More Diaper Buzz

I don't mean to go on about this. I know I've already reported on our experiences in switching to cloth diapers. But I feel compelled to say again how happy we've been with this change, and to offer a few suggestions to those who are seriously considering this possibility.

1. Give it a few weeks. It took about 3 weeks for me to figure out how to use cloth diapers to their fullest potential. It is absolutely true that if you don't care for them properly or adjust them appropriately you will have problems. But when you get into a routine that works for you, they work just as good if not better than the best disposables out there. I think it's very true that they do not reach their highest capacity of liquid retention until you've washed them a few times. At first I had to change them every 2 hours to prevent leaks. Now I change them about as often as I did with disposables. (Which wasn't often.)

2. Rinse. Many cloth enthusiasts insist that this is not necessary. That to clean cloth diapers you only need to knock solids in the toilet and throw them in the washer. Maybe for some this is true, but for our particular situation, for the consistency of my kid's "solids" or "not-so-solids" I really have to rinse them out for effective cleaning. It may also have to do with having a high efficiency washer, which doesn't use anywhere near as much water or soap as a regular washer. What MacGyver did for me is install one of those cheap plastic sink/tubs next the washer with a sprayer. I spray off everything I can with cold water and then just leave the diaper to soak in an inch or so of cold water until my next load of diapers. Before I added this step, all of my diapers were coming out of the washer and dryer dingy and with a little bit of a questionable smell.

3. Follow care instructions carefully. Cloth diapers need special care. They shouldn't be cleaned with much detergent at all and it should be either homemade or approved by the manufacturer. I didn't follow this advice with cloth pull-ups I bought in the past and you can tell by looking at them. If you overload with detergent and bleach they will not work as well and their life expectancy will not be as long. And if they start to leak, chances are they just need to be rinsed and rinsed and rinsed without soap for awhile to get the buildup off. This is known as "stripping."

The instructions warn that using vinegar, baking soda or bleach too often will cause buildup. I try to use just a splash of vinegar every other or every 3 times I wash. And when they start to have a slight odor, I use just a tablespoon or so of bleach, but I am cautious about only doing this every few washes. It does take care of any smell starting to emanate.

4. Adjust. The diapers I bought have adjusters inside them. I had to play around with them and find out what settings Baby J needed to keep them from leaking. I also learned to put them on to prevent leaks too. You have to keep the front up high as you are snapping them in place, then pull the back up and make sure the elastic around the legs is snug against the skin. Since I learned to do this, they rarely leak.

Again, I will reiterate - I've been extremely happy with this decision. They are not bothersome. They save you money after a few month's use. They save garbage dumps from unnecessary refuse. They save baby's bottom from unnecessary chemicals and irritants. They are an all around good idea, and I'm thankful to have them!

To Live Simply

Yes, I'm a little behind. We went up to see MacGyver's parents for a few days and do some homeschool trips to museums and such. You're looking at the Hale family homestead, circa 1800.


When I stepped into the tiny one room cabin and looked around, I had a strange thought. When everyone else would be marveling that someone actually lived on so little, I felt jealous.

What would life be like if I had so little to keep track of? Tiny room with few belongings, garden, animals, and miles and miles of empty land. It sounds refreshing. It evokes the same feeling in me as taking a deep breath of crisp clean air.

Then my more cynical side reminds me that my simple life would have a few accompaniments. Disease. Accidents. Winter. Summer. Bugs. Bears. Wolves. Dirt. Very dark nights.

Sure, MacGyver and I could make it. Our kids would definitely whine less. (Or maybe more...) We'd toughen up and live off the land. But I suppose it would be hard to ever go from a life of luxury to a life where you live to survive instead of live to enjoy.

But I still believe that we can live with less. I'm still firmly settled that we have too much stuff, we take up too much space and use up too many resources. It's ridiculous in the light of most of history. What made us so entitled to so much? Do we realize our descendants might someday dig up their past and find a disgusting layer of trash and junk? I'm embarrassed.

I wish there was a place to go to live simply as in this log cabin - just for a few days or weeks. To learn what we can really do for ourselves. To realize what we really don't need.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

People of the Cloth

So I am going to tell you all about cloth diapers. Or what I know of them in my week or so of experience.

First of all, my overall impression has been great. I am sold. (I have to be sold, because there's no way they'd be taking these back after what my children have done in them...)

I went with the Fuzzibunz brand. I mostly heard the experiences of four different moms, and all of them used different brands. Some of them used more than one brand themselves. When I heard all the things that were good and not quite as good about each brand, the Fuzzibunz were the ones that sounded like they would be the best "fit," so to say, for our family. I liked that they had the snaps as opposed to the Velcro, which sticks to everything in the dryer. I liked that they had a "one-size" that will grow with a baby and even fit a toddler. (Though they are pretty snug on MY toddler.)

I ordered them and they came (free shipping) in 2 business days. I bought 9 one-size and 3 larges. I may end up getting three more larges at some point, because at present I am doing a load every day. The first thing I thought was how soft they are! I imagine they are much more comfortable for a baby's bottom. They are cute and they fit just about as trimly as a disposable with one insert. (You can use two for greater protection, but they get pretty bulky. Baby J can hardly move his legs with two inserts stuffed inside. They have adjusters just like the ones on kids pants nowadays, only these have numbers written next to each hole for the button. There are two sets of adjusters, two at the waist and two at the legs.

The one-sizes (that say they should work for 7-35 pounds) are snug on my 31 pounder. She can get by with them during the day but I'm glad I bought several larges as well, because those work much better when trying to stuff them for nighttime. She hasn't had any leaks at night. She doesn't get leaking during the day either unless I leave them for over 5 hours, and the leaking is only around her legs. I'm getting better about remembering to change her an extra time a day and it's becoming routine. With baby J I'm having more trouble figuring out how to keep his from leaking. I'm sure it's just a matter of finding the right adjustment. He leaks at the legs after just a couple hours, even if he isn't that wet. Nighttime he doesn't usually leak at all, so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong during the day.

One thing I have noticed is that it is hard to get these suckers dry. They have to be dried on low and it takes at least an hour before they feel dry, and even then I still think they could be a bit drier. I'm going to try drying and bleaching them in the sun when I rig (or actually have MacGyver rig) me up some sort of clothesline.

So overall, I am very happy with cloth diapers. I haven't had to do anything with messes other than knock as much as I can into the toilet. They go right into the washer for a soak and wash and they come out clean and white again.

So if you're thinking about it and you're not sure, you have my opinion to add to your research. Here's the Fuzzibunz website as well, they have some questions and answers as well and they are very honest about what to expect.

http://www.fuzzibunzstore.com/ (I'm sorry to make you cut and paste, I completely forget how to insert links, or they changed it or something.)

I also said I would post the recipe for homemade laundry detergent. You can get it from the Duggars website, but I found another website that I thought explained the details a little better, and was also scaled down a bit since I don't have 19 children and counting to wash clothes for. Although it seems like it some days...

http://www.soapsgonebuy.com/category_s/24.htm

Next on my list: Homemade dishwasher detergent. Details later.

Going all Crunchy

I saw a family in Meijer today. I admit I was a bit judgmental. I saw the woman and the girl's hair tied back in handkerchiefs, a baby that I'm pretty sure was nursing as his mother carried him along (I have to give her credit for that - I can't imagine how that works without some sort of superhero arm strength...)the long flowy skirts with t-shirts, the man's suspenders and long beard, the sheer number of children... I immediately thought "Crunchy."

If you've never heard the term "crunchy," it's used to refer to all-natural purists who make everything from scratch, birth their babies at home... or out under a tree (no kidding, I read a birth story where the woman gave birth out in the woods... on purpose,) etc. Sometimes they are called "crunchy granola" families. I'm not sure why the term is crunchy and I just don't feel like looking it up today. But trust me, they were crunchy.

I'm starting to wonder how far off of that I am! For as I was raising my eyebrow at the large crunchy family, I was heading to the soap aisle to buy borax, washing soda and fels soap to make my own laundry detergent that would work for my new stash of cloth diapers.

And just as the Crunchies get their fair share of guff from others, I get it too. But I'm starting to care less and less. Because of said cloth diapers, I am going to have about $50 extra a month. Because of said homemade laundry soap... I can't even fathom how much I'm saving because of the sheer volume of detergent that can be made from the $7 or so dollars I spent today. I've always been a little slow in math but I lost count somewhere in the thousands of loads this stash will clean. All I know is the 2.5 gallons of concentrate I made today does 640 loads, and I used 1/2 cup of one and 1 cup of the other cleaners that came in over 3 and 5 pound boxes. I know, it's just mind boggling... or maybe that's just me. Some of you are shaking your head that I graduated high school. I know MacGyver is. He is my superior in math by a billion to the tenth degree. No, I have no idea what that is. But I did get an A in geometry, thanks, Mrs. U.!

ANYWAY, so I admit my Crunchy tendencies are increasing. Please talk some sense into me if I do something crazy like stop wearing makeup or trying to ride a bike to the grocery store with four children on Trabue road...

I'll tell you all about the cloth diapers I bought and give you a full review tomorrow. I'll also share the detergent recipe and instructions.

Green Bottoms

This is my two-year-old. She's nursing her baby. And she's smart. She knows every nursing mother needs to stay well-hydrated.

So this one and her baby brother are giving me a dilemma. I really like modern day diapers. I like how much they hold. I like how infrequently I have to change them. But as wonderful and convenient as they are, they are not very environmentally friendly.

I'm going to need a lot of hand holding today. I know some of you have switched partly or all the way to cloth diapers. So for all of us that are scared to death of a pile of filth we are responsible to somehow wash every day or being at the mall and having runny baby poop leak every possible place imaginable... help! Convince us!

I also need specifics. When you put "cloth diapers" in a search engine you come up with MANY options. What's the best? Is it worth it to get the most expensive? Do the cheapest ones perform badly? How many do you need? (Not how many do they recommend - how many do you absolutely have to have to avoid catastrophes?) How often do you have to change them? How often do you have to wash? Can you just throw the nasty things in the washer or do you have to rinse them out? And how do you keep rotten dogs who think poop is a delicacy from ripping them apart? (Okay, maybe you don't know the answer to that one...)

So I need lots of responses. I changed the settings so that anyone should be able to post. If you have trouble responding here, I'll transfer your facebook messages over. There are questions that must be answered so we can try to make a difference in the disgusting pile of dirty diapers that are going to eventually take over the landfills.

Commence discussion.