I've been thinking about writing a follow-up post on what it's been like adjusting to cloth diapering two kids, and then I saw
MamaPSU's cloth diapering blog hop and figured this was as good a motivation as any to sit down and type something out.
As a quick recap (
full story here), I only started using cloth last June. D was 2.5yrs old, and I expected him to potty train any day (HA!), but I'd finally managed to convince Zach to give cloth a chance, and being newly pregnant I wanted to figure things out and find a rhythm before our lives got all turned upside-down by a new baby in the house. We were already using
gDiapers with the compostable inserts, so we switched to cloth inserts-- first gCloth, and when they proved to not be quite absorbent enough, decided to go for
g-flappers (I still use my gCloth stash, but doubled up or with a half-insert added).
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| Quinn in his g's |
D has been in cloth during the day since last summer (we use a disposable diaper at night). In the first weeks after Q's birth, my mom kept up the cloth diapering with D and I put Q in disposables (partially for ease and partially bc of
The Rash That Would Not Go Away But
Ironically Did As Soon As I Finally Switched Him to Cloth). When, at 3 weeks, my mom left, I felt completely and totally overwhelmed and decided to cut out everything that was not essential in order to simplify daily life as much as possible. This included putting both kids in disposable diapers.
Interestingly, though, this didn't really simplify my life
that much. Q was going through a ridiculous number of diapers (a 40-diaper pack lasted, um, 3 days?), but was also growing so fast that I didn't want to buy them in bulk and end up with lots of outgrown extras. So I felt a constant stress at trying to remember how many diapers we had left, what size they were, and when we needed to buy/order more. And then there was the trash. OH DEAR LORD. The ridiculously large amount of dirty diapers that filled our trash cans was, frankly, a bit disgusting.
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| Donovan at about 7 months old, right after we first started using gDiapers. As a side note, this pic looks SO MUCH like Quinn to me it's almost a bit frightening. |
So after 2 weeks I switched them both into cloth (using disposables at night, though, for needed extra absorbency). The washing is a slight pain in the ass-- I have just about enough diapers to last almost 2 days, but to keep the wash loads manageable for our (front-loading) washer I tend to wash about every 1-1.5 days. Q is a heavy wetter, so I tend to have to change his diaper every 1-2hrs during the day. D occasionally has stink/ammonia issues with his diapers, but that's usually resolved with some oxi-clean or vinegar added to the wash. It's not effortless, but neither were disposables. I am looking forward to D potty training (
at some point please??) and going down to just 1 kid in diapers, but again I think I'd be feeling that regardless.
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| Quinn rocks the FuzziBunz |
Today gDiapers are still the majority of our cloth diaper stash, for both kids. I have 7
FuzziBunz diapers (which I use primarily with Q), 10 g-flappers, I think 18 gCloth, several half-inserts, and I think 8 gpants each in the Medium (Q) and Large (D) sizes (I could easily get away with fewer pants, though-- in fact have been for 2 weeks since I sent half my gpants off to have the velcro replaced with snaps and have yet to get them back *grumble grumble*). I'm still quite happy with our g's, the one down-side of them is the velcro gets old after a while (the pants that Q's using now were used by D for a year or more) so I'm looking forward to getting back the pants with snaps and seeing how it goes with those.
I didn't know you could get cloth inserts specifically for g-diapers. That really makes them versatile for those on the fence about cloth or those who prefer sposies when out & cloth when home.
ReplyDeleteWe do 75% ec, so I'm amazed at the amount of dipe laundry/trash that non-ec families deal with. I'm not criticizing at all because all the different options for dipes, potty learning, etc is so family specific. Dipes/pottying are definitely supposed to make life easier, not more difficult, right?
When our babies aren't nekkey bootie, we use cloth, too. Our 3 boys are each 2 years apart, but I have yet to diaper two (praise any/all deities reading this)
I have some disposables in the diaper bag (leave them in there in case I run out of cloth), but I prefer to use cloth when we're out. Since we don't have stink issues yet (yay for breastfed poop!) it seems so much easier to just put the diaper into the wet bag and go; I can change his diaper anywhere and I have everything I need, don't need to find a trash can.
ReplyDeleteLike yesterday, when we were out in downtown Ft. Worth, and ate at Qdoba. Which did not have a changing table in the bathroom. I changed baby's diaper at our table, on the booth seat, and I doubt anyone noticed what we were doing. (You can thank Greg for the discreetness... I was ready to change the diaper right on the table, to let management know how I felt about the lack of changing table, but Greg did not approve...)
Zoie- I remember reading about EC when Donovan was a baby and thinking it sounded awesome but there was no way I'd have the patience to do it! Now that he's 3yrs and STILL not seeming very aware of potty signals, I'm wondering if it'd be worth trying to do some EC with Quinn... at least part-time. I may have to look into this...
ReplyDeleteCriss- I always thought I'd use disposables (at least the inserts) while out of the house, but yeah it actually seems just as easy to stick with the cloth. Though with Quinn I'll often put a disposable on him, since he pees so much and they give me a bit more time before needing a diaper change. There's also been the times when we go somewhere and he goes through about 3+ diapers in one outing... (not enough room in the diaper bag for that many cloth dipes!) though that was more in the first weeks. ; )
Nice article, thanks for the information.
ReplyDelete