Cloth Diapering - The Adventure Begins!

you're putting me in what?

A little over a week ago, we were just about to run out of the disposables given to us at our baby showers last fall, so I bravely announced to facebook that we were starting cloth! And that meant I had to actually do it. :-)

The truth is, there was still one box of pampers in our closet which I had tried to let myself forget about. But it was still there, just in case. The rest of our stash consists of a ton of used diaper service-quality prefolds and covers given to us by a friend of a friend (J), three new FuzziBunz OneSize which were a gift from my CDing (i.e. cloth-diapering) sister-in-law (C), and a few random used pieces from the same sister-in-law. I also have a few knitted wool soakers.


Here's a bit of a journal of how our first few CDing days went.

Thursday: We start off the day in a prefold and cover. I folded the prefold in thirds and placed it inside. A few weeks ago, I tried to pin one on Gemma just for fun, but I couldn't get the pins to go through those thick things! She wet through it before I even gave up. Am I that weak? Well, I'm pretty sure the diapers I used to see Mom pinning onto little brother were thinner, possibly the Gerber kind you can find at the store. But until I find some other way of fastening them sans cover, the wool soakers will have to wait. Note to self: buy a snappi.

In the meantime, I brought the diaper pail into the bathroom per Mom's recommendation, lined it with a plastic garbage bag per J's recommendation, and filled it partway with water and Borax, per Mom's recommendation. I also figure out where to adjust the elastic on the FuzziBunz to fit my 11.5ish pound sweetie pie and adjust all three of them.

Halfway through the day, I've discovered that my favorite cover is actually one from C. It fits better and seems to breathe better than the covers from J, and it's pink. :-) It seems like I'm constantly changing diapers, though! They get wet so quickly! I think back to my cousin, Lizzy's comment, "Pampers hold more pee . . . " I pull the box of Pampers down from her closet, rip it open, and look longingly inside. They have baby Elmo's and Ernie's on them. They're so cute, and so easy . . . I reconcile myself to using them tonight, to help with the transition, and put them back.

The wet prefolds also smell like ammonia, which I read on a website is a result of detergent residue. Apparently when I attempted to "strip" them in the summer with a plain hot water wash, I should have repeated the process a time or two.

Friday: In the morning, my sweet husband takes our fed-but-awake baby for a little while so I can sleep some more and brings her back in one of her FuzziBunz. Go Dad! They're cute and comfy, and we love them so far!

Today is the day I'm determined to buy a snappi. I've heard that the birth center near us has a boutique and sells cloth diapers, so it seems very likely that they carry snappis there.

Indeed they do. They have lots of different cloth diapers and it's fun to see in person all these brands I've only heard about or seen pictures of online. But we've been so blessed with gifts that I stick with the snappi three-pack. [I intend to stop at the post office and the grocery store, too, but by the time we get there, the post office will be closed and Gemma is getting hungry and fussy. Life with baby is quite different from life pre-baby!]

This evening is our first experiment with CDing on the go. John and I take Gemma to the gym with us and she sleeps long enough for me to spend about 10 minutes on the elliptical. The rest of the time, we nurse and change her in the bathroom. It's easy just to pop her wet things in the wet bag and redress her in cloth. Redress, hee hee. (I received a Munchkin brand bag from Target as a shower gift.)

At home later, I decide to try out the snappi, but I have a hard time getting the little prefolds I've been using to go around her like that, so I pull out one of the larger ones stashed away and seriously fold it down. Maybe it's just too big, or maybe I need lessons, but I'm not terribly pleased with the results. Still. I want to try out the soaker sack I knitted in the summer. She's not in it long, though, before she gets fussy and John realizes she's wet. It's back into 'sposies for the night.

Saturday: Hooray for washing our first load of dirty diapers! I drag the very heavy diaper pail downstairs to the laundry area but have to leave it there for some reason. When I get back to it, it's empty!

"Where are the diapers?" I ask John.

"I threw them out," he replies.

"But they're the cloth ones!"

"That's why they were so heavy!"

It's not his fault, really; I had set the pail in the same area where I often stick a bag of trash on its way out to the big bin. And they were awfully heavy. I'm surprised that the plastic liner didn't break with all that water and wet stuff in it! I decide to forgo the plastic bag in the future. Yay for being even more green. :-)

I washed my diapers with only a little bit of powdered detergent from Trader Joe's. It received 4 out of 5 stars for cloth diapers on this website: http://www.pinstripesandpolkadots.com/detergentchoices.htm. It's easy for me to get and not a bad price! It's difficult to describe the measure of satisfaction which swept over me when I laid those rectangular prefolds out in the sun to bleach afterward. Ah, this. This is what I've been waiting to do all my life. :-)

On Saturday night, little Gemma was back into 'sposies, and I almost regretted putting her in them again on Sunday morning. Yes, they're easier. But they're blue inside. That can't be natural. Ironically, the only nursery worker who changed her last week was a CDing mom herself. When we arrived home in the afternoon, I was almost anxious to put her back in cloth. How one does change. :-)