Back in Cloth Diapering, Part 1 I shared what kind of cloth diapers we use. Today I’ll give a little more detail about how we use them.
So, do you have to touch poop? The answer is of course not! Many people are grossed out by the thought of cloth diapering and I was at the beginning, too. However, I think that handling gross things is in the job description of parenthood. I mean I catch spit up in my hand just to save an outfit! I can only tell you my experience of cloth diapering a boy now almost three (all potty trained) and ten month old baby girl. The first 8 months of Bean’s life his poop was mostly liquid (we waited till 6 months to feed him solids). When we change a diaper we take the prefold off and put it into a container (mini-garbage). When the container is full or we’ve run out of covers or prefolds, we start the three cycle wash. The first cycle is a cold wash using detergent we made ourselves using oxi-clean free, borax, baking soda, and washing soap. The next cycle is a hot wash with detergent again, and the final one is a cold water rinse. We found this combination the best for making sure the diapers are clean and smell-free. We let the covers air dry and then put the pre-folds in the dryer on very dry. This is how we wash Isla’s diapers; the first time around with Bean, we would soak them overnight in cold water, then do a cold rinse and a hot wash. We find the three cycle method (recommended to us by Cotton Babies) eliminates the ammonia smell that started to develop in wet diapers.
How often do we wash these diapers you might be wondering? We wash our diapers around twice a week. Isla seems to prefer pooping in clean diapers so we are going through them much faster than with Wellington. The poop usually just rolls off into the toilet, but sometimes (and I usually make my husband do this) the prefold has to be dunked in the water until the poop falls off. You can get a sprayer attachment for your toilet or inserts that you just take out and are able to throw or flush away. We are contemplating getting those for some of her more messy poops that we have to rinse off.
What do you do at night? Currently we put Isla in the toddler size and we use an infant pre-fold to help soak up the pee. The great thing about using the Flip OS is that we can make it bigger to fit all that on her. This approach seems to be working well right now.
How do you fold these bad boys? In the beginning we used many different folding techniques. I would suggest you search on the internet because there are some helpful videos. During more of the infant stages I found the Ninja fold worked the easiest with the snappi. With Wells we did the Angel fold and now wit Isla we fold the prefold into thirds and tuck it under the flaps so there is no need for a snappi. Folding the night time diapers is a bit more complicated. It is much bigger so we make the padding in the front bigger for some added absorption since we are doubling up.
That’s how we cloth diaper. It is different than the cloth diapering of our grandparents. It is more work but after a while I don’t even notice it. They look cute and are saving us a lot of money. Feel free to share your cloth diapering experience or ask any questions that may still be holding you back!
