When I last left off in my rambles with cloth diapering, everything was rainbows, glitter, puppies, and unicorns. Everything worked, dammit.
Enter solid food.
In fact, here's one of the last things I said:
"There's a lot more (WAY more) out there in the cloth-diapering world...pocket diapers, flat diapers, doublers/inserts, diaper liners, creams, diaper pails, not to mention that everything will probably change when they start eating solids...but, like I said, this is what works for us now, and it works well."
Yup.
So...
We have now entered the world of:
- Disposables at night. This actually happened within a couple weeks of writing that first post (because of course). They just...pee a lot. Especially since we don't change them at night anymore...12-13 hours is a long time in one diaper. I tried some inserts, and even ordered these after reading the rave reviews that they worked oh so well as an overnight diaper, even for people with their so-called "heavy wetters". The first night they wore them, with the included insert, and the included doubler, Caden peed through his. By 2 am. Since I didn't want to spend every night trying something new and change a wet, unhappy baby, (not to mention that part of doing cloth diapers in the first place is to save money and I can't keep dropping $50 on diapers hoping something will work), enter: disposables. One Pampers overnight diaper lasts us the night. Boom. Done. No problem. (And considering that on an average day we go through a whopping two disposable diapers, a case of diapers still lasts us...a very long time.)
- Doublers/inserts. I mentioned above that I tried an insert at night, and that the "overnight" diapers I tried came with both a doubler and an insert. (Which means that purchasing these diapers isn't a total loss since I still use these during the day, and sometimes the diapers themselves.) Caden especially wets so much (apparently boys pee more than girls...even the lady at the diaper store said so!) that he gets an insert with each diaper change. They each get an insert or doubler when they go down for a nap for extra protection. Right now I have a couple hemp and a few bamboo ones, and I prefer the bamboo, though they both work fine.
- Solid food. Yup, we're gonna talk about poop. It's...not pleasant. While they had "explosions" much more frequently when they were exclusively breast-fed (we were dealing with at least one per day at one point), they weren't that bad, and easy to rinse out. Now when we have leakage it is...much more disgusting. However, we only have a really bad explosion maybe once every 2-3 weeks. While I know many people use diaper sprayers to spray the solids off into their toilet, we use flushable diaper liners and really like them. 99% of the time they contain things very well, and it's really not so bad to pick the liner out of the diaper and flush it down the toilet. Physically spraying the poo off their diapers sounds much more disgusting to me, not to mention that I would have two very curious babies trying to get in the bathroom with me to see what I was doing. (Though I will confess that there was one particularly nasty explosion a couple of weeks ago that was definitely NOT contained to the diaper liner...it was the one time I wished for a sprayer and I actually threw the entire mess of a cloth diaper away rather than deal with the carnage. *Hangs head in shame*)
- Squirmy babies. Like most babies at this age, they HATE having their diaper changed. What?!? You want me to hold still for 1.35 WHOLE MINUTES! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!1!! Cloth diapers just aren't as quick to change as a disposable, so we have to employ some distraction tools with them on the changing table. Some things that have worked for us: singing, books, or giving them something to hold that they only get while on the changing table, such as their comb, brush, or even the little container of pacifiers.
(The EYEBROWS!)
What's (mostly) stayed the same:
- Prefolds and wool covers. We still love the prefolds and wool covers, in particular, the Sustainablebabyish Underwoolies. We've been using the medium size prefolds for about six months, and should be able to continue using them for a long time. That's $58 for the past six months of diapers (excluding our overnight disposables, of course). I just recently purhcased two of the size two Underwoolies as well (which, holy crap, look HUUUUGGEEE). The size two fits them so much better now, and we don't even have to wash them as much as before, since they very rarely get pooped on.
- Washing. We now run a load of diapers about every other day. I really don't like to go longer than that since it seems like a long time for some (pretty nasty) diapers to sit. We're washing slightly less than before since they go through less diapers during the day in general, and the inserts/doublers help a single diaper last for a longer amount of time.
- Cloth wipes. Still love 'em. Still just wet them with water. Still hippies. We actually go through way less of them since they're only necessary for a dirty (not wet) diaper, and each baby only has those once or twice a day.
- Disposables when we go out or travel. Enough said.
Tyson and I are both glad that we've stuck with the cloth diapers. It's definitely saved us money in the short (and long) run, and it's amazing to think how many diapers we would have otherwise sent to a landfill. We also feel like it's better for the babies. That said, we're not fanatics about it. We clearly don't mind using disposables when it's more practical to do so. Some days we use nothing but disposables around here, like when they or we are sick, just because it's a little faster and easier and one less thing to deal with.
While I foresee us sticking with cloth diapers for the near future, that could change. One thing that is annoying is needing to have two sets of clothing (at least pants) on hand: one for staying home and one for going out. That cloth diaper bubble butt just can't fit in the the same size pants that they can while wearing only a disposable. They are usually a size up in pants while in cloth, though right now we are in that sweet spot of being able to wear one size most of the time (9-month, though some of their 6-month pants still fit pretty well over a disposable).
Or, y'know. You can just go pants-less...
Or, y'know. You can just go pants-less...
(Probably found a stray Cheerio.)
(Love that bubble butt!)