Confessions of an Addict

Have you ever wondered what other people have in their cloth diaper stash? Curious as to whether you qualify as a complete addict? Or do you think you’re addicted and turns out that you actually have a very modest stash?

While I personally don’t think I have too many diapers, I did decide to let you see just how many we
have and what works best for our family. I tried to get all of our diapers pictured, but since we will have TWO in diapers by the time this post is live, I was only able to get about 75% pictured.

In the picture above are all of our clean OS pocket diapers. You’ll notice that we have quite a few and
that they are by a wide variety of brands. I’m not sure as to the exact number that we have, but here
are my best estimates:

4 SmartiPants
25 Rumparooz
4 Happy Heiny’s
1 BumGenius
1 FuzziBunz
5 PinkSeamstresses’ Sewing Room
14 Kawaii
4 Blueberry

As you can tell, pocket diapers are what works best for our family 95% of the time. However, there are times when other styles work well too.

In this picture you’ll see all AIO diapers. These are the easiest diapers for grandparents and babysitters since they are so similar to modern day disposables. We have 3 Swaddlebees and 4 Tots Bots.

As you can see, these are not the most popular style of diaper in our stash, but they are the most
convenient.

In this picture we have our diaper covers and our prefolds. We tend to go through a lot of prefolds in
this house, simply because my son needs a prefold and regular pads for naps/bedtime because he is
such a heavy wetter. Here’s how our diaper covers breakdown:

1 Franklin Goose
3 Wolbybug
2 Thirsties
12 Econobum prefolds

Finally a little sneak peek into my new diapers stash:

My newborn daughter is all ready with a few mini diapers just for her. Here’s what her personal stash
looks like:

8 Lil Joeys
2 Grovia
4 WAHM diapers


Ok, now that you’ve seen my entire stash, which according to my best guess consists of 65 OS diapers, 6 diaper covers, 12 prefolds and 14 newborn diapers, what do you think? For having two children under 16 months I’d say I need every last one of my diapers :)


Contributed by: Katy

Yeast Issues? Start here!

Today I am going to talk about the yuckies of the yuckies....the dreaded yeast infection.  So, instead of my normal joking manner, this is kind of serious, so it is going to be a more serious post.

Anyways, the first thing I really recommend before trying to clear up yeast on your own is to take your child to the doctor.  A yeast infection has almost the same qualities as a UTI.  You want to make sure that it is yeast.  Also, if it is a yeast infection, they will give you a prescription fungal cream.  This fungal cream is seriously amazing and rid my son of yeast in about 2 days.  We continued with it for 5 days though, just to be sure.  I highly suggest switching over for disposables for these few days just to be able to deal with sanitizing the diapers and so on.  You can also use a liner with this cream, but like I said, you are going to want to wash and deal with your diapers, so it is just easier to buy a thing of disposables.

Now that you have a diagnosis of yeast, what do you do?  Well, this is where it gets hard.  There are so many different suggestions online and it is hard to figure out which one to try and which one not to try.  I decided to use the heat and bleach route and it worked magically.  I know a lot of people like to do the less harsher treatments, but if you want to completely make sure you are done with yeast, this is what I recommend and what my son's cloth diaper friendly doctor recommended as well (yes, my doctor is the one that helped us switch and taught us most of what we know).

So, what I did is I cleaned the diapers as normal and then ran a COLD cycle with 1/2 cup bleach.  If you only have pockets and inserts, it will not make marks on your diapers.  If you have fitteds or other diapers, you might want to use color safe bleach.  It does not work as well, so I recommend doing it twice.   After doing this, wash on hot 3-4 times to make sure that you get all the bleach out and the hot will help finish sanitizing the diapers.  

After this is all done, just put everything out in the sun and your diapers should be completely sanitized and perfectly fresh!  After all this, I have not had a problem with yeast again.

 

 

Contributed by Nicole

What do you do with the poo?

One of the biggest obstacles that people have with cloth diapers is the poop! When I am out

in public or visiting with friends and family and have to change my son’s diaper, I quickly begin

to notice as eyes start to glance and then stare at what exactly I am doing. Then the questions

begin… “Cloth diapers?” “But what if they poop, what do you do with the poop.”

I have heard it all and my answer is the same…it is not as bad as you may think. Here are

some different things you can do to get rid of the poo.

• If the poop is solid, simply shake the poop out over the toilet and flush away. If the poop is breastfeeding poop, there is no need to even clean out the diaper as the poop is 100% water soluble. If you don’t feel comfortable not cleaning the breastfeeding poop out, simply follow number 2.
• Use a diaper sprayer. A diaper sprayer is an easy way to make modern day cloth diapering even easier. Simply hold the poopy diaper over your toilet and spray away the poop, then flush.
• You can use the pre-diaper sprayer method which involves taking the diaper and swishing it around in the toilet to loosen any poop remaining after you shook the diaper out. Simply swish or swirl and then into the diaper pail it goes.
• Use flushable biodegradable diaper liners. Simply place a liner over the inside of your cloth diaper and go about business as usual. When it comes time to change the diaper simply toss the liner into the toilet with the poop and flush away. Some say this is the easiest way for people who don’t like to deal with the poop. There is no swishing, swirling or spraying.

Personally, I have a diaper sprayer that is my savior! I recommend getting one as I used it on

a daily basis, even with breastfeeding poopy diapers. I prefer one with an adjustable spray to

allow for a hard or soft spray.

  So the next time someone watches you change a diaper, be sure to tell them it’s not as hard or

gross as they think! You can share from your own experiences and maybe convert a couple of

people to cloth diapers!

What do you do with the poo?

Contributed by: Julie

Family and cloth diapers

After finding out I was pregnant with my son. I started doing a lot of researching for baby things I would love to get for my soon to come baby. One of those things was cloth diapers as soon as I read about them I was intrigued and wanted to do something different, something I had not done with my daughter. After talking to my mother about it, I learned she also wanted to cloth diaper me as a baby but didn't do it because it was too expensive for her at the time after learning that from my mother knew I had her support not to mention my husband who was excited about the idea, yet not really knowing how I was going to go about it. Since this was new for us, my parents bought my son his first 12 bum genius one size pocket diapers in snaps. When we received them in the mail and having them in our hands we were just in "Aw" of them didn't really know what they felt like since ordering the online. We started off with 12 and soon branched out to other brands like Smartipants and a few others some worked some didn't on my son. My husband currently is used to pocket diapers in snaps, he doesn't change a lot of dirty diapers but when he does he does it gladly. Then again the diapers have always been stuffed for him so not sure how he would act if not being stuffed :)  The best part of cloth diapering that he loves is the fact that cloth diapers is better for our son as he does have very sensitive skin. We have saved a lot money just in one year so far. I think the least thing that he likes about cloth diapering is opening up the dirty diaper pail sometimes. Other then that he is my #1 supporter along with my mother and other family members that don't really know how it works but support me through it. Which is huge for me!! 

Who is your support system? 

Stay tuned for next month ill be showing my stash... 

 

Contributed by Pollyanna

Disposables-Who needs ‘em?

My husband and I decided to use cloth diapers shortly after we found out we were pregnant. We
knew that they were more work, however, so we also knew that we’d be using disposables sometimes
for convenience. When my son was born we used the disposables in the hospital just because it was
easiest. As soon as we got home with our new bundle of joy we started using cloth diapers and were so glad! They weren’t nearly as hard to use as we thought and our son seemed much happier. We still had some boxes of disposables that people had given us as baby presents, but they just sat untouched.

 

Fast forward a little while. We were going out of town with our new baby for the first time. We were
going to be away from the comfort of our own diaper washing system and decided that even though we could use the washer where we were going to be, disposables would probably be easiest. We packed up one of the many untouched boxes that we had been given and headed out of town.

 

While we were out of town we changed our son’s tushie at least every hour and yet it stayed this nice
pinkish red color. We thought maybe it was because he had had him in salt water for the first time and just dismissed it. We never suspected that disposables were the real culprit.

 

We took a day trip a few weeks later and packed our cloth diapers, but somehow didn’t pack quite
enough so we ended up using a few spare disposables. When we returned home we noticed that
our son’s tushie was not just pinkish red, it was fiery red. This time we knew that it had to be the
disposables!

 

We decided then and there that we would not be using disposables on his tushie again, no matter how
convenient they might end up being. Nothing is convenient enough when it ends up hurting your child. Now we always travel with our cloth diapers/wipes; our family is very supportive and our friends just think we’re plum crazy!

 

I’m happy to report that in the 15 months since we brought our son home from the hospital, the only
time his little tushie has been irritated has been when we’ve used disposable diapers/wipes. As long as we use our beloved cloth diapers and cloth wipes his tushie looks just as cute as ever and remains, “soft as a baby’s bottom.”

 

Contributed by: Katy

I'm a tech geek turned Eco-friendly mommy by the absolute adorableness of cloth diapers. My son has been in cloth diapers since the day he came home from the hospital and I wouldn't have it any other way. One of my favorite pastimes includes showing off my son's cute, fluffy butt.

 

Check out Nicole's Stash!

Currently my stash is all over the place, and that is how I like it!  To be honest, I believe that different diapers have different advantages and they all seem to make it into my stash.  I like to have AIOs and AI2s for trips out, pocket diapers for at home and at night, fitted diapers for when the babies bottom needs a little bit more air with a fleece cover, some fitteds for overnight, and prefolds to stuff into pocket diapers at night.  So, seriously I have everything but flat diapers right now.

Currently I have WAY more diapers then I need...but I love having a larger stash.  I believe that it makes your diapers last a lot longer.  And also with more affordable, but still work just as well, options out there (like SmartiPants!) it makes it A LOT easier to be able to have more diapers for less!  I also recently learned that I can make my own diapers.  I have been sewing for a while, but just never sat and tried it.  This helped out my stash a lot but I still needed to buy inserts!  So, here is my current stash!

 

 

Top row are all made by me diapers.  There are 4 more that are dirty right now

 

 Second row is mostly WAHM diapers.  In order they are HoneyBums AIO, Howler Monkey Bums AI2 (I have two more that are dirty), the next three are BabyLand, orange with yellow snaps is a Dinkledooz pocket, Then 2 more WAHM and the last one (with the dogs) is a fleece AIO by Wee Expressions.

 

Third row is 6 Bum Genius (I have 3 more that are dirty) and 3 Smarti Pants (I have 2 more that are dirty).

 

Fourth row is two Fuzzi Bunz Pocket, AMP AIO, SoftBums (have 2 more that are dirty), Tender Tushies, and Giggle Life.

Last row are all fitted diapers from Wee Expressions, Bum Covered Diapers, Jelly Bear Boutique, and Organic Caboose.

 

Then of course I need covers.  I have four that I made myself, 2 Bummis, one from a WAHM, and three Thirsties.  Then I have 3 longies (1 not pictured) and 5 fleece covers (2 not pictured) and a wool cover (also not pictured).

I also have 36 prefolds for sickie days.  I use prefolds for that because they can take a much harder washing if need be.  I also use them in case I am being too lazy to re-stuff my pockets haha.

So, like I said, I have a much larger stash but when I was buying (and making) I was starting a stash up to have two in diapers (my older was 2 when his baby brother was born and still in diapers).  I also have a little bit of an attachment to some of them :-)

I hope you enjoyed taking a look into my stash!

Contributed by: Nicole

Hi, my name is Nicole. I am the mother of two wonderful boys who are 3 and 10 months. I started cloth diapering when my oldest was 8 months old due to an allergy to disposable diapers. I know host cloth diapering classes, run a blog (http://clothreviews.blogspot.com) and have a shop (www.etsy.com/shop/crazyleggies). I am a pretty busy mama and have little to no free time, but I wouldn't change it for the world!

 

 

 

To Strip or Not to Strip…Diapers that is!

If you are new to Cloth Diapering, the phrase “Stripping your Diapers” may seem like
a strange phrase. I mean why would you need to strip your diapers? How do you strip
them? And why would you strip them? Keep on reading for the answers…

Reasons WHY  I may need to Strip my Cloth
• You notice a NASTY smell coming from your diapers even after washing
• Your diapers seem to be leaking for no particular reason
• You notice an Ammonia smell once the diaper has been soiled
• You use detergents that are not meant for Cloth Diapers
• You have detergent build-up
• You use rash ointments that are not Cloth Diaper Safe
• You have mineral binding/detergent build-up from Hard Water
• Your baby is getting unexplained diaper rashes

WHAT does Stripping my Cloth Diapers mean?
• Stripping your diapers is a way to rid your Cloth Diapers of all of the conditions
listed above. It is sometimes considered regular maintenance if you use Cloth Diapers (kind of like an oil change for your car).

HOW do I Strip My Cloth Diapers?
• Start with Clean Cloth Diapers (Rinse, Wash). They don't have to be dried to
strip! Just wash them as you normally would.
• LET THE STRIPPING BEGIN....
• Next, throw your diapers in a HOT wash with NO DETERGENT.
• Then run 3-4 HOT rinse cycles with NO DETERGENT.
• Let Air Dry or Tumble dry on Low.
• If you can see actual spots from rash ointments, you may want to add a
tablespoon of the original blue dawn liquid detergent to help with the oil build-
up. You can add this in during the First Hot Wash.
• Make sure you do the largest load cycle possible when stripping because the more
water in your machine, the better the diapers will be cleaned.

HOW OFTEN should I strip my diapers?
• You may not ever need to strip your Cloth Diapers, but chances are, your diapers
will encounter some kind of invasion (detergent, hard water, rash cream, etc). For
some people, they like to strip the diapers every month or so. For me, I like to do
it every 2-3 months, or if I notice one of the above problems.

Be cautious not to strip too often it does cause “wear and tear” on your diapers.



Contributed by: Julie
Hi my name is Julie and I am the mother to a little boy. He was my motivation to start Cloth Diapering! Not wanting to expose his little bum to all those chemicals in disposables and not returning to work full time, I was looking for a safe and inexpensive alternative. Cloth Diapering was my answer! I have been cloth diapering since he was 1 month old and have become addicted every since! When I am not cloth diapering, blogging about cloth diapers, or converting others to cloth diapers, I am spending time with my wonderful family and husband who is a devoted Pastor. I also love watching football and water skiing!