Friday, February 4, 2011

Cloth Diapering Update: (Almost) 3 Months In

Nia chillin' in her cloth diaper
As of February 18th we will have cloth diapered for 3 months! I feel like we've been doing it forever. Uka and I are both very comfortable changing Nia, and I wash her diapers every other day. We'll be introducing solids next Saturday when Nia turns 6 months. Time really does fly . . .

Here's a few notes on our cloth diaper experience thus far:
  • Poop takes a while - I've read before that some babies who aren't started on cloth may take a while to warm up to it and indeed it took Nia a week to make a #2 in her cloth diaper. Now she goes about every other day.
  • Yes, cloth diapers leak - Nia leaked occasionally at the beginning of using cloth diapers but as of about 3 weeks ago she suddenly makes waaay more pee at night. Even when we double her diaper with the newborn liner and regular liner sometimes pee gets through, but rarely. I'm finding that if I change her in the middle of the night that it helps with leaking, but I don't want to get up in the middle of the night anymore just to change her. I've read that poor absorbency could be because of detergent, but we use free and clear and recently I started using samples of Holstee's All Natural Laundry Tarts, which is a cloth diaper approved detergent.
Angry leaky Nia
  • Blowouts are still rare - We had many more blowouts with disposables and ocassionally we get a speck of poo on her clothes. I'm a bit nervous about what will happen when we introduce solids next week, but I'm confident in these liners we have from Nia's registry (they have rave reviews!)
  • Some caregivers are scared of cloth - We've started leaving Nia at our church's nursery and have had a few friends watch her and a few times I've returned to find her soaked. I leave a note and explain to the nursery that she's CD-ed, but I honestly think it's a bit intimidating for some people. I told Uka they probably think of her as, "Oh no! Here comes the cloth diaper baby!" He suggested we just tell them if they don't want to do the cloth diaper they can use the disposables that they have in the nursery. I don't think a diaper rash would suddenly appear from just a couple hours in a disposable.
  • We need a couple more CDs - While we have 12 based on Young House Love's CD post, about 14 would be ideal for those in-between times when we are doing laundry and Nia suddenly has back-to-back #2s. We have a stash of disposables as back-up. About 72 have lasted us for 2 1/2 months (we have a few left now). I keep checking Cotton Babies for sales and the next time one pops up I'd like to get some.
  • No stains on covers - So far all the stains have washed out from the covers but some of her liners are lightly stained. We use store brand Free & Clear and have no complaints! It's tempting to want to use Zout or OxyClean but these can destroy the absorbency of the diapers. Speaking of detergent one resource I wanted to share is this list of detergent ratings for cloth diapers. It is quite comprehensive! I see lots of rave reviews for Rockin' Green and while it's definitely more pricey than our $3.88 ginormous bottle of Free & Clear, I'd like to give it a try eventually (I've entered a few contests in the past to win some to no avail, but I'm not giving up hope yet!).
I'll leave you with a funny video of Uka and Nia during her diaper change (she LOVES being on her changing table):


Have a good weekend!

3 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness that video is so cute! I love hearing her laughter and she's so cute kicking her legs. :) Glad you are liking the cloth diapers. I just checked out the Rockin' Green detergent on a web site the other day. Thanks for the posting the list of detergents for cloth diapers. I need to brush up on all of that before this baby. I've been making our detergent for our clothes (we love it) but not sure about making the detergent for the cloth diapers. Can't believe Nia is almost 6 months old! Looking forward to reading posts on her first taste of solids and pictures too. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Have you tried sunning out the stains on the liners? I had heard of this before and was amazed at the results when I tried it. Liners that had faint stains were pure white after one drying session in the sun.

    I know you are in NYC and might not have access to much sun and a free backyard. Maybe a balcony? :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. @keyalus i thought about it as we have a nice sized balcony but with the air pollution and pigeons i've decided against it! the stains are hidden away in the 4.0's pocket so they don't bother me. if they were on the covers it would.

    ReplyDelete