My cloth diaper experience:
I ordered all one-size pocket diapers, and one diaper cover:
1 fuzzibunz, white. came with two inserts and replacement elastic sizers
1 bun genius 3.0, pink. came with one big insert and one infant/doubler
1 happy heiny, yellow. came with one big insert and one infant/doubler
1 thirsties cover, floral.
1 roll of flushable, biodegradable liners bu Kushies. it's basically a toilet paper roll but thicker, more like a paper towel.
i washed everything in super hot water with a teeny bit of detergent. i have a front loader and used tide HE free and clear. i hung everything to dry on my back porch. and hour later, all the diapers and inserts were 90% dry. i was pleasantly surprised. the thirsties cover was totally dry, but it didn't have any cotton or microfiber to hold any water.
from my research it seemed that i had 3 options for prepping the liners to maximum absorbency. i could either wash them once and see what happened (most likely leaks) wash them many many times, or boil them for 20 minutes and then wash twice. yeah… i boiled. i then washed them with no detergent and added an extra rinse and called it a day. i hung them to dry in front of a fan (it started raining) and they were completely dry within 2 hours. i stuffed the dipes with their corresponding inserts (left out the doublers) and called it a night.
Day 1: Using each pocket diaper with only one insert and no doublers.
in the morning i woke madelyn up and got her set up in the bum genius.
:-) the inside was very soft so i felt bad about putting the liner in. she didn't seem to care though, as she was totally distracted by the velcro tabs. we did our morning routine of a bottle and some playtime in the exersaucer. i checked her diaper before naptime and it had some poop. i removed the liner and threw it out. the diaper seemed okay so i just went ahead and fastened it up and put her to bed. we had been changing sposies just after naps so i wanted to see how this would fare for that length of time. when she got up from her nap, the crib sheet was dry. yay! i brought her to the changing table and then noticed her shirt was damp on one side. i *think* the shirt might have been tucked into the diaper or the liner was sticking out or something. so i'm not sure if this is technically a leak. i also read that cloth diapers will frequently leak when you first get them until they are cleaned many more times. so we shall see. maybe i should have changed her completely before her nap, but time will tell. i shook out the insert and tossed that and the diaper in the washing machine and put it on rinse, but no spin. i still need to order a wet bag… then i'll be able to skip that step
Our next diaper of the day is the yellow Happy Heiny.
i prefer the overall feel and appearance of this diaper to the bum genius. it was also easier to attach, even though both the HH and the BG are velcro. the tabs on the HH are larger. Time to test it out! this awake time we had our bottle (which madelyn held almost entirely herself!) and some butternut squash. yum. after her tummy settled, it was play time. she crawled all around her little baby jail and gave this diaper a work out. after she wiped herself out for the morning, it was nap time again. i didn't check her diaper before this nap.
lunch time for mommy! (a.k.a. mommy drinks a slim fast with one hand while emptying the dishwasher and cleaning the kitchen with the other hand…)
After madelyn's nap, i was greeted with wet sheets. madelyn tends to nap on her belly so i think we had some leakage out of the front of the diaper. i cleaned her up (easy since she just slept in her diaper) and put on our fuzzibunz. this was my first attempt with snaps. the only issue i had was that madelyn is long and skinny and her super trim waist was on the small side for this diaper. the best fit actually had the tabs overlapping each other so i had to get creative. luckily there are plenty of places to snap into so i think i found a way that worked. i didn't try adjusting the leg elastics yet so we'll see how that goes. after madelyn had her bottle, it was time for mommy-daughter playtime. :-) and then another nap. i have a good feeling about these fuzzibunz so i'm hoping for a dry baby when she wakes up!
okay now i'm really going to put the dishes way… i totally got distracted during lunch and ended up shopping online for a wet bag.
okay we are up from nap time. the fuzzibuns leaked. but only a little! there was barely any wetness on the sheet so i didn't have to change it this time. when i picked her up i discovered the leaking from from the leg holes. i will shrink those up for tomorrow. so far, the fuzzibuns are in the lead because even though it did leak, it was an area i had not fitted specifically to madelyn. the other two diapers i did size for her and they leaked anyways. but again, they probably all just need extra inserts. madelyn is currently lounging in a thirsties cover stuffed a tri-fold prefold, an insert on top (the second insert from the fuzzibunz set) and a liner.
this diaper cover seems more like a sposies with the gussets in the leg area. this cover was the easiest of all to put on and madelyn seems pretty comfortable in it. i plopped her on the floor and gave her a bottle, which she held up herself again, although she did it laying down. such a big girl! she is now sucking on some grapes through her mesh feeder. time for me to make dinner while she plays!
okay- nap time over. and we have leakage! just a small little puddle. not sure where it came out of. i took out the prefold and insert and wiped down the thirsties cover. this time i folded the prefold in what i think is the "newspaper fold" with the last microfiber double inside. i then wrapped everything in the thirsties cover once more. If we have time for another cloth diaper tonight i will try the twist bikini fold. and then it's back to a sposie for night time.
tomorrow i plan to do pretty much the same thing, except change diapers before nap time and see if a fresh one prevents leaks. i might try adding extra inserts and/or prefolds as well, but i'm currently limited on my insert stash so we'll see how far that gets us.
during the day i found out from my lovely babycenter friends that babysteals' steal of the day was a gro-baby diaper set! i contemplated this purchase for about 3 nanoseconds, hopped over to the gro-baby website for price comparison and more info, and then bit the bullet and ordered the steal. so whenever that shows up we will have 3 more cloth diaper shells, and 150 disposable liners. those liners will be great for traveling, between laundry loads or if amos and I are sick and totally just don't feel like it. lol. or if madelyn is having a serious case of the craps… ;-) anyways. in addition to the disposable liners, these shells can go over prefolds and fitteds, just like the thirsties cover so that will be extra helpful in increasing the number of changes we can do with what we have. all we need now are to buy/make several more microfiber inserts and get a few more pocket diapers and prefolds. then we should be set until madelyn is potty trained! for the next kid we will probably need to add a couple more diapers to the stash, but nothing compared to the cost of disposables. it will be fantastic!
on a side note- for now, we are planning on using sposies during the night. we use 12 hour+ baby dry pampers and she fills those up. I'm not sure how she compares to other babies, but i have a feeling madelyn is a heavy night wetter. we might try CD at night in the future, but for the time being we're just going to work on mastering daytime. :-) we also plan to use sposies during trips as well, simply due to the convenience of not needing to mooch someone's washing machine.
this concludes today's novel.
3 comments:
What a great review of cloth diapering! I look forward to reading about how it's going in a little while. There is a local store that focuses on cloth diapering, and after reading your post and seeing the diapers, I might just have to check it out after work one day!
Good luck tomorrow!
P.S. Madelyn is a cutie!!
Wow, this whole diaper thing is like a foreign language to me. I actually was thinking about diapers earlier today because some friends have cloth diapers on their baby registry and I was totally confused about them. I wanted to make them a disposable diaper cake, then my dreams were crushed when I found out they were doing the cloth diapers on their registry. I might just make one anyway because it sounds like from your experience that disposables still come in handy on certain occasions. That, and I think a cake of the cotton ones would be too pricey. LOL :)
PS does all baby stuff have these crazy cutesy names?? haha. let me go wipe my fuzzibun..
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