Our Diaper Set-up

Being that William is our third child in cloth diapers, things have changed over the years that we've used them. I find that mamas who cloth diaper - or are interested in trying cloth - like to see how other people do things! So, for all you curious mamas, here is how we currently have things set up.

For a while, since we had more than one child in diapers, we had things set up out in the living room on a bookshelf and just changed the kiddos on a pad in the middle of the floor. Now that William is the last one in diapers (yay!), we have a changing table set up in his room.

On the side are clean wipes and fleece liners. The liners make it super easy to spray messes off of diapers. I use an old disposable wipes container for the wet wipes. Some people like to make a wipes solution, but I just wet a stack of wipes with water.

The top drawer holds a few disposables, extra changing pad covers, baby powder, cloth-safe diaper cream, lotion, and a bag of pins and snappies for pinning prefolds and flats.

The second drawer down is where we keep various sizes of wetbags for holding dirty diapers, as well as some extra inserts for pocket diapers.

The third drawer has our bumgenius "Flips". These are organic cotton inserts that go in a cover with flaps on either end to tuck the inserts in. We use these for our nighttime diapers, as they are super absorbent! 

The bottom drawer has all the covers to go over fitteds, flats, and prefolds. 

Behind the door are all the diapers. The top shelf has all the prefolds and flats (you need pins or snappies for these).

On the bottom are the pocket diapers and all-in-ones on the left (you don't need an extra cover for these) and fitteds on the right (you do need a cover for these).

 When we are out and about, we pack the diaper bag with a few all-in-ones or pocket diaper, a wetbag for holding dirty diapers, and a small case of wet cloth wipes. We also carry a few other basic essentials like a change of clothes, some hand sanitizer, and diaper cream.

In the bathroom, we have attached a diaper sprayer to the toilet, which makes dirty diaper clean-up a breeze. I would be hesitant to cloth diaper without one! 

 

When they are all sprayed off, they go in the diaper pail. Wet diapers get thrown directly in the pail. When the pail gets full, I dump the whole thing in the washer. The wash routine that works well for us is a cold rinse, then a hot wash cycle with half a scoop of powdered Tide original, some oxyclean, and a splash of vinegar for fabric softener. Dry on high heat. I choose to air dry covers and the outer shell of pocket diapers so they last longer. That's it!

Reusable Roundup!

As a frugal mama who also likes to reduce unnecessary waste, I have slowly replaced everything disposable with a reusable option. So far, here is what we use (and reuse)!

 Cloth diapers and wipes. Detailed posts on this coming soon!:

Facial tissues out of cut-up t-shirts that are getting too worn to wear. I found a pretty box from a Christmas present I got this year and cut a hole in the top large enough for us to grab tissues out:

Here they are all washed and ready to use. And oh-so-soft:

 Cloth wipes for messy hands and faces. I just cut flannel receiving blankets into the shape of wipes. I like to use separate wipes from the ones we use for bottoms, so these get thrown in with the regular laundry.

No more paper towels! We still use the occasional paper towel for really gross or greasy messes, but for the most part we use kitchen towels. Some of our kitchen towels are white burp cloths from when the kiddos were babies (think Gerber prefolds- not thick enough to use as diapers, but perfect for the kitchen). We also use smaller washcloth style rags to wipe the counters down after spraying them with vinegar and essential oil. No more expensive clorox wipes or kitchen cleaners! For dirty jobs like floors, bathrooms, and dusting, we have a stash of plain microfiber cloths under the kitchen sink: 

Cloth napkins! I keep these in a basket in the corner of the dining room for easy access. The basket that I got for $1 at Goodwill Outlet. Score! These napkins go with us in school/work lunches, too:

 Good old-fashioned handkerchiefs. Hubby and I both grew up with our Dads using these, so naturally hubby uses them, too. Now when they become threadbare, I sew a few more from a large white sheet that got a hole in it. We won't have to buy hankies for years, now:

 Ok, so I admit this might not be for everyone, but I find them to be comfortable and easy. Cloth pads/liners, which I just throw in with the diaper laundry. No more running to the store at the last minute for unmentionables ;)

Do you have any other items to add to this list? If you do, please share them!

Why I Love Cloth Diapers

1.) I never have to run out and buy diapers or wipes because they're always on hand.
2.) Rashes are few and far between.
3.) Blowouts are also rare. When we've taken a break from cloth in the past, I've always been glad to get back to it because of all the poo-plosions we've had in disposables.
4.) They reduce waste in landfills.
5.) They can save a lot of money.
6.) I like knowing that my baby's skin is soft, comfy, and free of chemicals.
7.) It makes me happy to pull a load out of the dryer, fold them with the girls, and see the pretty, folded stacks of colorful diapers.
8.) Last but not least, they are just so stinkin' cute, as evidenced by William sporting one of his dipes for you.

My attempt at indoor line-drying...

Today has been a pretty low-key day here at home. Since my homework is done for the week, I've been able to focus more on things around the house. Yesterday I tackled the filing cabinet, and while I still have a box of papers to file and a box of papers to shred, I made HUGE progress in a few hours. A couple more hours and it should be completely done, aside from putting our medical insurance info. in order. What with the pregnancy, I had two surgeries, a 7-week hospital stay, weekly appointments, childbirth, another surgery, and multiple doctor visits for the kids (since they were in day care throughout the fall, we were sick all the time!). That will be a longer project to get organized, but it's at least all in the same folder in the filing cabinet now. Today's project has been figuring out how to effectively line-dry inside.

I actually started with a load of diapers on the drying rack by a heater vent in the living room night before last. After a day and a half, the all-in-ones were still not dry, whereas the flats were dry within a few hours. I have been using flats as inserts in our Flip covers since yesterday, so our all-in-ones will be saved for daddy or outing use. That way they will last longer and diapers will be dry faster, too :).

So, here is what I figured out for the rest of the laundry. I am utilizing the collapsible drying rack I have, plus the shower curtain rod with plastic hangers and wooden clothespins. I'm curious to see how fast things will get dry, especially since the heater vent doesn't really work in the bathroom.

Here's what the setup looks like in our small bathroom (the toilet and the sink are to the left of the laundry, and the washer and dryer are in alcoves on either side of where I am standing):
To save on space, I decided to pin one corner of each napkin, washcloth, and burp cloth, lining them up along a hanger (I also pinned some of the kids' clothes up like this as well).

The bibs I just fastened along the bottom of one hanger (yes~William goes through a lot of bibs since he's a big spitter).
I think this setup will work for a while, but I'd like to figure something else out eventually. It's going to have to remain indoors due to the amount of rain we get around here, but still be relatively out of our way.


Wolf-it-down Wednesday
B: Homemade granola and chocolate chip banana muffins.
L: Organic tortilla chips with salsa and "rockamole," as Dorothy calls it. The kids had shepherd's pie and David had the rest of the BBQ chicken pizza.
D: Clam chowder, toast, and veggies.

28 weeks!!

You'd think being on bedrest that I would post more often. I really intend to, but time slips away from me between homework and Dorothy and everything else. Over the weekend I reached 28 weeks, which was the major milestone we have been shooting for. It feels good to know that baby Charlotte has such a good chance of survival now:)

I had a bit of an eventful week. Last Monday/Tuesday David came down with a cold/fever. By Tuesday afternoon, I had a fever as well... but being that my stomach is so sensitive when I'm pregnant, I wasn't keeping anything down. One of my church friends came to take me to L & D for the night so they could monitor my contractions and hydrate me. We got there around midnight and I was discharged by 7 am, but it was a LONG night. It took me most of the week for my stomach to be back to normal (as normal as before, anyway). I will be getting my flu shot at my appointment this week to avoid Influenza this year. Now I'm just dealing with mild cold symptoms, which are totally nothing in comparison to what I was dealing with. Luckily Dorothy avoided getting sick. She and David will be getting flu shots as well... we can't have the flu this year. I'll be either pregnant or dealing with a newborn for the whole of flu season.

I have also made a *few* more things lately. Purple K asked me to post pictures of the wool diaper covers I've made. I used up all the wool I got from her, and I think they turned out pretty good. There are a few different styles of them.

3 newborn soakers, 1 small soaker, 2 medium soakers, and newborn longies:


1 small soaker and 2 medium soakers:


The rest of the stuff is just random things that I wanted to make....

Strawberry Shortcake set of a prefold diaper, hat, and pants:


4 large fitted diapers:



And a bunch of cloth wipes:


Diapers are about the most exciting thing around here for me, so sorry to bore you with them! I'm actually going to start selling a few things... wetbags, nursing covers, wipes, wool covers, and baby legwarmers. I have a friend that has a website and she wants to have my stuff available on there. As far as time, diapers take a while to make so I don't know yet if I will want to sell those, but I'm sure that if I wanted to I could.

That's all for now! Off to do some more homework... oh, how interesting History is.....

Nice cervix!

My cervix (since I'm sure you allll want to hear about it) is still behaving at around 2.4 cm long, which is the same as it was with Dorothy at this point, so all still looks good. I have been having contractions a lot. So much so that on Friday we went in to L & D to have me monitored. But, of course, by the time we got there they had slowed down. It was a rather uneventful trip and we only ended up being there for around an hour or so. I was glad they calmed down because some of them were as close as 4-5 minutes apart, although most of them averaged about 12 minutes apart. That's been our only "scare" so far, so we're doing alright. At my next appointment I will be 28w2d, so we'll be in the safer zone. Not totally safe, but getting there!

Dorothy seems to be enjoying daycare well enough. She HATES being dropped off and throws a big fit, but she's generally happy when we pick her up. This afternoon she kept saying how she wanted her friends, so I'm taking that as a good sign that she must be having some fun.

Classes are in full swing now, with History being the most time-consuming one right now. I think they'll all take up most of my M/W/F while Dorothy is at daycare. I'm still sewing up a storm, too. I've made a few cloth wipes, some wetbags, some nursing covers, a few newborn wool diaper covers, and a couple of size large fitted diapers. I took some pictures of our "stash" as well. Keep in mind that these are going to diaper her until potty training, although I only had through medium when I took the pictures. Feel free to ignore them if cloth diapers don't interest you, but I think they're lovely. Nothing like a fluffy diaper on a baby bum!

The newborns:
4 KLO colors galore,
1 homemade fitted
1 me-made nb prefold (the black & white)
9 small kissaluvs contours
2 nb fleece soakers
1 xsmall prorap
Not pictured:
2 x-small me-made wool diaper covers
1 pair of me-made nb longies (wool pants)
several more nb prorap covers

The smalls:
5 me-made fitteds
12 sweet cheeks sewn in folded-down position w/sewn-in doublers
4 various adorable fitteds
2 fleece covers
1 small diaperrap cover
4 small proraps
6 0-3 month gerber vinyl covers
Not pictured:
1 yellow me-made pocket dipe w/microfiber insert
1 cute cupcake print fitted
4 small Fuzzi Bunz pocket diapers
a few more small prorap covers
1 me-made wool diaper cover

The prefolds:
22 me-embellished infant sized DSQ prefolds that will fit small/med (a few are Christmas-ish because she is trying to come early)

The mediums:
12 Coolababy one-size pocket dipes/inserts (for daycare)
12 sweet cheeks fitted dipes w/microfiber doubler sewn in
10 me-made flannel fitteds
1 kushies all-in-one
2 med fleece covers
3 med prorap covers
4 3-9 month gerber vinyl covers
1 me-made medium drawstring wetbag (for daycare)
Not pictured:
a few more medium prorap covers

The randoms:
3 snappis
a bunch of flannel wipes (making more of those myself)
fleece liners (making more of those, too)
boosters for kissaluv contours
birdseye doublers
flushable liners
Not pictured:
1 pail liner
several diaper pins
8 flat diapers

As far as larges, I now have 5 home-made fitted diapers (2 made by me), 24 premium DSQ prefolds (that I am working on embellishing), one pocket diaper, and several prorap covers. The Coolababy pocket diapers should work through large as well, since they are supposed to fit until 30 lbs. I am also going to be making a bunch more fitted diapers and if I get any baby shower money, I want to invest in a few more cute large fitted diapers if I can find some good deals online.

So that's that! Hope you're not bored to death now:)

25 weeks!

I am so pleased that we have made it another week. This week Dorothy will start her daycare 3 days a week, and that should cut down on the stress of wondering where my help is coming from for the day. Monday is also when my online classes start, so I'm looking forward to the term flying by. 2 weeks after the end of the term is when we should be getting induced as long as baby stays put and bakes that long.

My cervix shortened only a tiny bit. In the past few weeks it has gone from 2.7cm to 2.5cm to 2.25cm. As long as we're moving in mm, then it's not so bad. My cervix is open to the stitch above it, and basically all of my length is below. So little stitch is doing his job very well. I'm trying to stay off my feet unless I am getting something to eat or taking a shower. Obviously sometimes I need to get up for this or that with Dorothy, but for the most part I am doing a pretty good job of staying down.

I made my first pocket diaper this week. A pocket diaper is waterproof, and it is made so that you can stuff the absorbent material inside the pocket. It turned out pretty well, and I hope to make some more after my sewing machine gets back from the shop. I was sad the other day when it pooped out on me, but hopefully a good cleaning and tuneup will fix the problem. Here are some of the embellished prefolds I did before my machine freaked out on me....

THE DIAPER

Nice little side view

From the top

Wide open

What do you think?

OK ,Then.

I switched to Blogger Beta today. I haven't done anything new with it, but it does look like there are some more options to play around with.

I spent a lot of the day sewing diapers. I am going to have to sew a lot to make much, but anything at this point is going to help. I think I have perfected my fitted diaper pattern. I have made a few changes and am keeping all of the different versions to use on Dorothy to find out which one is going to work the best. Whichever one I like the most (I have a feeling it will be the last one I made) will be the one I try to sell on ebay first. I wanted to take a picture of it, but the camera is in David's pocket, so the picture will have to wait. I'm also putting them through a few runs in the washer to test how well they hold up.

Well, I have a lot of things I could post about, but I have to go pump. Again.

Phew!!

I made it. It's 10:14pm and I am posting today.

I am embarking on a new adventure. An adventure in designing and sewing cloth diapers in hopes that people will come flocking to EBay to buy them...

ok.

So maybe not flocking.

I have been toying with the idea of doing this for a while now; I even thought of it while I was still pregnant with Dorothy. I've always been creative. Artsy-fartsy some would say. This sort of thing would be just the right fit for me. Something my non-college-edumacated self could do AT HOME to make a bit of money. That's the hope, anyway.

I went to Wal Mart last night to look at some fabric. I got mostly flannel (a few different prints) and two yards of a stretchy terry-cloth. I am borrowing my mother-in-law's frighteningly expensive Baby Lock sewing machine that she doesn't have time to use, on which to practice away at several different diaper patterns that I'm working on. I've done some (ok, a lot) research on diaper sewing how-to websites. Let me tell you, there are a lot of them out there. And let me tell you another thing. People sell their dipes on EBay all. the. time.

I will be just one among many. But I think by being creative with my ideas I can do a good job with this. Already (after making two of them) my fitted cloth diaper fits quite well.

No, not me, silly. Dorothy.

I kind of patterned it after a disposable I had and tweaked it somewhat. It ended up fitting very much the same, so I think I'll try to hunt down some "sposies" in each size and do the same for those patters.

I have already made a beautiful black and white paisley prefold out of flannel in the newborn size. I have also been trying to draft a good pattern for a contour diaper. Interestingly, it is more challenging than the fitted one, though the sewing takes less time. My goal is to make them as fun and bright as possible.

Then maybe people will want to try them out even though I have never once sold anything on EBay, so I don't have any positive feedback on what a wonderful seller I am and how amazing my diapers are. But they will be.

If I make them, they will come.

Cloth Diapering

When I thought of having babies I always assumed I would use disposable diapers. I mean, everyone uses disposables. Right?? Imagine my surprise when I started looking in to cloth diapering while I was on pregnancy bedrest and discovered that it made a lot more sense to me. There are so many positives about using cloth that I couldn't resist using them. It sealed the deal when my friend PK gave me some chinese prefolds, fleece liners, Prorap covers and one of her own homemade fitted diapers for my baby shower. I had also gotten some Gerber Birdseye prefolds (not the burp-cloth style) that work in a pinch. There began my *obsession* with cloth diapering. Everywhere I went online, people talked about getting almost fanatic about it. It's easy to do because there are sooo many options out there that make cloth diapering WAY better today than it was when our moms and grandmas did it. My mom used pinned prefolds and plastic pants. I do have some plastic pants, but only use them if my other covers are dirty.

Let me tell you a little bit about what diapers I have right now and which ones I prefer.

By far the easiest diaper I have is the Kushies All-in-one fitted diaper. With this daiper you do not need a cover. It goes on just like a "sposie" and washes just as easily as the diapers that need a cover. It fits up to 21 pounds but I find that the rise is a bit high on her right now. But I like how cute it is and we haven't had any messes in it. It's not my favorite, but it's easy to use and very daddy friendly.



The other kind of fitted diapers I have are one-size (also to 21 pounds) that you need to use a doubler for. These diapers are easy to use, only I think I will prefer them more when she gets big enough that I won't have to fold the front to make it fit (that's what you have to do for the first size). They are quick to dry and they hold in the poops great. This one is a Sweet Cheeks diaper and they do need a cover. This is actually my bulkiest diaper by the time I am done.




The doublers (separate rectangles that give extra absorbancy) that I have are several layers of cotton stitched together. I got them discounted on clothdiaper.com.



My second favorite option is the one that I use most often (simply because I have only purchased one of the Kissaluvs Contours, which are my favorites). This option is almost as easy/quick as using a "sposie", especially when I fold the diapers ahead of time and put them in the covers. As you can see below, it is a chinese prefold diaper that is folded in thirds and put inside a Prorap cover. I then use a fleece liner on top. The cover has elastic and velcro, so it goes on just like a "sposie". I also got some covers that are very comparable to the Proraps (they just run a little bigger) on Ebay from cloth diaper supply (I think that's what it's called anyway)as well as some Diaperaps I got from my brother's wife. All these covers are similar and I now have about 5-6 covers in each size.



By far my favorite diaper is the Kissaluvs Contour, which, as I said, I only have one of so far. It is the SOFTEST diaper I have, made of cotton fleece. It kind of feels like a really soft stretchy terrycloth. It is different from a fitted daiper in that it doesn't have the elastic or the velcro closure, so you do have to pin it or use a snappi so it is a bit more time consuming than some of the other options. The doubler is attached with one stitch down the middle for faster drying time. They come in several sizes and you can also choose to get colors for a dollar more per diaper. The one I have is yellow on the outside. This diaper also needs a cover. I love it.




I prefer to use a liner in my diapers. It makes cleaning a breeze and keeps the moisture off the skin. I have fleece liners. These are easy to make. Just go to Wal Mart and get some microfleece and cut it in to rectangles that are the size you want them. They are very easy to rinse out and most of the poop gets on them rather than on the diaper.



I also have disposable rice paper liners that are even easier than the fleece (though the fleece are softer on the skin). They can be flushed in a city sewer system, but with a septic tank you'd need to shake off the poop and then throw them in the trash. For less walking I chose to use a wipes container. I just line it with a grocery bag and pop the liner in the box. When the poops get bigger I'll switch my method to flush the whole thing (you are supposed to shake off the poops with "sposies" anyway). When the box is full I open the lid, tie off the bag and throw it in the trash.



I have also chosen to use cloth wipes. They are made of very soft flannel stitched along the outside to prevent fraying. Baby washcloths can also be used for this. All I have ever needed to use of these wipes is one versus disposable ones where I often need 2 or 3. They just get thrown in the pail with my diapers.




I store the wipes in a wipes container. They get folded in half and soaked with a solution of one cup water, 1-2 tsp. baby oil and 1-2 tsp. Johnson and Johnson baby wash.



The dirty diapers get put in the washer to soak instead of using a separate wet pail (I also have a dry pail in the room for before they get transfered to the machine). I soak them in water with a bit of Oxyclean (never use chlorine bleach on diapers, it will ruin them). Some people simply use a dry pail where they go straight from the pail to a wash cycle. I prefer to presoak them because I find the stains come out better. Many people don't care about stains because, well, they're diapers, right? This is a personal preference and has nothing to do with how clean they get. When I am ready to do a load of diapers I spin them out and then do a cold/cold wash cycle with a bit of detergent (one without scents, dyes, or fabric softeners). It is usually recommended to use about 1/4 of the amount of detergent you would use when you wash a load of clothing. The first cycle is the cycle I do the covers in, too. After that cycle I take the covers out and line dry them. Then I do another wash cycle in hot/cold with a bit of baking soda, a bit of detergent (I use Kirkland powdered dietergent and it seems to work fine so far), and a little bit of vinegar in the rinse cycle (baking soda and vinegar is optional). Then I do an extra rinse and throw the diapers in the dryer. The whole process really doesn't take that long. It's like doing an extra 2-3 loads of laundry a week and it is well worth the cost difference (and the cuteness factor is a plus) between cloth and disposables. I want to get a sewing machine at a decent price (I need one anyway) and experiment with making my own diapers. If I do, I'll be sure to let you know how it goes. So that's our cloth diapering experience in a nutshell.