CD updates

How is cloth diapering going?  In a word: wonderful!  We have been CDing for almost 7 month and are super happy with it.  Even B, who was a little unsure at first.

Care:
Wet and dirty diapers get tossed in the trash can (a Walmart buy with a spring-loaded lid) lined with a wet bag.  If it's poopy, I use wipes to scrape/knock the poop in to a separate tiny trash can (no lid, but I toss the trash after every BM).

The 4.0s require me to pull the insert out before dropping it in the trash can, as our washer doesn't always agitate the inserts out like it should.

Every other day I do the diaper laundry.  One plain cold/cold wash + extra rinse.  Then I add detergent and change the water to hot/hot + extra rinse.  After that I often hang everything on the drying rack in the sun to bleach.  Sometimes I just throw everything in the dryer (except the velcro...never dry velcro, it will curl and make you want to kill everyone) and don't worry about it.

The Freetimes require no stuffing, so they go straight in Elizabeth's diaper bin.  The 4.0s and the 4 WAHM diapers get stuffed when I have a few spare minutes in the evenings.

Choosing a brand:
We were blessed to be able to borrow my friends CD stash when E was born.  At first we loved the GroVia brand.  But as E became mobile, the snap-in inserts would shift around and cause leaks (think of how a maxi-pad without wings bunches as you walk).  Therefore the outer shells would get wet and need to be changed each time, thus defeating the whole purpose of using snap-in inserts.
That being said, we use BumGenius almost exclusively.  8 are Freetime (snaps) and 4 are from a few WAHMs and are pocket diapers (snaps).  And then we have 8 velcro 4.0s.  DON'T EVER BUY VELCRO.  It's horrible. We bought all the 4.0s from a close friend, so I needed to have all the elastic redone because they leaked at the legs. I tried myself (fail) and then a friend of mine who makes CDs said she would be willing to do it for me.  Yay! But I've also had to re-velcro the diapers.  BumGenius sells refurbish kits for $1/each so it was simple enough.  Anyways, love the 4.0s too.

Changing:
I change Es diaper, on average, every 2 hours.  Not because of leaking though (our BGs can last as long as the Pampers we use at nights).  I change her so often because I wouldn't want to be sitting in my own urine!

Nighttime:
Most night I put her to sleep in a disposable and change her in to a cloth diaper when she wakes up to eat at 6 am (she goes back down till 8 after she eats).  Why?  Mostly laziness and since we still have 8 of our 4.0s off being re-elasticized our stash only has 12 diapers.

Other:
My peanut has to wear 12-18 month pants to accommodate for her big fluffy hiney.  Poor girl has just outgrown her 6 month tops and still easily fits in 9 month pants when she has a disposable on.  Just one of those things I never thought about prior to CDing!

 Someone learned how to take her diapers off (another reason I dislike velcro).


We tried out cloth wipes (using baby washcloths) and although I enjoyed using them, it was more of a hassle to make the wipe solution and fold the wipes every day.  And I still used disposable wipes for the poop.  So that didn't last too long.