Abram's 1st Halloween

Hope everyone had a very happy Halloween!

Cloth Diapering...9 months in

This post has been a long time coming...I've written this in my head dozens of time, but have yet to type it out (& of course, this has not been written all in one sitting, that would mean that it wouldn't have been edited close to 5 kazillion times & throwing something up that I haven't re-read over & over just isn't me).

Anywho...

So, how's cloth diapering (CDing) going, you ask?  I'm so glad all 2 of the people who read this blog did ask this question, sike.

I still love it & so does Matthew.

Updates/Changes
(refer to this post for how CDing looked for the first few months we did it)

• we've moved Abram's snaps over a bit on the side to make room for the few lb. he's gained in the past few months.  Our shrimpy shrimp has only gained just under 7 lb. in 10 months...what can I say?  When you start big, I guess it takes a while?  Though is it any wonder that he has a super high metabolism with his genes?  Babies normally double their birth weight around 4 months old & triple their weight by one year, but considering I didn't even double my weight by the time I was one & (are you kidding me) look at my boy's father...high metabolisms run in the family.

• we've also moved the vertical snaps down since while Abram may be a skinny boy, he certainly isn't short.  He's consistently been in at least the 85% since he's been born.  Since I haven't taken a picture of his diapers since we've moved the vertical snaps down, for those that are unsure of what that looks like, they are basically on the medium rise setting.

• we haven't used the Econobum's in about 3 months.  I still love them (Matt's not a huge fan, but that's why we have the bumGenius [BGs]), but right around 6.5 months when Abram cut his 2 teeth, he started having evidence of teething in his diapers (fellow parents know what I mean).  It made it, errr, a little more challenging to rinse them.  Due to the nature of how the Econobums are folded, it just made rinsing them more tedious & hello, people...I'm trying to make this as less mess for us as possible.  I'll planning on going back to using them once Abram is a year old & on solids exclusively since I really do like them, they just don't work super well for us now.

• due to #2's being occasionally more messy now, we always take a select-a-size paper towel & place it in the diaper.  When there is a #2, we just toss it & the mess in the toilet & spray down the cloth wipe before putting it in the pail (almost zero mess & very few stains that have to be sunned out after they are washed  :)  They do make disposable liners for CDs that you can buy, but they are not as inexpensive as paper towels, so that's the route we went.

• speaking of teething evidence in the diapers, starting solids at six months, WHEW!  Exclusively breastfed (EBF) diapers have little if any odor to them (& boy, were they simple for 6 months).  We did have a rare #2 leak when little guy was EBF, but for the most part CDing was a cinch then.  Not that it's complicated now, not at all, just different.  EBF diapers don't need to be rinsed since BF waste is water soluble, so we didn't really even need our diaper sprayer until Abram started solids, but the sprayer was great to have to rinse in case we wanted to.

• bonus to starting solids, Abram has not had one, notta one, #2 leak...it has been awesome!

• I still only do CD laundry twice per week & it's been working great.  Our laundry doubled when little guy arrived & thankfully, it's a chore I actually like to do so it works great.

• I no longer use essential oils on a cloth wipe placed in the diaper pail.  Even though the oil smelled great, we didn't need it & still don't.  That's what is so nice about CDing, any waste is flushed down the toilet, so it's not stinking up our house like a normal diaper pail.

• speaking of the diaper pail, it is now in Abram's bathroom.  Since we rinse his #2 diapers, it just made more sense to keep the pail in there.

• another plus of CDing is once a kiddo is on solids, the cloth covers up the smell of #2's.  When I'm with our friend's kiddo's, I can smell a dirty diaper from across the room.  I literally have to lift Abram close to my face to attempt to smell through his clothes to see if he might have gone #2.  It contains everything super well.

• once Abram turned 9 months old & his appetite picked up, he could no longer make it the 12-13 hours he was asleep at night without the diapers leaking a bit (just urine, thankfully).  We ordered 4 of these.  We fold 1 into quarters & stuff it underneath the sewn in liner for his nighttime diaper & we're good to go until morning.  They are awesome & they makes our skinny boy's middle look adorably cute since it's so bulked up.

• we also don't air dry the diapers much anymore.  It's a lot easier to just hang the stained ones (few & far between since #2's don't happen everyday) in the sun & throw the rest in the dryer.  We just always make sure that they dryer is set to "Delicate" to help prolong the life of the diapers.

I think that's about it.  I'm so thankful that we decided to invest in the more expensive, but highest reviewed brand.  I feel like we might have given up if we had gone another route, but the BGs are just so easy to use.  We're almost at breaking even (meaning what we paid for everything up front has equaled the cost of what we would have spent on 'sposies so far if we weren't CDing).  Since we were given a few packs of 'sposies by people before Abram was born, we have only had to buy 2 forty packs of 'sposies thus far (we spent $15 total & we still have around 20 'sposies lying around for when we have the occasional overnight trip).

It's been neat to watch Matthew really catch on, too.  I've caught him bragging to other parents about how easy they are & how much he loves how the chemicals that are in 'sposies aren't sitting next to little man's privates all the time (the biggest reason I was drawn to CDing to begin with).

Here's to another 9+ months of happy CDing!

bahaha

oh.my.word

Has anyone seen these?  Matt & I cannot stop laughing right now.

Guy On A Buffalo - Episode 1 (Bears, Indians & Such)

Guy On A Buffalo - Episode 2 (Orphans, Cougars & Such)

Guy On A Buffalo - Finale Part 1 (Origins, Villiains & The Like)