy, you can just buy some fleece and cut them into rectangles for washable liners. You can buy flushable liners too to help make clean up easier.

I find that putting the diaper sprayer on pretty high power, and holding the diaper liner against the inside of the bowl to work well. Sometimes I get splashes! And then for the diaper, I fold it in half and spray parts of it at a time (if that makes sense) so I'm only spraying a small area at a time.

It took me awhile to figure out what works best, and now it's easier. I then put the wet diaper liner and diaper on the pail lid and bring it back to the diaper pail.

I've also had an incident where I had the diaper sprayer facing the wrong way and sprayed across the bathroom and soaked the wall and ceiling!

[Siennaflower]

Honestly, I never bothered with a sprayer at all. I scraped off what I could into the toilet with a dedicated tool and tossed the diaper into the wetbag. What's left will come out in the wash. Or you could try fleece or flushable liners.

[Adsullata]

Fleece liners are great. I don't like the flushable, they were more hassle than they were worth imo- didn't stay put well in the dipe, more likely to have a "poo encounter" when removing to flush. Fleece I can reuse over and over. Bought some and cut it with pinking shears- no sewing- piece of cake. Shake off or dunk in toilet with or without the dipe and toss in pail, then in wash on wash day.

I considered a diaper sprayer, but reading about them it sounded tricky keeping it from not spraying everywhere. So, I'm a dunker. Because we only have one bathroom and our bedroom and changing table is upstairs, we have two diaper pails. A big one (kitchen size garbage can) upstairs and a little step-can style one that lives in the laundry room and visits the bathroom to pick up the poopie dipes. I shake off what poo will come off and flush, then leave the dipe in the toilet for a few minutes, while I get my little pail and then plop it in there. I also have a pair of quality dishwashing gloves that are dedicated to use with the little pooper pail and leave them on the edge before closing the lid so the lid holds them in place for next time. I did not care for using a utensil for scraping either because that just gave me another thing to clean and I'm all about easy and less work (ie. maybe a wee bit lazy?).

You can do it. The thing is, no matter what you do for diapering, even sposies, you have to have a system right? Think about your sposies system and what you did to make it work. Using cloth is simply using a different system. You are choosing a good way to go about it by trying different dipes and seeing what works for you.

However, I would highly recommend getting a couple diapering accessories that will help you no matter what type of cloth diaper you use:

1. Diaper pail liner, so you don't have to clean out your pail and can just toss the liner in the wash with your dipes. Two is best so you can use one while the other is washing.
2. Wet bags, so you have a place to put dirties in your diaper bag. These are also reusable and go in the wash with your dipes.

I think these and the fleece liners are what have made my cloth diapering experience quite pleasing.

[Pepper44]

I also loved fleece liners! Just buy some fleece and cut it into wide strips to lay inside the diaper. A lot of poop peels right off of it into the toilet. What doesn't plunk right off, I just toss right into the wetbag with the diaper and it comes out in the wash with no problem.

[Sleepyheaded_Mama]

This was such an informative thread! Thanks to the OP for posting and for everyone else who replied! I am studying this CD business like my life depends on it right now, lol. I only have 3 months to cram all this information into my head before I have to put it all into practice, lol.

[milkmamamerina]

Thanks for all the responses. It definitely helps to wait until the kids are busy with something other than watching me. Also, the fleece liner was mentioned to me by my friend who lent me the diapers and I totally forgot about it since there weren't any in the sack with the dipes.

I had a little easier time of poopy time today, and I realized that my spray problem is two-fold.
1. the shower head doesn't reach ALL the way down to the toilet...hence CRAZY over spray.
2.the showerhead requires you turn it on IN the shower so I have to juggle the diaper the handset and try to turn the water on all at the same time


So since i don't think i can handle dunking I'm going to have to either invest in a diaper sprayer or make one

[mamadelbosque]

We have Bum Genius One Size diapers and love them - I have 40 2.0s for DS1 (29 months) that we've been using since he was about a month old and 36 new 3.0s in anticpation of them fitting DS2 (hopefully they'll fit him in a couple more weeks). We used to have a diaper sprayer but it started leaking a few months ago and we've gone without since... we just pull the liner out and drop it in the diaper pail, then swish the liner in the toilet to get all the poop off, spray with bac out and drop in the pail. A new diaper sprayer would be very nice, but we're making do without just fine.

We pre-stuff the pockets once they're out of the wash so that all you have to do is pop them on and your ready to go - they're basicly AIOs that you have to do slightly, marginally more work for after washing but which dry faster.

[Jojo F.]

First thought, lose the sprayer and get an old spatula to scrape the poo off. Liners are awsome as pointed out earlier.

I was given a TON of old baby clothes and in the mix was a bunch of old fleece blankets, I cut them up (fleece doesn't fray) and use them as liners. They work perfectly. There are silk liners, they are a little more expensive but, they are also antibacterial and help with diaper rash.

For a pail I went to a bakery and asked if they had an old 5 gal bucket. Score, free pail!! The lid to the buckets are very tight, no baby or toddler is getting into one of those bad boys.

Do you have a lot of old recieveing blankets? You could sew those into fitted diapers(my fave!!) or just fold them like a flat/prefold and tuck into a cover (currently what I am doing until I can break out the sewing machine). Old hand towels work well too. Go to a thrift store and get a ton of old recieving blankets(anything flannelette) for cheap.

For doublers/extra soakers you can buy microfiber towels at the dollar store and sew a layer of fleece on one side and flannelette on the other (microfiber must not touch the bum) That way you have the fleece liner and doubler all in one.

If your DH is balking at the price these thrifty ideas can make it all a little more possible

Buuuut, if I had a little more $$ right now I would totally get a stash of Bella Bottoms one size fitteds.

[milkmamamerina]

thanks for the thrifty ideas. I'm debating whether to cut up a gifted fleece throw blanket I never liked, or just go buy a small amount of fleece at the fabric store.

I don't think the spatula idea would work for us though, my daughter's poo is..err...let's just say it doesn't plop, but it's got plently of content. I really need to spray it.