Diaper Sprayer Mayhem

So, we've been doing cloth diapers for awhile now. I am still really liking them! We do use disposables for going to church, but I think that's mostly because I don't have a wet bag yet to put the cloth diapers in.

I hope you don't mind me mentioning it.... but when it comes to messy diapers, we at first did a lot of rinsing and scrubbing. This was getting to be a bit tedious, so my amazing husband installed a DIY diaper sprayer. I was so excited! Until the first time I got to use it. The water pressure was so hard, even with the water flow turned down on low, that it sprayed poopy water everywhere in the bathroom. Not cool!

But today I tried a new tactic, because I was not going to give up the diaper sprayer! We had a medium-sized unused tub we used to do our dishes in that was just sitting around. Now, I keep the tub under the crib where we put the soiled diapers during changings. Then, we use the tub to carry the diaper to the bathroom to rinse it out. If it's a dirty diaper I carry it over to the bathtub and using the diaper sprayer, spray the diaper down in the plastic tub while it's sitting in the bathtub. If it sprays everywhere, who cares! It worked amazingly! I am really excited. Man, the things you get excited over when you're a parent. Sheesh! :-)

First Cloth Diaper Thoughts

Today is the first day of my daughter wearing cloth diapers. Well, she's wearing her very first one right now and I have yet to change it, but I just had to share my first thoughts. Already, I love them! With the cloth diaper on, her little tush is so soft! Unlike the annoying crinkly paperness of the disposables. It's something so small, but it's amazing what a difference it makes. Just holding her wearing the cloth diaper makes me 10x happier. Who knew?! Maybe it's the cloth fiber vibes whispering "No more disposables in the landfill. Hooray!" haha!

It's taken me awhile to get our little girl into cloth diapers. I've been buying a small batch every paycheck until I've been able to build up enough to hopefully have some for a few days. Then I had to find the right detergent (unfortunately, my homemade stuff won't work). And finally, I had to wash and dry them 3 times to get them absorbent - just like you have to wash new towels a few times. I was a little nervous putting on the very first cloth diaper. Was I ready? Was I going to have a headache scrubbing the first messy diaper? Where am I going to put the soiled diapers? (Our apartment is much smaller than our last place...) Are they going to stink up my house? Was her diaper going to be completely huge and bulky? Questions to be answered shortly, I'm sure.

Well, I started to put the cloth diaper on - backwards. I laughed at myself and started over and even though my little girl was fussing and squirming I got it on and... it was beautiful! Hooray! Now maybe I'll get my husband to do the first cloth diaper change. Heh heh heh.

Some Helpful Information

I'm not assuming any of you out there reading my blog actually need cloth diaper information, but I was just thinking if you know someone considering cloth diapers or you yourself in the future might consider cloth diapers, I thought this information would be helpful. So here are the sites/products that I have found useful:

Cotton Babies
DIY Diaper Sprayer video
Snappies

Going Cloth

I did it! Yesterday I made my first official purchase of cloth diapers. That's right. We're switching over from disposables to cloth.

What made me change my mind? Well, a big part of it was my sister-in-law, Amber, who recently switched over and loves it. She did a lot of research and was really enthusiastic to share it all with me.

In my mind, I thought cloth diapers were like what I remember back in 1990. I remember changing my little brother's cloth diaper - pins and icky white plastic pants and all. I wasn't going to go through with that with my children! But after going over Amber's research I was surprised to find that things have changed a lot since then. And I only had to think about it for a few minutes to realize that the switch totally made sense to me and was in line with the way I feel and think. Cloth diapers are totally do-it-yourself and once I buy them I don't have to depend on the store anymore to make sure my daughter has a clean bum. Yay! And laundry is one of those things that I don't mind doing, so... cloth diapers here I come!

What you need for cloth diapers:
* Diaper covers
* liners or tri-fold cloth diapers
* diaper sprayer that attaches to your toilet!
* diaper pail with PUL liner
* a couple of PUL wet bags for soiled diapers when we're out and about

* plenty of homemade wipes made from scraps of flannel (who knew?! Now I know what to do with all the old flannel clothes I was saving.)

(Image from Nature Moms Blog)