Everybody who
cloth diapers has a different system-- where they store their clean diapers, what kind of
wipes and
solution they use, where they put the dirty diapers, how they wash them, etc. I am always interested in other people's routines and find that as I talk to others or read about their particular methods, I learn things I want to implement in my own. Now that I have been cloth diapering for almost 10 months (the age my little girl is right now), I have a pretty good system going, and have changed things up a lot since I began using
cloth. I hope reading through my habits and methods will inspire you to tweak yours if needed!
I'll start with where I store my clean diapers. It seems there are as many ways to organize a
cloth diaper stash as there are people who own
cloth diapers. I have all
pocket-diapers (for my regular stash-- my
newborn stash is more varied, but it is not in use at the moment), so I keep them stuffed and snapped and put them upside down in a drawer of my daughter's dresser in her nursery so that I can easily see the colors. I also keep a couple of
wet bags in there. Extra
inserts and
cloth wipes are in another drawer. I sometimes use
cloth wipes, sometimes disposables-- the jury is still out on which I prefer. I like
cloth wipes for the economical factor and how soft they are, but I don't like having to spray them off along with everything else. I used to change my daughter on a
changing pad on top of the dresser when she was little, but once she got more wiggly, I started laying her on a blanket on the floor to change her. I find it much simpler now! However, thinking about this change, I realize it no longer makes sense for me to keep her diapers in the TOP drawer of her dresser... something to tweak!
Once I take a dirty diaper off of her, I bring her with me into the bathroom and sit her on the floor to play while I take out the
inserts, spray off the diaper and spray the inserts enough to saturate them. I then wring it all out and put it in a hanging
FuzziBunz wet bag. I used to just put wet diapers (inserts removed) into the wet bag without spraying, but we started getting very nasty ammonia smells that were taking over our bathroom. I had to do a big stripping of all our diapers to get out the build-up of ammonia, and I have found that since I started spraying all the inserts and wringing them out, we haven't had ammonia issues again (yet).
For my laundry routine, I am still perfecting this. I have been using original Tide liquid, but I am thinking of trying one of the
cloth diaper detergents out there since I'm not sure the ammonia issues we had were not partly related to the detergent. But I digress. Anyway, I put all the diapers and the
wet bag into a rinse cycle (my washing machine only allows for a cold rinse) with a little detergent. Once that is done, I put it on an extra-long hot wash cycle with a little detergent and a few squirts of bac-out, and then an extra cold rinse. I hang the
covers on a drying rack (if it is sunny I sometimes take the drying rack outside to sun the covers), and I put the inserts in the dryer with 6
wool dryer balls (LOVE those). Once my baby girl is in bed for the night, I gather the
covers and the
inserts and start stuffing! The hubby is usually happy to help as well, and we watch Downtown Abbey or something while we stuff.
I do diaper laundry about every 3-4 days, since I have 21
one-size diapers (19 are
bumGenius 4.0's, 1 is
Rumparooz, and 1 is
Kawaii). Most of my friends still think I'm a little nutty for doing
cloth diapers (no one I know-- in town anyway-- uses cloth diapers), but I am still so glad we chose to use them for our little one. She is our first, too, so we will hopefully get lots of mileage out of our cloth with future babies! I look forward to the second time around since I will be so much more confident and hopefully will have a lot more knowledge about cloth diapering-- gained from trial and error as well as helpful blogs like this one!
Bio: Rachel is a stay-at-home mom of a wonderful baby girl. She is loving motherhood and enjoys looking for ways to keep a sense of humor about parenting, pregnancy, cloth diapers, and life in general.
3 comments:
nice routine! Just to second (sort of) what you do with the inserts... we only used BG 4.0 with mf at night, daytime we used natural fibers. I started using a wet pail for the mf inserts only. Since we only used them at night and wash frequently it only had to be a big enough wet pail to hold 2-3 inserts. So I was using a shoe box size Tupperware (i think actually meant for storing shoes) with a lid that is snapped on with the side latches. I also put in a squirt of bac-out.
It helped stop the ammonia build up and we didn't have to touch the inserts as much... but effectively does the same as what you are. Maybe something to consider for babysitters or what not who are more squeamish :)
I have always used cloth diaper specific detergents and can tell you that no matter which ones we use, we always get the ammonia stink in the pail unless we rinse inserts first. My husband won't do the whole rinsing inserts thing, so after he puts it straight in the pail I keep a box of baking soda for him to sprinkle some in. But lets be honest how many diapers does he change anyway ;) no matter how stinky the pail would get though I've always had fresh smelling diapers after they are washed and dried. Anything saturated with pee for 2-4 days is bound to stink :)
I so need to come up with a system!! I will definetly be using some of your ideas. First I have to get some wet bags though. Somehow I have managed to get through 4 months of cloth diapering without a wet bag for the house.
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