wool soakers and EC

[inconditus]

I'm still very early in the "research" stage right now when it comes to EC. I figure I have time since I am only 16 weeks preggers at the moment but I'm sure that time will FLY. I'm going to be a SAHM so I really hope to do EC full time starting when the baby is about 3 months old since for some reason holding a newborn with no head support over a toilet kind of freaks me out. Maybe I'll get over that. 

Anyways. I'm sure I'm not going to catch every pee/poo so I'm considering still using cloth diapers. The only issue I have found is that the snaps seem kind of annoying for how often they are going to be going on and off. Then today I found wool soakers on etsy that weren't stupid expensive. Huzzah! I'm super excited (assuming my hair brained idea makes sense.) They look and seem like normal undies or at least are easy to pull on/off and seem pretty low maintenance in terms of care. 

My big "concern" for lack of a better term is that it appears that wool diapers are meant to be worn over prefolds. This kind of negates the whole "wow that seems so easy" factor that made me so excited about them. Can I use shorties or longies without prefolds underneath? I'm assuming they would need changed more often during messes and I would have to buy more than the 4 pairs that is adverised as all you need. I'm cool with this as long as it moderately works plus they are so darn cute anyways!

Has anyone used wool diapers for EC? Is this a crazy idea where I would just be wasting my money? I'm only planning on buying a few when the kid gets here to try it out but I would assume I would find more info on this via the interwebz to tell me yay or nay before I invest monies.

[seraf]

Wool rocks. Wool is warm, soft, breathable and water resistant. Those qualities make it a great diaper cover.

We have a lot of homemade longies and a few soakers. With our longies, we use an elastic belt with the diaper tucked in. We also use cotton training pants under wool. With our soakers, we use the soaker to hold the diaper on and in place. I can post a video about how we do that tomorrow if you like.

Sometimes our toddler wears longies with nothing under. Because the knit is open, he pees right through them. So, if you have a great catch rate and want to use wool for warmth and decency and easy care but don't mind mopping if you have a miss, you can use wool without anything user. If a kid pees in wool, you can hang it up to dry a few times before it smells.

[inconditus]

So it will still run straight through like how it would normal cotton undies? Obviously it wouldn't hold everything in like a pul would, but I was hoping it would mostly soak the wool and less the floor lol.

Would you still say they are easier than all in one diapers with snaps?

[seraf]

If your wool is thick, it might run down her legs instead of all over the floor, but I don't think of wool as very absorbent. If she has on decently thick undies they may hold a miss with the wool.

We use wool at home. Sometimes out and about (no reason not to, but my partner likes to dress them in normal pants when we go out and I don't fight) but typically we use FB when we go out. I dislike the snaps. I greatly prefer wool. Wool over non-waterproof training pants is a great combo. Easy up and down. Wool is not as waterproof, so if you have something thick enough to hold a single pee, you can tell when she's wet but it won't make a mess. The advantage to traditional wraps over pull ups is for poop. If you have a poop miss, you have to pull poopy pants down.

My older kids were reliable enough to come out of diapers away from home between 2 and 3 months. They went back into waterproofing when they started crawling. We are less on top of EC now because we have 2 under 16 months. You may have a very easy time with snaps or wool just for having only one baby.

[thezoolife]

inconditus, I've been EC my almost 7 week old since she was about 1 week old, so I don't have a ton of experience but here's what I've found.

1. I bought 2 (super adorable) wool covers and have not used EITHER of them because they are so time consuming to get on and off that I end up missing in the process. 

2. You'd definitely would need a soaker or prefold under the wool cover because as seraf said, if you miss poop you would have to smoosh poop all down their little legs as you take the wool cover off. 

That is of course unless you are getting wool covers that have snaps and don't just pull up. Snaps are actually super fast and easy to take off and unlike velcro they don't stick to everything. 

[inconditus]

I was thinking either wool or an AI2 or a prefold diaper with a cover. I would like to do aAIO with snaps but I don't think that is in the budget right now

[thezoolife]

We do AI2 and have some prefolds we use with our AI2 shells. I'll put her in a prefold without any cover if I'm going to be carrying her so I can know the moment she's peeing and am able to cue her. Catching poop has been way easier than pee because her signs are much more obvious. I tried to do diaperless time for pee but it was such a mess that I felt prefolds without covers was a good compromise.

[seraf]

Here's a 5 minute video about how we diaper. The toddler running through is wearing longies with nothing under. He pees infrequently. I would have to wipe up the floor if he had a miss.

I should not try to shoot a video right before naptime, the baby was asleep 3 minutes after we shot it. Hopefully everything makes sense.

[flyrabbitfly]

My concern with wool is that you would not necessarily know right away that they've gone. The nice thing about cotton prefolds is they feel wet (wool won't feel cold or particularlly uncomfortable when wet-great if you want baby to sleep through) which will be even more important if you delay starting (by 3 mo your little guy/girl may already be used to going in her diaper and losing awareness of going and sensations surrounding this).

One cotton prefold tucked into a prefold belt or a pair of chaps was plenty to not go dripping through until easily 8 or 9 months for us. So perhaps you are getting bogged down in problems that won't exist. Prefolds are wonderfully cheap, you can afford to buy lots, they never go out of style (we still use them for clean-up cloths almost 3 years later). IMO you only need wool soakers if you don't plan to change your baby very often, like maybe overnight if you don't EC overnight. For that they are great. But probably more than you need (less is more in EC- you want to see that first darkening of the cloth dribble of pee so you can run baby to the potty ASAP) during the day. And as others said, not necessarily so easy to on/off. We used the prefold in a belt/chaps system or ECA pants with velcro for easy on/off.

Also, you get less afraid of this whole business of no neck control. Native people sling their newborn babies on their backs by the arm, with the only result of getting neck control sooner. Babies aren't so fragile afterall. :)

Good luck!

[seraf]

Flyrabbitfly, I don't put a lot of diaper under our wool, so I can still tell right away if I touch. I can feel the warmth of a wet diaper.

[flyrabbitfly]

Seraf- and when they are tiny and being held all the time, I think that would work great. When they get mobile, I think it helps to be able to SEE the first dribble....

I didn't mean to imply you don't change your little guy often enough! No offense intended, sorry if any was given.

[seraf]

Originally Posted by flyrabbitfly 

Seraf- and when they are tiny and being held all the time, I think that would work great. When they get mobile, I think it helps to be able to SEE the first dribble....
I didn't mean to imply you don't change your little guy often enough! No offense intended, sorry if any was given.

Oh, no offense at all! I have a pretty busy household, so I don't see the first dribble anyway. My mobile guy pees infrequently enough that I can hear a dribble if he has on nothing but a prefold. He really dislikes being wet, so he asks me to pick him up or change his pants immediately after a miss, as long as he has something on. If he has nothing on, he looks down in hopeful anticipation of a puddle to splash in.

[nstewart]

I'm with flyrabbit on the prefolds.

For me what was the fastest and most convenient at home was simply a prefold with a snappi and no cover.  I could tell immedietly if DS had peed, and I could get the prefold off super-quick to make a catch (so if he'd started peeing and I was holding him or just noticed, I could make a catch mid pee or at least open up the prefold and cue while he peed).

For out and about, I used a prefold with a cover.  This time I am going to sew some wool covers though, they are so darn cute.

I agree with PPs who have mentioned the poop all over the legs issue with the wool cover only approach.  You would need to buy several to use until you are consistently not having poop misses because they'd have to be washed each time and wool takes a long time to dry.  Also, if you are washing them more often, you also have to re-lanolize them more often, which means more drying time.  Overall, this just seems too time consuming for me to want to do it. 

Once you are really consistent with the poop catches then something pull up/pull down is totally the way to go.  Then you have wool shorties or longies as an option or cotton trainers as an option, because they just have to hold 1 pee.  Until you have poop catches down, something that either unsnaps or unhooks or somehow opens up is key.

[inconditus]

Thanks for all the comments! Wow there is a lot to think about. I wonder if it's tacky to ask for visa gift cards or cash instead of cloth diapers for the shower. I'm wondering if I won't be able to figure out what I like until the kid is a few months old.

[Pepper44]

We did full time EC but also used diapers for normal misses.  Wool is not a diaper, it's just a cover and I think it would be very uncomfortable against delicate parts rubbing all the time!  

I used prefolds and snappis with no cover sometimes, but if she was happy laying down or going to fall asleep in the carrier then I put a wool cover on just in case.  We also used wool when leaving the house.  It only takes a second to pull the wool down.  

Once we outgrew newborn sizing I used small sandy's mother-ease diapers.  They are awesome!  They side snap, but you can easily pull them up and down!  They come in smalls and larges.  Both the smalls and larges fit for a huge weight range and don't leak missed poo out the legs.  They are fitted diapers that require a cover if you want them to be wet proof.  They're really perfect for EC with a diaper back-up.  

We had great success doing EC from the newborn days.  I never used the toilet.  I held DD with her back against my belly with her knees to her chest over the baby bjorn potty or over the sink sometimes.  It was very secure and easy!  I was actually shocked at how simple EC was for us.  DD loved it and has been in panties with almost no accidents since around 12 months.  She's almost 3 now.  We did go through periods of misses, like when she learned to crawl, but we just kept on offering and watching for her cues without getting discouraged. It paid off and I plan to do the same with my new baby due in April.

I think EC actually took less time than dealing with diapers all the time.  

[inconditus]

Ooooh I will have to look into those mother ease diapers. They soy d perfect. What type of cover did you use over them? Wool or something else

[OrmEmbar]

We did EC from day 1 with our DD 8 years ago.  Good thing a friend had given me the "diaper free!" book when I was pregnant.  I had not planned on doing EC but I thought it was a fascinating concept.  The book was a splendid gift because our little one started giving cues on day 1 and would cry if we didn't respond.  We would have had one of those "colicky" crying babies if we hadn't been introduced to the concept of EC.  The extra gift was the close connection that DH felt with this little baby that he could not nurse like momma.  Elimination communication gave him a very close connection with his little one.

I those early days I just held her in my lap over a pre fold diaper or bowl . . . getting up to take her to pee would have been too much physically for me, especially since she needed to pee every 7 minutes that 1st month.  Amazing the things you learn when those diapers are off!

When DD was really little we kept her in those gowns that tie at the bottom, with a flat or tiny prefold tucked between her legs.  She was always in a sling or in someone's arms and gave clear signals so that worked for the 1st month.  Then we used flats with a snappy or under a wool wrap (velcro closure).  I preferred the wool wrap because I could undo one side and slide the whole thing down. 

I found the diaper wasn't my biggest obstacle but the clothes were.  I began to understand why all little ones (boys and girls) wore dresses in the old days.  Much easier than taking off pants, then wrestling with a diaper.  Luckily ours was a girl, so dresses made ECing a lot easier.  If I have a boy this time around I will definitely be getting or making some split pants/chaps and the diaper belts are brilliant!  (I will use them for a girl too, I'm just happy there has been so many more options come available in the last 8 years)

As DD grew we were gifted some motherease cloth diapers and I loved those.  Used them without a cover and with leggings made from my old wool socks (feet cut off).  Then we had a little money and bought some "favorite ec pants" from the ec store.  Those were great for going out of the house and for a toddler who was more interested in her "work" than communicating her ec needs.

Congrats on your coming little one and have fun with the ec adventure!  I found it to have so many benefits beyond dry diapers.