Cloth Diapers Part II (Answering Cathryn's Questions)

Cleaning Diapers before you Wash Them
This is the gross part of cloth diapering that probably deters people the most.  As for types of diapers, there are also options here.  We do things the very gross way, which means I clean my diapers out in the toilet with my hand and then deposit them into the diaper pail.  (I would encourage rinsing out just peed diapers too, it will pretty much eliminate smells from the diaper pail, at least, it did for us.)

They also make sprayers for cleaning your diapers.

I keep wishing I could try one of those and know how well they work.  They run about $50.00, which isn't much if they are going to work well, but is a lot if it's going to be a flop.  That's why I don't use one.  

I've also seen a few other things, but I'm not sold on them making it so you hardly have to use your hands.  I could see this one working, if you get enough pressure.

The truth about this part:  You get used to it.  It's not so gross when it's your own kid anyway, but you may find you know more about their bowel movements than you ever ever cared about.A n

A note on covers

We have fewer covers than diapers.  This is how that works.  If we change her diaper and the cover is soiled, it is dirty and goes into the pail.  If we change her diaper and the cover is not soiled, we clean it with one of our wipes and leave it to dry and exchange diaper covers at the next diaper change.  The only exception to this is on washing day when I try to wash as many diapers that have been used at all as possible.

How I wash my diapers
First of all, I have washed our underwear with her diapers.  Everything gets clean.  You can think of it as washing his blow-out clothes with other clothes.  Washers are amazing!   We wash diapers twice a week.

Note:  Of course every washer is a little different, so I'll try to keep it general.  My washer is a HE front loader.  I don't know what my dryer is, someone gave it to us.  It's old and squeaky.  :)

• Cold Rinse Cycle, no soap or anything, just rinse in cold (I put everything dirty in the washer: diapers, wipes, covers, wet bags)
• Hot wash Cycle with soap and ecover fabric softener (not necessary to use fabric softener)
• Then I dry the diapers and wipes on the highest, hottest setting our dryer has and run it twice.
• I hang my diaper covers and wet bags.  Although I have dried my diaper covers with my diapers before, but I decided to try and make them last longer by following half the tag (They say to wash in cold and hang to dry.  I'm of the opinion that I can't be bothered to do too many extra things.)

A few times a year (every other month to every 3rd month, I use bleach as follows)

• Cold rinse cycle
• hot wash cycle with soap
• hang diaper covers, wet bag, and move anything that can't be bleached to dryer (fancy diapers)
• hot wash cycle with bleach
• hot wash cycle with soap (may not be necessary, but I'm paranoid about there being any bleach left on the diapers)
• 2 times through the dryer like normal

The diapers always look so bright after a bleach cleaning.  Makes me happy.

As far as utilities, we pay about $100/month for our gas + electric.  I've asked around and other people in my ward in a 2 bedroom apartment pay about the same, so I figure it has very little to no impact.

Absorbency

I wouldn't be surprised if the gel in Luke's diaper wicked the moisture away.  I think it's designed to do that to keep the baby's bottom as dry as possible.

That being said, absorbency can be a hard one and you sometimes have to experiment to figure out what works for your baby.  All babies are different.  Some wet so so much.  Some don't.  Some poop every diaper.  Some basically never do.  That being said, we have on occasion had absorbency issues, but we also have had absorbency issues with disposable.  I don't know what the deal is with this girl.  The good news though is that we fixed it.

About two months ago, it seemed like Vidalia was wetting through everything for about a week.  At first I thought, man these covers must be terrible, which really made no sense because I had been using the same covers for 8 months with no unusual problems.  I tried trying the size larger, which were way too huge, so that was not the issue.  I think she was just peeing more.  We took a flat diaper folded it up and put it inside the prefold as we put it on.  It was amazing the difference really. 

How often do I change diapers

4-6 times a day.  Usually 4.  Without any problems.  This will change depending on how absorbent you make the diapers and age and such.

The Nylon Pants I Use

First of all, these are not the best diaper covers available.  I pay $4/2 pairs.  They're about the best you can get for that price.  I think the next step up is going to run you at least $10/pair.  That's why I use these nylon ones.  And I haven't had leaking problems through the nylon.  Leaks usually occur at a leg hole or the waist line, but I don't usually have leaks.  (I did more when she was younger though.  Cloth diapering seems to be an adaptive process, changing with age and sizes.)

My dislikes of my diaper covers 

• You can't adjust how the waist fits
• You can't adjust how the legs fit (I'm actually not sure if this is a pro or con.)

Possible solutions

• buy better covers
• wool - I've recently become very curious about wool, but all the covers I found online run $30/cover, it seems.  So I will probably never try wool covers, but if anyone ever does, let me know what you think.
• Make your own better covers.  I don't think it would be too hard.
• Don't use prefolds with diaper covers.  Try a different kind of cloth diaper altogether.
• Etc. Because there are more, but this is all I thought of just now.

Night Diapers

We do not currently do anything different for night diapers.  She lasts 12+ hours at night with no leaks easy.  

Before we were putting flat diaper linings in all her diapers, we were putting them in for night only.

What sold Ryan

 Well, lets just say any of the following phrases sell Ryan on things.

• Less expensive
• Eco friendly and about the same price
• Eco friendly and less expensive (this super sells Ryan)
• Save money
• spend less money
• etc.

Good luck trying to sell Scott on the idea.  It wasn't hard for us here.

One-Time Costs

• We have 3 sizes of diapers.  24 of each size (you can get away with fewer).  For the life of a baby, you may want to add 2 more sizes, one bigger than what I have and 1 smaller. Buying 12 diapers at a time cost me just under $30. (You can get the small size of prefolds from Mandalay, where I got my flat diapers, for cheaper.  They're not quite as nice, but about the same as far as absorbency is concerned.  They only have the one size though.)  Total = $300
• lots of flat diapers, lets just say 24 @ $0.75/diaper = $18 (I actually didn't buy any of these though, they were a gift.)  Total = $18
• We have 8 of 5 different sizes of covers (NB, small, medium, large, toddler) and we're currently using medium.  40 covers @ $4/2.  Total = $80
• Wipes = cut up old things Total = $0
• Snappis 1 pack of 3 Total = $7.40 (I'm guessing here, but that price came up online.  I think you may need more if you use these for several kids.  They're bound to fail eventually.  We've been using ours for about 1 year so far and they are still fine.)
• Diaper Pail, depends on your choice Total = $10
• 1 bought babysitter diaper + 1 made Total = $25 (over estimating on the one I made)
• Micro fleece (it wicks moisture from the bottom.  I use it sometimes with rashes.  I can't believe I forgot to mention it before now)  Bought it at the fabric store and cut it into insert-size strips and then did not sew it.  It doesn't shred the edges like other materials.  I used maybe a quarter yard. Total = $5 (max)
• A washer ours cost $450
• A dryer, ours was free

Total One-Time Costs = $445.40

Total with washer = $895.40

Recurring costs

I will overestimate what I think I use and what I think the costs are.

• Baby soap, 2-3/year $2/bottle? Total = $6 (I use this same soap to wash her, so that's not just to diapers)
• Baby oil, 1-2/year $2/bottle? Total = $4
• Extra Laundry soap, I have no clue, maybe I use one container for diapers? (I don't even think that much)  Total = $10
• Lanolin (I use it instead of desitin because desitin will ruin cloth diapers) 1-2/year $10/tube Total = $20 (there are cheaper off brands, but I haven't tried them yet.  And by cheaper I mean you could get the same amount for $5 or less, I think)
• Baby Powder (1 that we got from our baby shower and are still using) less than 1/year $2/bottle? Total = $2 (don't worry, I know what they say about baby powder.  We don't use it often.)
• Utility cost, no clue, no different than other people's so I'll say Total = $0 (or in other words, negligible)
• Ecover fabric softener I use 32 oz./2-3 months A case of 6 bottles on Amazon/$20.  (Free shipping with subscribe and save) About 1 case/year Total = $20 (You can cut this cost, I choose not to.  How much you use will also depend on your washer though.)

Total Recurring Costs = $62 (I think you can easily make this less.  I haven't gotten to working on that much yet.)

Sorry about the forever long post.  I think I hit on all of the questions you asked.  Feel free to ask more if you have them.