Monday, June 28, 2010

Dealing with Poop - Liners

So, I read a lot about how to deal with poop. And then I tried a few things.

First, I used washed disposable wipes to line the diapers. These actually work very well. And, since my daughter loves to have a wipe with each dirty diaper to just play with, I had some hanging around. I also had a few packages of wipes with only a few wipes left in them that were almost dry, so I just washed these (I use Kirkland wipes from Costco). I put dirty "liners" in the trash* and wet ones went with the diaper into the laundry. I learned to line dry the wipes instead of machine drying to make them last a while. Now I just use them when we aren't home, but I found a more reusable option for day-to-day diapering!

Fleece. I bought a small fleece baby blanket on clearance for $2. I was able to get 19 liners out of it - 13 the length of a prefold and 6 the width. I could probably have cut them shorter, but they work the way they are. Now the my son's poop is more solid, I can just dump the poop off of the fleece into the toilet. It just rolls right off, with barely a trace left. The fleece also works to keep their skin dry, so it serves double duty.

If you have ideas for liners - let me know! I am willing ot try other things out as well.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Second Purchase

My second purchase was Econobum diapers from Kelly's Closet. I chose to buy from there because she had a great coupon (one free diaper) and I had read her blog. I also ordered two swim diapers that I will talk about in a future post.

Econobum diapers are a prefold and cover system that is marketed as an economical choice. I got three covers and twelve prefolds for $50, which is cheaper than any other method I could find for expanding my stash. I tried the diapers on both kids, and I found they worked best for my daughter. Since the GroBaby already worked well on my son and these were a little baggy, it made sorting the diapers a lot easier.

I still have occasionally leaks with my daughter, but this prefold.cover package is better at absorbing all possible volumes before leaking. So, I can go a little longer before changes. I started using the middle rise setting on my duaghter with the prefold folded wider. It worked well, but then I think she grew a little bit. So, I folded the prefold the other way and now use the cover at the largest rise setting. I still have a lot of room in them, so I think this will be what we use until she is completely potty trained day and night.

As for the service from Kelly's Closet - it was good. I ordered on Friday, and they shipped on Monday evening. They had just completed some warehouse changes, so I think that is a good turnaround! I got them one week after I ordered them, which is what I would expect since I live in the southwest. I will most likely order any other diapers from Kelly's Closet in the future.

Now if only I could win one of the giveaways on her blog! Every Friday there is a great giveaway called Fluff Friday. You may notice the link on the right for it. She gives away a lot of great one sized diapers, and I so hope to win!

First Purchase

My first purchase of cloth diapers was a GroBaby hybrid package from BabySteals.com. The package came with three covers and 150 biosoakers (disposable inserts). As soon as I got my package, I also bought some prefolds to use as soakers until I could get a good deal on some snap-in soaker pads. For about three weeks, I used those three covers and a dozen prefolds to cloth diaper both my kids during the day. And it worked. I had some leaking from my 2.5 year old daughter, but I wasn't too surprised. She is a heavy wetter, and I didn't always remember to change her every 1.5 to 2 hours.

With my six month old son, I only had two leaks. One was after about 4.5 hours in a diaper because he took a long nap. The other was a blow out the escaped slightly from the leg opening. With a disposable, that blow out probably would have been a lot worse.

I found the fit of the GroBaby covers to be good with my son. I had to use the smallest rise on him because he is so skinny (less than 15 pounds), but when I did that the legs were perfect. On my daughter, the covers works well with thin inserts. With thicker inserts, there isn't quite enough rise for me to be perfectly happy with the cover. Luckily, the new version of the cover (Gro-Via) has a 1/2 in ch longer rise. These would probably solve our problem with her.

I am hoping to check out the biosoakers on a trip in the next month. I am saving them for that trip because they take up a lot less room than disposables!