The Fluff: Cloth Diapering part 2

This is the post in which I tell you what diapers we have and use.  Part 1 is here, where I talk about our washing routine.

Simon helping to fold and put away diapers

At home: at home we use pre-folds and covers. You can get Indian cotton or Chinese cotton. There are pros and cons to both, I can't really tell a difference except that the Chinese pre-folds shrink up more I bought all from Cotton Babies.  We have 18 infant-size Chinese (that we are about to size
 out of, 18 infant size Indian, 12 burp cloth size Chinese (that are great for this between size time), 18 premium size Indian (that we are growing into).

For covers we have (right to left) a wool soaker (from my friend at Brooker Hollow), Thirsties Duo Wrap (Size 2),Thirsties Duo Wrap, Hoot, (Size 2), Flip (OS), Econobum (OS), and a Flip (OS) cover. We have a second Econobum cover, which I assume he's wearing at the time of the picture.  The covers in the upper right are Bummies Whisper Wraps (S) that we have just out grown.  We also had a Thirsties Duo Wrap Snap (S) that was outgrown and put away.

At night we put him in double stuffed Bum Genius 4.0s  He's not a heavy wetter though and is fine with a doubled pre-fold for overnight, which we've done a few times when I'm behind on laundry.

The first diapers we used were a set of gDiapers (S) that I was given used, with disposable inserts then with Flip newborns. I found this a great intro with a new baby. I was gifted a set of Flip diapers and inserts.  We love the covers, the inserts not so much. Most people I know rave about these though.

Daycare: We are so lucky to have a daycare provider that is willing to use cloth diapers.  The daycare stash is different - all one piece diapers to make it easier. The stack on the right are gDiapers with cloth inserts.  I bought a set of 6 covers and 12 inserts and someone gave me another 5 covers. I don't love these, but they work, so we will continue to use them. If they aren't on exactly right they are prone to leak. However, at daycare he is checked and changed more often than at home so this hasn't been a problem.  And a single layer insert is super easy to spray off.

The stack on the left are various pocket diapers with snaps (top to bottom) 2 FancyPants, a Fuzzibunz One Size, FancyPants, Kawaii Green, Fancy Pants, Fuzzi Bunz Elite, and a Kawaii. I prefer these and find them much easier than the gDiapers but I think at daycare the velcro of the gDiaper is easier. I also recently realized they've been snapping them incorrectly, which is why we go through so many clothes... A second diaper tutorial has fixed this.

The accessories: And what would we be without our wet bags. We have a large Fuzzi Bunz bag hanging behind the bathroom door for at home use.  My sister got us the small guitar and giraffe bags at a boutique in Louisville. They are Wahmies wet bags and I love them.  The other small bag is bummies.  These are our out-and-about bags that live in the diaper bag and go back and forth to daycare.  The large guitar bag is a Wahmies - All Day bag full of clean daycare diapers and is what I use when we travel.  I bought it on Amazon through Thanks Mama.

For diaper cream we us Earth Mama Angel Baby Angel Baby Bottom Balm
(at home) and CJs Tub o'BUTTer (daycare)

The end: And that's it!  We have A LOT of diapers because I wash once a week.  If you have a washer and dryer you can really get by with 24-36. In all I think I spent around $650 on everything, plus some gifts and hand-me-downs. It sounds like a lot, but cheaper than 2+ years of disposables.If I had it to do over I would have bought only Indian pre-folds and Thirsties Duo covers. And 24 Fancy Pants diapers for daycare and overnight. But you live and learn.  Eventually I might sell some of what I have and replace, but we have a system that works for us.

*My blog is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com, which means if you buy anything by clicking through the amazon links, I will get a small percentage.
**All links in this post are where I bought the products, non-Amazon links are not affiliate - it's just the vendors I like and use.
***I can't foresee another post with this many links in the future :)

I'm gonna go there...and talk about poo.

When I got pregnant, I noticed a trend. Lots of moms were using cloth diapers. We've been on this slow path of living more frugally and greener, and cloth diapering intrigued me. But I didn't think we'd really do it.  But one day I asked Rob, fully thinking he would shut me down immediately and I could stop thinking about it, and he said "Sure." Really, ok, wow. And the research began for real.  Because we do not have a washer or dryer.  What we do have is a laundry room in the building with coin operated machines.  We also have 3 laundromats within a block of our building.

Wearing a pre-fold with a Bummies Whipser Wrap in front of the fire at my cousins house.

I didn't know what kind of diapers would work for us, but I wanted to give it a real go with pre-folds and covers, with some pocket diapers on hand for baby sitters.  And Flip diapers got great reviews as an easy system.  Through a great online moms forum in my neighborhood I got a full set of size small g-diapers with a couple of packs of disposable inserts.  I bought 6 BumGenius 4.0 diapers.  We got a set of Flip diapers (6 inserts, 2 covers). And I finished off with 18 Chinese pre-folds, 18 Indian pre-folds, 2 Econobum covers, 2 Bummies whisper wraps, and a Thirsties Duo cover. (All this around $250)

We started cloth diapering at 2 weeks old when we ran out of disposables from the hospital.  And now 6 months later I really can't imagine using anything else. I wash every 5 - 6 days.  The diapers we use have changed a bit, but our washing routine has stayed pretty much the same.

When I was researching I was getting really stressed out about washing, because all the sites are like oh, two washes and triple rinse.  Who has the money for that!?!  So I did a little more digging and what I found was generally this.  Cold wash, no detergent.  Hot wash with detergent.  Ok, I can pay for a double wash once a week.  Then I talked to a mom in my neighborhood and she said just do a Hot wash with detergent and be done with it.  Ok, even better.

Detergent, I got a few to try.  Charlie's Soap - this one seems to be hit or miss.  Some rave about it, others hate it. I don't love it, the diapers have to get really dry in the dryer or else they smell. I do use it on our clothes and have no problems. Rockin' Green is great, and it smells nice. And Trader Joe's brand. This one has optical brighteners, which is a no no for cloth diapers, but it works and I like it.  We've had no leaking or repelling issues.

And the poos.  Breastmilk or formula poo is completely water soluble, so I could just drop those in the wet bag and dump in the washer.  Now that we've started solids, but the poos are still not totally solid, they don't shake into the toilet yet, so we use the diaper sprayer.  Rinse off in the toilet and then wring and drop in the wet bag.

Our washing routine - one HOT wash with Trader Joe's powder every 5 days or so.  Dry inserts and pre-folds, Line dry covers and pocket shells.  Every 3-4 washes I use Rockin' Green.  If I'm doing a billion loads I'll use Charlie's so as to carry fewer things to the basement.  Every month or so, or if it's a particularly stinky load I will do the COLD wash, HOT wash routine.  Honestly, I don't notice that much of a difference. So I may stop double washing soon.

It's totally doable.  The one downside I've noticed is staining.  The diapers are clean and really I don't care all that much what they look like, but there is staining on most of our diapers.  If I cared (and it was warmer out) line drying on the balcony would let them bleach out in the sun.

So six months in I really can't imagine not using cloth.  It just seems natural now.  And about that poo.  There was one day a few days into solids, where I started to question if I could do this.  About that time, Rob had plugged the kitchen sink to let some dishes soak. Stick with me this is connected.  Rob is the primary dish washer, but I was going to wash and I saw the dirty dish water.  And I asked Rob to please come empty the sink.  He was all like "What?"  And my response. "Seriously, I would rather deal with all the poo than put my hand in that dirty dishwater."  And I figure if I'd take the poo over the dishes that surely I can stick it out until we get through this phase to true solid poo that shakes off.  So we are.  And a month later, the diaper sprayer and I get along fabulously.

Stay tuned and I'll share what works best for us how we use cloth at daycare.

Wow, you're really playing house today.

That's what Rob said when he saw that I actually SET THE TABLE, with the fancy dishes.  Our apartment has been a disaster area recently.  Simon was 11 weeks yesterday, so it's been approximately 12 weeks since we had a good deep clean.  I've slowly gotten back into a normal routine, one that includes menu planning.  Since we have so many CSA veggies and it's getting colder, I thought a roast would be nice.  So this morning before church, and after probably the crappiest night of sleep to date, I put the roast and potatoes, onions, and beans in the crock pot.  Even I can put together a meal that simple on almost no sleep.
After church Simon took a real nap and Rob and I cleaned.  Then Rob kept cleaning between naps, and Simon took a SECOND nap.  This is almost unheard of, but after reading a blog post on sleep, I thought that daytime swaddling may be in order, and it worked!  Once the house was clean I put on REAL CLOTHES (and clean ones!), as opposed to the yoga pants and tanks I usually wear when it's just us.  I asked Rob to put on a clean shirt.  He wanted to know if it had to be fancy.  Nope, but clean with no spit-up would be nice :)
Then I set the table, and "Wow, you're really playing house today."  What's really sad is tat I can't remember the last time I made a nice meal for just us.  I pull out the china a few times a year for just us, usually and I know that it's been a long time since that.  But I can't remember the last time we planned a meal beyond it being dinner time and throwing something together.
So here is our dinner.  Beef roast with potatoes, onions, and beans, crescent rolls, and a bottle of wine.

 Here we are in our clean clothes.

Simon napped (again!) during dinner.

And just to show how awesome I am I even made dessert.  Using the CSA pears.  Pear tarts, which are pears in brown sugar on biscuits with cream.  Rob did whip the cream.  And what I like about this dessert is even if you screw it up, it's just fruit and sugar, so still tastes good.

The best part - we have breakfast and lunch out of the leftovers.  Oh, and the clean living room, that's pretty awesome too.

now about that bathrooom

We are incredibly lucky to have a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom condo.  I use the second bathroom for keeping a lot of my stuff.  And I fix my hair in there, because when we are both working and getting ready at the same time, it is nice to have my own space.

in March.  see the bathtub 'o stuff in the mirror

But I've always showered in the master bath.  less to clean that way.  With the exception of when Josh was living with us, and a few times that we've had visitors, it is functioning as a half-bath.  Meaning most of the time we use the bathtub in there as a closet.

When I started to accumulate baby stuff, into the tub it went.  Because there certainly wasn't room for it in the disaster area we once called an office.

When we replaced the utility cabinet with the crib.  The baby stuff went to the crib or dresser and the books and things from the cabinet took up residence in the tub.  Along with the ill-fated bedding until it's return.

We've decided to give cloth diapering a shot.  We don't have a washing machine, but we do have machines in the building.  And I know a few people in the neighborhood who do it.  It will be a challenge at first, but if we can make it work will save us lots of money.  Even better, I've managed to get quite a few for free from Mom's who are cutting down their stash.  But back to that bathroom.

Because cloth diapering will require some rinsing of things in the toilet.  And because of our space constraints I thought it would be nice to keep all things nice in the bathroom.  I gave Rob a description of what I wanted.  And he modeled it for me.  Then my Dad helped me get the wood and we put it all together.

What is it?  Why, a changing table and shelves that fit into that not currently used second bathtub.  The books and things from the cabinet have found home on the re-organized shelving and closets elsewhere in the apartment.  The baby stuff is put away.

 

Behind the curtain is the seat for our stroller, until we are done with the bassinet attachment.  Also are the pack-and-play and baby bathtub that I got for free from other moms and we may or may not keep depending on usefulness.  It's also a great place to keep the "goodwill bag" that I take every few months to donate whatever gets tossed in there as I am constantly purging.

The top shelf is the changing pad, some diapers, wipes, and baby lotions creams, etc...  The second shelf has cloth diapers and behind the bins are all of our extra towels and baby bath supplies which I can get to from the side.  The bottom shelf holds the g-diapers, all disposable inserts, a pack of disposable diapers and extra toilet paper that I buy in the 20 pack.

All in all it is a great use of creating new storage.  And one day when the kid needs his own bathtub the shelving is easily removable and the baby stuff stored there will no longer be needed.

my baby's room: the after

Evolution of a Room

chapter 3

We've gone through a lot, this room and I.  And now it is ready for a baby.  Once I made the decision to go with the robots.  And the robot bank was mine.  I returned the deer bedding.  Once that was done I had much less anxiety.  I started cleaning out the crib and putting baby clothes in the dresser.  We started putting things on the shelves and tossing even more.  The under crib space is used for storing our new suitcases (officially carry-on size), the air mattress, extra paint, and some other odds and ends.  There is still a ways to go in purging and organizing, but the room is ready.

I have made peace with the fact that my home will never be "finished."  It will never be 100% clean and organized.  That's life.  I'm ok with that.  Most of the time.  Here is the reveal:

We hung the Robots Fighting painting under the existing shelves filled with some of our childhood favorites and toys we've collected.

And I found some orange sheets in crib size.  These are NOT easy to come by.  Most baby sheets are in pastels and blue and pink and maybe green and yellow.  I was really excited to find the orange.

 

The monkey mat is living here for now, but it's kind of like a pillow friend for an infant and will likely move around the apartment as a soft place to lay the baby. 

I found the mobile on Amazon for $9.99, which is the perfect price, since once he can pull up I'll probably have to take it down.  It plays Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

 

I'm still not sure about how and where to hang the art.  I like the Monko cells and how they match.  The one in the window needs to go somewhere, it is usually stacked with the other art we don't know what to do with or don't have room for.  The fisherman boards don't really go, but again, not sure where to move them.

But the dresser looks nice.  I have a couple of pictures of us, and frame that will have Simon's first day picture in it once he gets here.  The bank and the lamp are perfect!  Baby monitor is plugged in.  The bead necklace I bought from a friend at a craft fair recently.  I figure it will be something I can wear once he is teething and starts chewing on me...

These are the rain gutter shelves we put behind the door.  The lowest one is about 15 inches from the floor, so perfect for board books.  The next shelf holds the paper books for kids.  The upper shelves are for extra CDs, DVDs, video games, and odds and ends.  Someday when we purge some more Simon can use them for his things.

The play mat is a perfect size.  And the baby toys are in an orange tote that I've had forever.  It used to hold our extra towels.

And here is Rob's side of the room.  Because it is a Nursery / Office combo.  And I still have the closet.  Someday I will have to give that up as well...  The boxes to the right of the desk hold all of the crafting and crafting tools.  We hope to replace the giant box with a cabinet or something similar soon.

Overall I think it works well.  Here's to hoping the sharing works well.

And my final project for the room.  Or my next crafting project.  I bought all of this fabric, among other things,  with money I got from returning the deer bedding.  I want to make the quilt in the picture on the bottom left.  So that when Simon gets big, and we convert the crib to a toddler bed he will have the perfect quilt.  So I have a long time frame.  And if I actually finish before the toddler years, it will be a great blanket.

my baby's room: the during

*As I wrote this out, I realized that there are lots of extraneous details about the shopping trips and my strange emotional attachments to furniture, etc...  I apologize somewhat for the tangents, but hey, it's my blog.

 

Evolution of a Room

chapter 2

I left off with the mess and the big job ahead.  By March I had cleaned and purged.  A lot.  The room looked like a room again.

We planed a trip to Ikea.  And scored a great deal on a crib.  We had a big (not really) decision to make.  Which of the three cribs did we want.  It was pretty easy to decide on the closed end crib, as opposed to the one with slats all around.  It just felt sturdier.  Then we went back and forth on the wood color or white.  The dresser is not white.  We had to decide if we wanted the furniture to match.  Painting the dresser white had been vetoed.  Then we realized that the wood colors didn't match, and that the desk in the room (actually what was originally going to be our dinner table and also from Ikea) was black.  So there would be no matching.  And Rob thought the white would look nice with the white shelves already in the room.  He's the artist, so we went with it.

On the way out of the store we walked past the "As Is" section and saw two of our cribs sitting there.  As we were discussing if saving $50 was worth having to disassemble to get it home an employee heard us and asked if we would take it for $50.  This was now a billion % off or $90.  We went for it.  I think Rob got a little frustrated in the taking apart process.  And I think it was partly my fault, but I'm not a mind reader, and wasn't very good at anticipating what help he actually needed.  We got it though and the crib was assembled in the room.

What happened to the utility cabinet you ask?  Well while in the store we ran into some friends who had recently moved into a house and were shopping for shelving for basement storage.  We asked if they wanted a cabinet, and DONE!  The cabinet had a new home.  So we now had to deal with all of the stuff that had been in there.  For now we put some of it in the crib and a lot in the bathtub (more on that in another post) and some of it on the new shelves we put up.  And quite a bit was trashed.  We are getting good at purging.

old drawer liner, likely pre-me getting the dresser 18 years ago

And on the way home we picked up the dresser.  This dresser has been mine since I was about 10.  When I lived at "home" there was a matching chest with a mirror.  Not really sure what happened to that one.  But this dresser, it moved with me to college and then to Brooklyn.  Then when we got married I passed it on to some friends, because i couldn't bear to leave it on the street with some of the other furniture I left behind (my mom's childhood bed - which was "luckily" broken beyond repair so we were able to leave it with minimal anxiety).  I gave it to them with the caveat "if you ever need to get rid of it or we have a baby we want it back".  I had kind of forgotten, but was reminded that oh yeah, we don't have to buy a dresser.  It worked out well because they had some other friends who were moving out of state and offered up any furniture for free.  It was a dresser swap.

cute new scented liner I replaced it with

While at Ikea we made a round through the kid and baby section and I found this lamp.  It's perfect because it doesn't get hot, the light bulb is completely surrounded by plastic.  And the clouds glow making it work for a nightlight.  I'd been looking for something like this and here it was.

oh the mess in the crib...

We had also been looking for a suitable rug.  The one I really really wanted and had been looking at for a year was discontinued sometime between Thanksgiving (when I knew I'd be buying soon) and Christmas (when I went to buy it at 12 weeks).  I was sad, but moved on.  So while walking through the kids area we saw these play mats.  For $10.  When the options are $$$$ for something you don't really like or a playmat that is cute and will work for $10 you take the playmat.

 

My Dad came to visit in April and helped with lots of little home improvement tasks that we needed to get done. (On this visit Rob learned about the "honey-do" list, ask him to tell that story sometime.)  One of the things was to fix the drywall on the formerly leaky window and to repaint.

We also insulated the AC box in the wall below the window and hung additional shelving over and behind the door.

I just love how it always seems to be one step forward, two steps back with the stuff and the mess.

chapter 2.5

crazy pregnant brain 

Once the room was ready I really had to think about decor.  Unfortunately for me (and Rob who had to listen) pregnancy brain made me a little crazy when it came to making decisions about things that don't really matter.  Like baby bedding.  I found this bedding and thought it was cute.  My sister who is the absolute best bought it for me, not knowing I was having second thoughts.

It is super cute with deer walking through the grass.  However, it doesn't really match the rug or lamp.  And I was ok with that.  And white bedding with a white crib I wasn't sure about.  It also didn't match the artwork we already own and should use because we are out of wall space and are storing lots as is.  But Rob said it was fine, and he didn't care so much about matching and we were going to go with it.  BUT, because of the solid sides on the crib, the bumper didn't tie right. (I was going to use bumpers, I know there is lots of controversy about this, whatever.)  And the style of the platform for holding the mattress, it fits into a box rather than sitting on slats, didn't allow for the skirt, so I would have had to heavily modify.  And you can't use the quilt until they are toddlers.  So really I had a really expensive sheet.  Oh, the agony and anxiety I suffered over this.  It really made me crazy.  I think because I really do love this bedding.  It just wasn't working for us.

Then I went to New Orleans with my Mom.  And I was telling her about the crazy.  And she really didn't get it.  But I was wanting to work with what we had.  And Emily said it was fine if I returned the bedding.  

We have this pinball machine, turned table.  I've always thought it would make a great play table someday if we lower the legs.  Because someday Rob's desk will probably have to move out and there will be room for a play table.

And we have the Robots Fighting painting in the third photo of this post.  And the blue and orange look nice, and work with the room color.  And we have the Monko animation cells form the living room that Rob did and would match.  So I was thinking a robot room could be fun.  And in NOLA we found this.

And how could I now not do a robot room?