Cloth Diapering Addendum

You can read more about my cloth diapering experiences in my previous posts
Cloth Diapering Part I: The "Whys"
Cloth Diapering Part II: The "Hows"

Sly is almost eight months old, and we're still very happy with the cloth diapers! Introducing solid foods to his diet has made for a new kind of "number two", but we've been figuring out how to tackle these new types of poos (um, don't read that literally, because that would be pretty gross!)

My take on the different styles of diaper now: We've basically stopped using the Flips entirely (mostly since Tom hates them), and have purchased even more pre-folds to build up our supply. I think I've decided that my favorite diaper in terms of ease and effectiveness might be the Bumgenius 4.0's (of which we only own two). However, at almost $20 per diaper, we just can't afford to stock up on those now. Pre-folds are slightly more involved, but work just as well for less than $4 per diaper!

A few new products we've been using...

1. [prepare yourself for some poop talk!]
Well, this one isn't new, but I had mentioned in my second diapering post that we owned a diaper sprayer. This is a little contraption that hooks up to the clean water supply for the toilet. The idea is that when there is a poopy diaper, you can spray off most of the mess right into the toilet, and then flush it away.



At the time of my last post, I admitted that we had not found this to be very useful for us, as the poos we were dealing with were too liquidy, and just sort of soaked into the diapers. Well, as mentioned above, we're now dealing with a much more adult-style poo, and it is firm enough that we can blast almost all of it right off into the toilet! This is definitely good news for my washing machine, which I'm sure would cringe at the thought of the messes Sly happily makes for it. $40 well spent.


2. For a while, we were just using a small grocery bag hung on the changing table as a spot to throw all the dirty diapers.

Old system

This was okay, but after there were a couple in there, the room did take on a distinctive urine-odor. So we got a waterproof reusable diaper-pail liner (it has an elastic-y top), and bought a small garbage can with a lid.

New system

The can isn't entirely smell-proof, but it's definitely better than before. And it has a larger capacity too, which is nice. I would like to eventually get a second liner, so that when this one is in the wash (I toss it in every time I do a load of diapers), we could have another one in place. Also, a slightly larger can would allow me to go one more day between washes, which would be convenient. The cost of the liner was somewhere around $15.

3. We've picked up a few more diaper covers, all from the same brand - Thirsties. Wegot to try this brand briefly, when our friends kindly lent us some of their Thirsties covers after their son had grown out of them. But Sly himself only fit them for a couple weeks! (I think those were a different style of cover than the ones we eventually purchased)

We got the Thirsties Duo Wrap Covers, which come in two sizes. Usually I avoid sized cloth diapers (since I don't want to have to buy as many). But these covers are AWESOME, and we didn't buy ours until Sly was just fitting into size 2, anyways. This size should fit him until he's done with diapers entirely (they are labeled as 18-40 pounds).



Why do I like the covers so much? They are sturdy, come in attractive bright colors, and have a double leg gusset, which not only keeps messes inside better, but also seems to make them easier to "fit." As always, I recommend the ones with snaps, and not Velcro. Each cover cost about $12, and can be used multiple times before washing.