My Life Is Messy
In my previous post I wrote about taking on the Grandma Challenge of “climbing a mountain” of cloth diapers. I was not able to get started right away because, well, peaches are in season. It was a toss up - start cloth diapering or can some peaches. The peaches won but Monday came and I could no longer procrastinate. Here is a description of my first day of cloth diapering.
Monday, August 18, 2008
8:15 am I get my daughter out of bed. I lay her down on the changing table and pull out a cloth diaper and a cover. I put them together like my friend showed me and quickly realize my first cloth diaper climb has to be abandoned. I do not have the right gear after all.
The mountain of cloth diapers pictured in my last post were loaned to me by a friend. The conversation we had when she loaned me the diapers came rushing back as I tried to make my first cloth diaper attempt.
“You are welcome to use these diapers if they fit,” says my friend.
“Great!” I say in reply. “I am sure they will be just fine.”
Key phrase of the conversation: “…if they fit.”
8:20 am I put a disposable diaper on my daughter.
8:45 am I walk my son to school with a group of parents who live nearby. I quickly seek out my friend who loaned me her cloth diaper covers (a different friend than the one who loaned me the initial stack of cloth diapers). I tell her about my failed cloth diaper attempt. She promptly offers to loan me her cloth diapers that should fit my daughter.
9:15 am I leave my friend’s house with a new mountain of cloth diapers along with two containers of wash cloths and my daughter who now has a cloth-diapered bum.
9:45 am I feel like I smell like pee as I take a pile of food scraps to the compost pile. A blob of the food scraps lands on my foot as I dump them into the pile. I mumble to myself, “So this is how this day is going to go…one mess after another.” I take a moment to weed the garden which leaves me feeling even messier.
10:30 am I run back to my friend’s house who loaned me the proper sized cloth diapers to retrieve my stainless steel coffee mug. Upon entering her door, she asks, “So did you change her diaper yet?” To which I reply, “Um, no. Was I supposed to?” My friend gives me a few tips on how to check for a wet diaper which I am convinced will leave me smelling even more like pee. I turn to leave and try to sound confident as I say, “I guess I better go home and check her!”
11:00 am I lay my daughter on the changing table and take off her diaper. Much to my dismay, her shirt and shorts are soaked with pee. I change her clothes, put on a fresh diaper and fresh cover and decide to take a detour for some extra help.
11:45 am I arrive at a local store called Hopscotch which sells all kinds of cloth diaper supplies. The woman running the store nicely instructs me through another cloth diaper change for my daughter. I leave with a couple of new diaper covers I hope will contain the pee a little better along with a wet/dry bag I can use for dirty diapers when I am on the go. I put my daughter in her car seat and realize she has filled her diaper with poo. Dread sets in as I anticipate what I will encounter when I get home.
12:00 pm I lay my daughter on the changing table again and find myself staring at a big, squishy poo. Since this was the diaper I put on her while at the store, I did not include a rice paper liner. For those of you who do not know, a rice paper liner looks like a piece of toilet paper only it is thicker. You lay it on top of a fresh cloth diaper. If your child poos, you can lift out the rice paper liner (filled with most of the poo) and throw it in the toilet leaving you with less of a mess in the diaper. I did not have a liner and so now I have a big mess.
12:10 pm My daughter has a fresh diaper and another fresh cover on. My son and daughter watch as I stand at the toilet swishing and flushing in an attempt to get a bunch of poo off the dirty diaper. I am close to tears. After a couple of attempts, I leave the diaper in the toilet, wash my hands, instruct my son to use the potty downstairs and make some lunch.
1:40 pm My son and daughter are napping and I return to the diaper in the toilet. I swish and flush a few more times. I then move the diaper bucket as close to the toilet as possible, pick up the dripping, slightly poopy diaper and drop it in. I wash my hands and take solace in the fact that my daughter usually only poos once a day.
3:30 pm I wake my daughter from her nap, anxiously anticipating that her shorts and shirt will be soaked. Her clothes seem to be dry. I put a clean cloth diaper on her with the same diaper cover she was wearing. Several people have told me I can reuse the diaper covers as long as they do not have poo on them. I feel confused because the cover seems to smell like pee. I put it on her anyway hoping I am doing the right thing.
3:40 pm I realize my hands smell like pee and quickly wash them. I pick up my daughter, snuggle her and affectionately call her my little pee-pee buns.
5:00 pm My husband arrives home. I give him his first cloth diaper training session as I change my daughter for the seventh time. I am leaving for the rest of the evening and so I tell my husband to put a disposable diaper on our daughter at bedtime. I do not feel like waking up to find her soaked in pee. I tell him I will tackle a cloth diaper at bedtime after I feel more confident in my diapering abilities.
5:30 pm I get in my car and let out a big sigh knowing I will have to face the same thing all over again the next day.
What is the point of all of this?
In one of my first posts I wrote about how I feel very disconnected from the details of my life. However, the more I try to live like my grandparents, the more I feel connected to the details
of my life. And the more I connect to the details of my life, the messier my life gets.
I think this messiness is good because it is forcing me to take ownership of the messes I make. The more I own each mess, the more I understand how they impact my self, my family, my community and others around the world. The more I understand the impact of my messiness, the more I feel inclined to take responsibility for cleaning up after myself.
Although it is not easy, I am going to try my hardest to keep climbing my mountain of cloth diapers. I have already left a big enough mountain of disposable diaper mess for someone else to clean up thanks to the years I used disposables on my boys (and daughter until now that is).
Thank you for all of your encouraging comments! Please send me your best advice on cleaning up poopy diapers as well as what you use for bedtime. I tried to put two diapers on my daughter at bedtime but she was clearly uncomfortable because of the bulk. Not wanting to risk a sleepless night for my daughter or myself, I put her in a disposable diaper.
loved the post! A group of us were camping this weekend and talked about your blog and the cloth diapers. Most of us had used cloth diapers and our kids are all adults and we are all still living! Sharon V said.. she got a 2nd bathroom out of cloth diapers because Tim did not like using a bathroom with a diaper in the toilet!
Have fun and keep up the GREAT work.
This is a challenge that can easily be frustrating. Probably why I waited so long to try!
Have you considered using other styles of diapers? You could look at the for sale or trade section on http://www.diaperswappers.com/ for a variety of diapers in your daughters size. I started the process with a one size diaper I could put on the baby or my 2 year old. Its husband, babysitter, and nursery friendly. I use my one size diapers for bed time and when leaving the house.
You may want to research the different types of diapers out there. Pockets, one size, fitteds, bamboo, fleece and wool soakers etc. There are so many options that will keep your daughter dry during the night. Maybe when you stop by to pick up the soap dishes I can show you my process (it doesn’t involve putting diapers in the toilet) and the different diapers I use.
I hope I don’t sound like a know-it-all. There is a big learning curve when switching to cloth and I’d hate for it to always be such a dreaded task.
My daughter was in cloth diapers 28 yrs ago (time flies!), but here is what I did. For overnight, I had what I called diaper liners: narrow (to fit down the center of the diaper) 2 or 3 layered pieces of flannel to absorb extra urine. I used plastic pants with elastic legs & waist. I don’t know what they have now. Make sure the diaper edges don’t peek out of the plastic pants. This will have a wicking effect, and everything will be wet. For poop, I just swished in the toilet. If you HOLD ON TIGHT to BOTH ends of the diaper and flush the toilet you can aim the poopy parts in the rushing water to rinse it off. I repeat: HOLD ON TIGHT. Wring out the extra water before putting the diaper in the pail. Wash hands. Really well. In my diaper pail, I filled it half-way with water and pine-sol. When the pail was full I would (wearing rubber gloves) take each diaper out, wring it, put it in the washer, and do a pre-rinse cycle before starting the regular wash cycle just to rinse out the pine-sol. Dump out the old diaper pail water and refill it. Don’t use bleach with every load of diapers, just occasionally. Hot or warm wash, cold rinse. Use the dryer, or hang on the line. If you hang them out, you will rarely need to bleach them. It sounds like a lot of work, but it really isn’t. You’ll only be washing a load or 2 a week. Just make sure you wash the diapers when you are down to about 6 clean ones. Hopefully you have enough to fill your pail with at least 6-10 left over. If you are using wash cloths instead of baby wipes, they go in the diaper pail too. You’ll be surprised at how the volume of your trash decreases, and how much money you save at the store not buying diapers.
Oh April. I’m sorry it’s not going so well. I was anxious to hear, and didn’t want to say anything that would sound discouraging, but I totally agree with Heidi. There are SOOOOO many options in cloth diapering today and using prefolds and covers on a 2 year old is definitely not the easiest choice. Cloth diapering a toddler vs a newborn is a completely different animal, most toddlers are going to pee through pretty much any diaper you put on them with one pee. There are diaper fabrics out there that are more trim and absorbant so you don’t get so much bulk. I second the recommendation on diaperswappers.com… I’ve bought and sold many many diapers there and you can get a good deal on diapers (or pay too much for cute ones) Plus you’ll get an idea of the different options. I personally would recommend pocket diapers for you at this stage… you can customize the absorbancy and they are easy to use.
It makes it so much more fun when you put cute diapers on their bum. I just made these for my almost 2 year old–
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3242/2764449502_f3112c6c23.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3214/2763597311_9d5cecba6c.jpg
I completely admit though, she wears a disposable diaper at night! I even try leave it on her in the morning until she has her first poo
I love this post, April!!! First of all, I am so sorry that our prefolds didn’t fit S! That sure sent you on a run around. I hope that you find a system that works well for you…
For us, prefolds and wraps worked really well. The major factor in the success was the rice paper liners. I ordered them from http://www.kellyscloset.com. There have been times when C has had a really really messy diaper and I had realized that I forgot a liner. In TWO of these situations, I got so frustrated and disgusted with washing the diaper out that I actually THREW the cloth prefold OUT! Isn’t that awful?! Not accomplishing the purpose of the cloth decision, but I really couldn’t handle it. And now I’m admitting this in public! But, overall, I found that once I had my system, it worked so well for us.
For bedtime, we either doubled up the prefold or stuck in a special thick insert that is made super absorbant especially for bedtime. The only time I experienced leaks was when C would sleep in her tummy all night. Then at times she would be wet up to her neck. I don’t think that was a diaper issue as much as 14 hours of sleep situation!
My brother and sister in law love their system and never ever use disposables (their daughter is 16 months). Let me know if you want her email address. She researched extensively and they order everything on the web. And the diapers are really cute too! They also use all natural laundry detergent especially for the diapers and covers, which cuts down on wear and tear and is gentle on the baby’s bum.
I’ll be eager to hear all about your process…thinking of you!
Oh April, congratulations! I am impressed with your dedication and your mission.
April, you and I should talk diapers. I cloth diapered Koen from 4 weeks old, and happily stopped once I was too morning-sick and pregnant to rinse ‘em out any more. I restarted for Koen and little Anneke in the past month. There are so many diaper options out there, and so many different types of folds you can do with prefolds that fit with different body types. Are you using a Snappi for closure on the prefolds? That made a difference for me! I hear you on the frustration with frequent changes, though, that was the worst part for me. I also suggest diaperswappers.com as a reasonable place to check out other diapers. And I agree with Kristin, it is much better when the little butts look so cute in colorful cloth diapers. You want to talk? Give me a call or an e-mail!
I used cloth for my 1st (10 yrs ago) - and 1/2 way thru my 2nd. My 2nd had horrible diaper rash that I just couldn’t get a handle on. And to tell you the truth it was still a struggle to stay on top of it with disposables - so it may have just been her little quirk of nature to have rashy skin. I hope you can hang in there - I noticed that I was changing them more often with cloth - and that’s not such a bad thing - more opportunity for dropping everything for a little personal attention and TLC ….
seriously…we should have talked about this on skype tonight!
With Amira we used FuzziBunz at night and with Nico we use a combo of BumGenius and Wonderoos. We still fill the BumGenius and Wonderoos with a double insert for Nico at night and have no problems of leaking at night. With the FuzziBunz, we inserted a prefold and i can’t recall having a problem either. I found the diapers that you fill with an insert were nicer for night time sleeping because the pee was kept off their little bums during the night. With Amira we used pro-wraps and prefolds during the day, held together by a Snappi and didn’t have too many leaks. With Nico we have used the BumGenius during the day and never have leaks. A more expensive investment but we only needed one size so it ended up probably the same in the long run. I went through about 6 diapers a day with him until he potty trained recently. He is a pooper unfortunately…and really unfortunately, I ran out of rice liners a long time ago! : ) My trick when we ran out was having a roll of toilet paper handy. I found it less disgusting to try either shake the poo out of it was nice and formed or “scooping” it out with toilet paper. I just could not get myself to be fishing around in a toilet! We have a “laundry sink” that I often rinsed the diapers in after…that always got cleaned out very well. I know you’ll use liners mostly…but just in case you run into an instance where Selah gives you a non-lined surprise, wanted to share what I did. The thing I liked about the Bum Genius diapers…they grew with Nico’s size (we used them from 4 months when we got them to current day when he sleeps) and the liners are supposedly the “thirstiest” liners out there.
Just for future tips. We use a nighttime diaper for Amira called the “Nikky Nighttime” something. Not sure if it’s called a pull up or diaper. It is like a pull up though. She just cannot stay dry and has saved us SO much money on disposable nighttime diapers. I fully plan on using them for Nico once he gets a little bigger. They are expensive at $25 a diaper. We bought 2 and have fully gotten our money back compared to what we could have spent on years of pull ups.
A few other resources I should have emailed you weeks ago…I got most of my diapers and natural products from http://www.naturalbabies.com. I think the woman now lives in Michigan. She has SO many resources! And is helpful. When I asked her with initial questions, she was very honest what I needed and what was best. Didn’t try to sell for the sake of selling. Diaperpin.com has loads of reviews on different products. I can’t find the place I bought the Nikky nighttime diaper but I will pass it on once I find it online.
hang in there! it will get easier! Email me with questions if you have them…would love to share our experience with you.
Great post! Sorry you had a rough first day. Is it going better now?
I use the flushable inserts with gDiapers (an eco-friendly cross between cloth and disposable diapers).
A lot of moms use cloth inserts with their gDiaper covers, and there is a Yahoo! Group of moms that share advice about using gDiapers or cloth diapers. They often talk about a diaper sprayer that can be used to rinse cloth diapers in the toilet.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gdiapers/
If you join the group, you can find helpful info from the archives or you can post questions and these women are so helpful.
If you sign up to get the Yahoo! Group emails, go with the digest version. (You get one email with a summary of the discussions instead of getting 25 to 50 emails a day!) There are a lot of off-topic discussions, too. This group is great for all kinds of mothering concerns and I’ve learned so much about green cleaning and green personal care products from these women. For example, I’m currently reading Green This! by Deidre Imus b/c I saw it recommended on the group discussion.
Oh, dear. As I started filling in the comment space, my 7.5 month old son began filling his own freshly changed (like five minutes ago) diaper with poop. Sigh.
I am on this journey, too. It’s been about 6 months now, and I feel like a veteran…not ’cause I’m so smart about it (didn’t know about the rice paper!), but because we have routines now and it’s not a big deal anymore. HOWEVER…
When I first started I was smelling urine ALL THE TIME. I don’t know if that meant that I smelled like it, or my son, or just that some of those little urine particles were up in my nose torturing me. I was going to blog about it (that and all the phantom baby crying that I would hear constantly, often waking in the middle of the night, that was not my son). Fortunately, that insanity has regressed before requiring therapy.
Anyway. I use a combination of the BumGenius pocket diapers (which I add a Hemp Babies liner to for overnight) and regular ol’ prefolds with a cover. I like them both equally - it depends on which mood I’m in. I try to reuse the covers, and may do it once, but usually the soft fabric part around the leg openings (the not-waterproof part) gets soaked…smelly, and not comfortable, I can imagine. I will push the limits of yuckiness when I am home all day (which is most of the time, actually).
Here are the entries from my own blog that relate to diapering:
http://thep-pod.blogspot.com/search/label/diapers
I have fought the poopies. They do take the occasional battle, but I am winning the war. Things got so much easier when my son started on solid food. (I have yet to blog on this). His poop got solid, too, and would just fall right off into the toilet! Amazingly simple! Whew!
BTW, my son used to only poop once a day, but when he started solids, it became 3-4 times. The only way I have endured is that I no longer have to stick my hands into the toilet water.
The new problem, with solids, is that overnight (this is my theory), I think the diapers did such a good job absorbing and wicking that his poopies would ball up into little marbles, which then rolled out of the edges of the leg holes and into the crib. I was changing the crib sheet (a horrendous task with the crib I have) every day for a week. This problem hasn’t occurred for a little while now - not sure…was he dehydrated or was it the diaper? Don’t know. Just gross. (I will not describe what he smelled like after rolling around on that all night.)
Good job! It will get easier, I promise! It takes finding what you like using best, and then sticking to it for a month and establishing some routines.
Hi April, I hope your cloth diapering is going well. I just wanted to suggest, if you have more questions, to ask the woman at Hopscotch about the cloth diapering forum. When I bought my diapers in June, she gave my email to the woman in charge of the forum and I was able to subscribe. It’s a bunch of cloth diapering mothers that you can ask questions, and they’ve been using cloth diapers for years…it’s pretty helpful.
I’m trying prefold now with covers and it’s a learning curve, but I love it. I also have BumGenius 3.0 which are fabulous, but prefolds are cheaper and are more of a workhorse in my opinion. Hang in there. It’s not that hard and it’s so rewarding when you’re thinking about not having to run to the store to purchase sposies every week and a half. And the money you save and being able to sell them when you’re done… !!! Love it! Good luck!!!
Being able to sell the diapers when you are done? They make the best dust cloths!