Who else is cloth-diapering? - Page 4

[lifeguard]

mambera - sorry you had such a tough time with cd's last time. I honestly rarely had leaks with ds. We did prefolds exclusively with pul covers. I often, around the house especially, just had him in the prefold & then changed it as soon as he wet. When he was immobile I would even just lie him naked on top of a prefold & just place a clean one under him if he wet.

The few times we had a rash issue I switched to disposable for one or two changes with lots of cream & it always cleared up very quickly.

[meenaangel]

There is a blog called All About Cloth, and she has good newborn CD suggestions. The fall back is prefolds with prowraps, which is cheaper.

[Earthmamajen]

I cloth diapered before and used mother ease by my last kiddo...i liked them a lot and still own them...so that's what I'll use. Also about the not being exclusive....lots of times I used disposables at night...I usually felt a bit guilty, but I imagine I'll let go of the guilt this time around Jenny

[nicolian]

I use sposies at night for my boys. They just pee way too much! Nothing could contain that flood.. and then we were dealing with AWFUL ammonia from my oldest. Blech!

[korintherin]

Originally Posted by starling&diesel 
QOTD:  How many of you used either liners or a sprayer?  We didn't use either, but now I'm wondering about both. 

We used neither. For solid poops, we kept a plastic knife in a dixie cup behind the toilet (where DS couldn't reach it) and that was the "poop knife" used for scraping the poop into the toilet. Our bathroom is too small to squeeze in a diaper pail, so no swishing either. I didn't want to carry a sopping wet diaper back to the bedroom.

[starling&diesel]

Awesome idea about the knife, korintherin.  I'm going to try that! 

[korintherin]

Originally Posted by halfbakedcake 

This is baby number one, and we're CDing. I'm going with Indian prefolds and covers for the first few months, but not sure what I'll use after that. I would like to be able to use prefolds the whole time, since they're so economical. Also, I like the idea of cotton against my babe's bum, and am less than thrilled with the idea of the synthetic materials other styles seem to use. Have any of you had success with prefolds once the youngins get into the heavy wetting wriggle worm phase?

We used prefolds and Proraps all the way, never even needed Snappis! When in doubt, go up to the next size prefold. Diaper service quality prefold that is, not the hankies Gerber sells in the baby section of most stores.

I tried a few different folds with DS but most of the time it was a simple thirds across the short dimension of the diaper. If it was still too long, I'd fold a flap down in the front for extra protection there.

With the Proraps, it wasn't an issue if poop leaked out of the prefold onto the cover. The cover caught it 99% of the time and his clothes were fine. Couldn't say the same for Pampers.

We had some experience with diaper rash. First of all, if you are aware of when your kid pees, they don't have to sit in a wet diaper very long! Second, diaper rash has lots of different causes. We had problems with both chemical sensitivity (to commercial wipes / disposable diapers) and with yeast infection. The latter can occur completely independently of what kind of diaper you're using. Food sensitivities can also cause diaper rash, independent of the diaper. In the long run I am very glad we stuck with the cloth diapers, specifically cotton prefolds, because I *knew* that was a constant factor rather than a variable in our battle with diaper rash. ("He didn't have the rash last week with the same diapers, so what else changed?")

We did have some eczema in the diaper area too, cotton prefolds didn't seem to make it any worse (it was minor, no cracking as long as we kept applying Aquaphor, which is ok to use with CD).

We did start having problems with him pee-flooding the diaper at night when he was about 18-19 months old, so we potty trained. His bladder had just gotten bigger than the diaper could keep up with, and he was ready. The unexpected benefit was that he night weaned then too, because he wasn't waking up wet!

[korintherin]

Originally Posted by starling&diesel 

Awesome idea about the knife, korintherin.  I'm going to try that! 

Thanks :) It was cheap and it worked! Must have read it here somewhere.

[Bobbie Boyd]

We use the bummis diapers with the prefolds using snappies or pins to hold them together. i think the Potty Pail is a life saver with the attachment to the toilet. Something we started doing was drying our dirty cloth diapers on a rack (our changing table is on a metal utility shelf). when they dry i put them in the pail and i never have a smell of diapers. it makes all the difference.

[~pi]

Same story here as korintherin (prefolds and covers all the way through), except we used Bummis covers (cheaper in Canada.)

We also made microfleece liners by buying a few metres of microfleece and cutting it into strips. We would put a strip on top of the prefold, which allowed for: 1) temporary wicking away moisture, so that if we were out with DS, we could spend 5 minutes finding a place to change him rather than having him screaming instantly, and 2) poop rolling right off. Highly recommend. This trick really improved our CDing experience.

Also, in the following years, those strips have made for excellent washable kleenexes. So much softer on our noses.

[nicolian]

I used a plastic knife before we got a diaper sprayer and HATED it! I also dunked the diaper and still couldn't get all the poo off. Like I said, my kids must have cement poo. I actually just threw away my poop knife the other day! lol

[FbksMama]

We use organic cotton prefolds with Bummis covers, and at night we use Bum Genius AIO.  We have to use the Bums at night because he nurses and pees a lot by the morning!  We only have like six Bums and 36 prefolds.  I do laundry every third day and usually we haven't gone through all the diapers.  We use to do laundry every other day but we've really used less water this way.

For mamas just getting started - It can seem a little overwhelming at first but you can do it!  We didn't go 100% CD at first because we were just so clueless about being new parents.  We maybe went through two packs of diapers in the beginning couple of months but haven't used a disposable in about three months!  If it's your first and you're nervous just ease into it.  It might sound silly but set goals!  In my mind I did this in the beginning and it helped to get off that disposable crutch.  I'm sure it's way easier for some mom's but for us it was the best thing.  We didn't have anybody to help us with being new parents so CDing was just one more thing to stress us out.  It's definitely more work and more hassle (I don't believe people that say it isn't) but it is completely worth it!  Better for your wallet.  Better for the environment.  And better for your little babys bum!  Even though my family back home thinks it's silly and don't understand why we're doing it I wouldn't do it any other way!      

[eyeamviolet]

We are a pre-adoptive foster family.  I am a SAHM of 3 boys 2,3,4yo.  2 and 3yo are not potty trained yet and I have no idea when that will happen.  Every day I think "this is the day!"  So in many ways it is like having twins and some times like triplets.  There is only 23 months difference between oldest and youngest.  Anyway my point is we use g-diapers.  Surprised I haven't heard anyone else mention them.  I like the versatility of being able to use the purchased cloth inserts or the paper cloth inserts.  If I had to do it over I would have made up my own microfiber inserts.  But, the purchased ones are easy.  I just have a dry bucket to drop the wet inserts into.  I put some baking soda in too.  I bought enough to only wash them every other day.  The paper are more expensive but, more convenient if I know when they will poop (easier to clean) or if we are going out of the house.  Poop I just wash by hand and then drop in the bucket to wash again in the machine.  

     Overall I have been thrilled with g-diapers.  So easy and way less expensive than disposables especially with 2 in diapers at once.  You can buy them at diapers.com and I think the website is gdiaper.com  Good luck and have fun!

[kathyS0224]

I use Smartipants! They are my favorite of everything I have tried (prefolds with covers, Bum Genius AIO's, Tiny Tush organics, and Bubele Bums Minky diapers)- they are so easy! I just toss them in a wet bag and throw them all in the washer at once. :) Good luck!

[mambera]

Originally Posted by lifeguard 

mambera - sorry you had such a tough time with cd's last time. I honestly rarely had leaks with ds. We did prefolds exclusively with pul covers. I often, around the house especially, just had him in the prefold & then changed it as soon as he wet. When he was immobile I would even just lie him naked on top of a prefold & just place a clean one under him if he wet.

The few times we had a rash issue I switched to disposable for one or two changes with lots of cream & it always cleared up very quickly.

You know what's funny, I didn't really consider that we were having a tough time.  I kind of just felt like everything was par for the course (and actually easier for me, as I said I prefer laundry to trash as a chore) until we switched to sposies and I saw how much better they worked for DD.

I do have a question for those who change as soon as the baby wets (since if we are going coverless I guess that will have to be our MO) - So are you changing diapers like every 20 minutes then when the baby is under a year or so?  How do you ever do anything else with your day?
 

[yellowdart]

Mamas who have CDed newborns before - how long did your baby fit into newborn-sized fitteds and AOIs?

[~pi]

Originally Posted by mambera 

I do have a question for those who change as soon as the baby wets (since if we are going coverless I guess that will have to be our MO) - So are you changing diapers like every 20 minutes then when the baby is under a year or so?  How do you ever do anything else with your day?

DS gets his camel-like bladder from me. We're well-hydrated, we just have, erm, abundant capacity. (I am that rare pregnant woman who never, ever has to get up in the night to pee, even at the very end.) As an infant, he peed maybe every couple of hours. And with exclusive breastfeeding, he used every last drop of nutrition, and only pooped every 7-10 days. He despised being wet, so we changed pretty quickly (though, as noted above, the fleece liners would give us a 5 minute window.) So I think it depends on the baby. If I had a kid who peed every 20 minutes, I'd probably be looking at either EC, disposables, or some sort of more serious wicking liner.

[~pi]

Originally Posted by yellowdart 

Mamas who have CDed newborns before - how long did your baby fit into newborn-sized fitteds and AOIs?

About 30 seconds.

[saoirse2007]

for ds, my dh made flats from flannel sheets and we washed them in the bathtub...no machine

we made a ton of flannel/fleece pockets and used prefolds...motherease...

dh and I were worried that ds might not learn to walk or that he would walk funny because of the huge diaper crotch....lol

but he started walking at 8 mos and no worries;)

for dd I made some scaled down rrps from flannel pillowcases...

I also use recycled sweaters...and scrap fleece for stay dry lining sometimes.

I must say I HATE my front loader!

[mythik]

I CDd DS from birth but mostly part-time at the beginning then FT at 4 months or so.  This time I plan to CD full-time from the beginning if all goes well.  I have a newborn stash then a one sized stash all ready to go so we are set.  DS is still in cloth and we are doing PLing right now :).

DS was 7lbs3oz when born and was 6lbs12oz when we got home a few days later so he fit in his newborn diapers for about 3ish months...I think at about 12lbs or so we switched over to our onesize diapers.