This morning I got an email from Kissaluvs * about a special spring deal they've got going on right now! When you order a Bundle of Joy Starter Pack directly from the manufacturer website, you get a free Bummis Super Whisper Wrap cover! You don't get to choose the color of your cover, but you can order your starter pack in neutral, boy, or girl colors - woo-hoo! (And I feel pretty confident that if you order the boy colors, they're not going to send you a pink cover, you know?)
BUT WAIT - THERE'S MORE!!
From March 20-25, enter the code "SPRING" in the comments section of your order to get free shipping! Happy shopping, all you cloth nappy parents!
** Okay, if I've never said this before, go to every single diaper manufacturer website and diaper e-store and sign up for their newsletter emails. You'll get email alerts about sales, clearances, etc. I'll post the alerts I get, but I've only signed up for emails from brands I prefer for my kids and e-stores where I shop regularly, so I can't cover everywhere! For Kissaluvs, they actually have an e-outlet sale every once in a while when you can purchase brand new factory seconds for a huge discount. Set up a separate email account if you don't want all the dipey emails clogging up your regular mailbox, but it's totally worth it!
Friday, March 20, 2009
What a deal!
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Endorsement...
...for detergent!
I HEART CHARLIE'S SOAP!
Seriously, this is by far my favorite detergent to use on cloth diapers. I paid $18.99 for the 128-load bottle of liquid laundry soap at EarthFare. So, if I use 1 oz of detergent per wash load every other day (15 loads per month), this $19 bottle will last me about 8 and 1/2 months! $2.24 a month! Or, $0.15 per load! Holy cow!
(While I'm at it, let me throw in here that when we started using cloth full time, our utilities bills went up a combined total of about $10 per month, or $0.67 per load. So with the utilities and detergent that's a grand total of $0.82 per load, or $12.30 per month to fully cloth diaper two 100% diapered children. So, after initial investments to purchase the diapers, we spend less than $13 a month to keep them in cloth. So when it comes to money, yes, you do spend a little more on maintenance for cloth, but I don't know anyone with even 1 child in disposable diapers who's spending less than $13 a month on them!)
The diapers smell fresher, look brighter, and require less rinsing because Charlie's Soap is extremely low-sudsing. Woo-hoo! Charlie's Soap makes a wide variety of cleaning products, so maybe I'll check those out too. They also make a powder laundry detergent, but I prefer liquid in general anyway. Also, as I've said before, some CDing mamas have speculated that powder crystals that may not fully dissolve in the wash water can become lodged in microfiber inserts, causing skin irritation and yucky smells, so I tend to think that liquid is a better choice for diaper laundering.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Do I really have to...?
...use special laundry detergent?
Well, yes. Here's the reason: most commercial laundry detergents that we commonly use on our clothing are loaded with all sorts of brighteners and enzymes. These chemicals leave residue on your clothing, which is what makes them look super clean and smell nice after laundering. The problem with using this type of detergent on diapers is that it, well, leaves residue. Initially, the diapers will smell lovely, like Gain or Tide. But as the residue builds up, your diapers may become less absorbent. Even worse, the enzymes that make clothing smell nice make urine-wetted diapers smell abominable. Almost to the point of being intolerable. Seriously. When M's diapers started getting build-up, even the wets smelled like poopy diapers. So. Very. Disgusting.
My favorite detergent for cloth diapers is Allen's Naturally. I tend to think it's better to use liquid than powder, especially if you have microfiber inserts; powder detergent may not fully dissolve and the granules can become lodged in between fibers, irritating your baby's skin. I am currently not using Allen's, because no one sells it locally, and the shipping on it is very expensive since the bottles are heavy. I'm using Planet instead, because I can buy it at EarthFare or Kroger here in town. When I run out, I plan on trying out Charlie's Soap. Here is a great detergent chart.
...avoid using diaper rash creams on my cloth diapers?
Yes and no. This seems to be a point of major contention among cloth diapering mothers. Some people tend to think the major issue is that some creams may stain cloth diapers, which is true, but I kind of figure, "Isn't my child pooping in these things? Who's so fired up about stains?"
So the real issue is that most diaper rash creams are designed to coat your child's skin, preventing it from being in constant contact with moisture. That is, they are designed to repel moisture. Doesn't it stand to reason, then, that the creams will also coat the cloth diaper and cause it to repel? This is not something you want happening with the one thing whose sole job it is to prevent pee from getting everywhere.
Some moms say it's okay to use rash creams that don't contain petroleum or petrolatum (i.e., Vaseline, Aquaphor). Burt's Bees Baby Bee rash cream, for example, does not contain either of those two ingredients. But I figure, I'd rather be safe than sorry, so any time one of my children absolutely needs rash cream, I use a disposable liner in between their skin and the cloth diaper. For the record, my favorite rash remedies are Triple Paste or Resinol with a little cornstarch powder or Caldesene powder sprinkled on top. (** Use Caldesene very sparingly on all babies, and especially girls, as it is talc based; prolonged exposure to talc in females has been associated with cervical, ovarian, and uterine cancers.)
However, I try really hard to avoid using medicinal rash treatments at all. The very best things for a rash are plain water, dry air, and sunshine. When R started to show a pretty bad case coming on a short time ago, I bathed her bottom in clean water and let her air dry. I then put a plain prefold on her without a cover and put a "wet pad" under her. As soon as she went, I changed her; we kept this up as long as she was awake. When it's warm enough (and you have a private enough place to do it in), letting your baby's rash be exposed to sunlight is one of the most healing things you can do for it. Also, if you're breastfeeding, breastmilk is good for anything that ails baby; hand express a bit, rub into rash area and let air dry.
...strip my diapers?
Absolutely not. Because it requires a great deal of water and a pretty serious chunk of time, I never strip my diapers unless they really truly need it. Diapers only need stripping when they have super excessive build up, or odors that just won't seem to go away after less extreme attempts to get them clean and fresh. When diapers are thoroughly clean, coming out of the dryer they should smell like nothing at all.
As I've said before, I occasionally use 1/8 cup of bleach in the wash cycle along with the detergent to help get my diapers smelling cleaner and fresher. This is such a personal thing to so many moms, as many have quite strong feelings about chlorine. You could also try using Bac-Out directly on the diapers before pailing.
I just bought some SportWash today in the camping/hunting section of WalMart. It's been highly recommended by other cloth diapering mamas due to its ability to get rid of stinkies. The bottle also claims to rejuvenate waterproofing, which is an added bonus. The bottle was about $5 and gets you 18 loads. Some people may use it every single time, but I'm going to stick with my normal wash routine and just use it once or twice a month to get the diapers super clean. I couldn't believe how fresh it got my diapers after just one wash today!
...go whole-hog with cloth diapers?
Heck no. Some people say cloth or bust.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
How many diapers do I need, and how much is this going to cost?
This is just not a simple question. First of all, how many children do you have in diapers? How old are they? - newborns go through many more diapers in a day than a 2 year old does. It also may be determined by what style you choose to go with: if you have an 18-month old light wetter who goes through 6 sposies during the day and just one at night, and you wanted to order BumGenius or Happy Heinys pocket diapers, you could order as few as 8 or 9 and do laundry every day. If you have a heavy wetter, you'll definitely need to plan to change your child's cloth diapers more frequently than you would change a sposie, even with a high-quality pocket. Then, of course, if you want to do EC (elimination communication), then you'll probably want to go with prefolds and plan to have enough to change your child's diaper every single time s/he wets.
Well, for me, the decision of how many diapers to purchase came down to how often I wanted to be doing laundry. You can buy a ton and do laundry less often, but keep in mind that if you have more than 16 to 18 diapers in your washing machine, they won't get as clean. I do laundry every other day, and it's quite a load by then! Here's some sample stashes, to give you an idea. You certainly don't need as many as I have, and of course there are people who have more. I know of one woman who washes diapers once a week, but on her diaper laundry day, she does three separate loads in that one single day. That's just what works for her, but I imagine that with 2 kids in diapers, she must have to have quite a large number to make that schedule work!
I switched my son to cloth at 18 months. I started out with 5 daytime pockets and 1 nighttime pocket. With my heavy wetter, it wasn't even enough to get through one whole day! I had to use sposies to bridge the laundry gap. Once I decided I wanted to stick with it, I ordered 8 more days and 1 more night and was able to go down to laundry every other day as long as I was carefully watching my stash to make sure I wouldn't run out. Then my sweet mother-in-law bought us 5 more, so going every other day was no sweat. So for an easy every other day routine with a heavy wetter, I had a total of 18 daytime diapers and 2 nighttimes. Like I said, though, he's a heavy heavy wetter, and it's not uncommon for him to poop 4 or times a day, so we change him pretty frequently. (Now he's grown out of 4 of those, so we have just 14, but still not a problem to launder every other day.)
For my daughter, I planned to cloth diaper her from the beginning. I knew I would wait until her umbilical stump fell off, because you're not supposed to cover it with a diaper or let urine touch it, because it could become infected. Also, things rubbing across it can irritate it. Anyway, my stash for her that fit her when she was a newborn was INSANE: 13 kissaluvs fitteds size 0, 10 each newborn, standard infant, and infant prefolds (total of 30), and 6 MonkeyBuns fitteds; also 8 or so covers/wraps. Needless to say, I never even came close to running out by laundry day! Now that she's older, I'm still using the infant and standard infant prefolds, and I have a combination of 3 different brands of fitteds, also a few pockets and AIO hybrids that I use for naps and nighttime (total of 20 prefolds, 8 fitteds, 2 pockets, 2 AIO hybrids).
A good rule of thumb if you're going to go the PF/flat/contour/fitted route is that you'll need 2 to 3 covers for every 10 to 12 diapers. Covers don't need to be washed after each use unless they get poo on them, just wipe them out with a wipe and let them air dry. I usually rotate between 2 covers all day, then toss them in the pail at night.
Using prefolds and covers is by far the cheapest way to cloth diaper. I don't have a great money breakdown, but I can link one here and tell you that you WILL save money over using sposies! The average yearly cost for disposable diapers and wipes is $1000 per child! Take into consideration that the average child in sposies does not potty train until somewhere between 36 and 48 months, and you could be looking at close to $4000 PER CHILD!! Conversely, you could order a prefold package for just $250 and cloth diaper your child from womb to potty. Even if you decided to go exclusively with a name-brand pocket, like BumGenius One-size (7 to 35 lbs), and wanted 18 total to wash every other day (or even less frequently), you could order them in a bundle deal and spend just $300! Buy a 3-pack of receiving blankets from WalMart, cut them into wipe-sized squares and make your own wipes solution at home to save even more money. However, it's a front-loaded investment, so it may not initially feel like you're saving a lot. And CDing is like just about anything else - if you want to spend a lot of money, you sure can find things to spend it on.
Another way that PFs save you even more money is because especially if you get DSQ PFs, they literally last forever. The trouble with pockets and AIOs is that eventually, the PUL will break down and not be waterproof anymore. If you have a younger child in diapers, or you're planning to have more, replacing every pocket and/or AIO will be quite expensive. The average pocket is around $18, and the average AIO is around $22. But if you're only replacing 4 or 5 covers (at anywhere from $7 to $18) in each size, that's obviously a lot less money. Fitteds will last a long time too, but probably eventually the elastic would wear out, the snaps might break or not hold as tight, or if you have fitteds with velcro closures the velcro wears out.
So, to wrap it up, how many do you need and how much is it going to cost? Sorry, but there's no short answer there. How many you buy will be determined by the style of diapering you choose, how many children you have in diapers and how heavy a wetter each of your kids is. How much will it cost? Depends on what style, brand and how many you decide to buy. The best thing I can advise you to do is to determine first how much money you can spend, then start looking around and writing down prices of different diapers. I had a huge grid worked out that showed how many prefolds and covers, how many fitteds and covers, and how many pockets I could buy for a predetermined amount of money. (Sorry, I don't have it anymore, or I would happily share it here.) Then I figured out how often I would need to launder with each mock stash, and decided from there. I will say that I thought I would prefer one-size pockets, so that was my first purchase. However, after diapering for a while, I felt more confident and wished I had gotten either prefolds or fitteds instead.
