Just as I have said many times before, these are not your grandma’s cloth diapers anymore. Just as the diapers have changed, so has the ways we care for them. I posted in a previous article (see below) about how you would never use vinegar or bleach on eLeMeNO-Pee brands of diapers. This is not all that has changed about the way you care for them:
Why You Should Not Wetpail
“What might have amounted to one stain, could become several and your diapers will smell as if they have soaked in sewage.” –
www.diaperpin.com
1. BAD FOR YOUR DIAPERS
If you are using an eLeMeNO-Pee brand of diaper that has an outer PUL material, using a wetpail means you are losing money! Soaking your PUL material for long periods of time, like that which would be done with the use of a wetpail, will breakdown the outer PUL material and thus, shorten its lifespan.
Not only is it bad for the material, but its not in any way beneficial to the diapers. Wet pail advocates say that is prevents stains from setting. What you have to remember however, is that removing a “stain” from a cloth diaper is as easy as a few hours of sunlight- so this is definitely not a good enough reason to use a wetpail.
2. DROWNING HAZARD
When our grandparents cloth diapered at home using prefolds, wet pails were all they really had. Somewhere around the house was a bucket of some sort filled with dirty diapers in dirty water. Not only did it attract the attention of the curious baby, but also the curious pet. Too easy is it for a baby to reach too deep into the dirty bucket and tip over into it before mom noticed…and drown. It happened then and it could easily happen now.
3. MORE DIFFICULT
It is recommended that you wash your diapers every 1 – 2 days. For most cloth diapering moms, this is no big deal. For the wet pail user however, this can be a strenuous and pretty disgusting task as wet pails are difficult to manage. First, the water MUST be emptied every day, preferably several times a day. The pail is heavy and full of dirty, stinky water that you do not want to drop on the floor- especially when you have a little one crawling around! If you empty the pail outside, you have to lug the pail far away enough from the house that your little one AND your pets stay out of it. If you empty it in the washing machine, you have to run a pre-spin cycle and preferably a pre-rinse cycle before you even start your washing routine. Look at all that extra work (and extra water!) a wet pail requires!
In my opinion, cloth diapering with a dry pail is too easy to put yourself through all these issues just to use a wet pail!
Dry Pails today are simple! They often do not smell before 3 days, they are not dangerous if you keep them stored properly, they do not require extra water and best of all, they do not require extra work. In fact, a dry pail today can be as simple as a cleaned out trashcan, or as cute and easy as a colored or printed diaper pail liner that can be washed along with the diapers (see picture of Wahmies cow print liner below $16.50). Fuzzi Bunz has even gone the extra step to make a diaper pail liner that not only fits a typical 13 gallon trashcan, but also has the option to hang on a door knob to keep curious babies and pets out of the bag. What is even cooler about this bag is that there is a zipper on the bottom of the bag, so you don’t ever have to touch the diaper. Just open the bag and toss it in and the washing machine will pull out the diapers for you! ($21.95)
If you have any questions about diaper pails, or anything cloth diaper related please visit
www.elemenopeeonline.com
Follow Mothering