Potty Training Update

October 6th, 2010

We're continuing to lazily potty train. For some period of time each day, on some days in the last 1.5 weeks, my 20 month old has been in underwear with a cover, usually the plastic pants.

Some points that are worth noting (for me, anyway :)

• She doesn't pee nearly as often as I thought she would. I figured toddlers peed every 20 minutes. It seems to be more like every couple of hours. I was worried she was dehydrated, but output seems to be quite good. She's overfilled diapers twice in the last week when she'd been in them less than 20 minutes.
• No leaks at all in the plastic pants. I'm using 12 mo old size on our 23+ lb 20 month old over little 2T/3T cotton undies. I sometimes wonder if we could have gone smaller because these are so baggy, but I think the bagginess is what lets her know she has gone if she fails to notice she feels wet. Then there's a bag of pee hanging on to her and she'll respond to that immediately.
• I tried putting her in the thicker trainer undies and an empty pocket diaper. She wasn't aware she'd gone. Too much like a diaper and too absorbent, I guess. I don't think warm moisture is very uncomfortable
• Has successfully done at least one nap time in undies and stayed dry.
• One trip out of the house (day 3) in the stroller in undies (with a fleece cover and extra prefolds on the seat) and she stayed dry. Haven't risked it otherwise.
• One day 7, she was standing in the shower (waiting for me to join her) and she told me she needed to go potty a couple of times before peeing. That means she knows ahead of time! Only moments before, but that's a good sign.
• The messiest incident was when she told me she needed to go potty but she's started by the time we got there and I mostly got peed on taking the plastic pants off. Maybe she told me ahead of time, but not by much. It was just a little pee on my hands and the bathroom floor (and the undies and plastic pants) though, so not too bad for messiest incident.
• The last two nights (roughly days 11 and 12), she has been very insistent about needing to go right after we put a night time diaper on her (extra absorbency) but the diaper was wet by the time we got it off her. Good to have more back up night diapers ready. I don't plan to try nights in undies for quite some time both because I'm not sure she's ready (nor am I for getting up all night) and because the plastic pants don't breathe at all so if she's in them during the day, I'd like her to be in something a little more breathable at night. Of course, PUL covers aren't breathable either, but at least the diapers we use have a stay dry liner. I just want to let her skin be dry some of the time.
• She's taken herself to the potty several times when she had to go, stayed dry and hopped up on the toilet (she's using a stool) and went successfully all on her own. I'm still there for clean up and preventing the entire roll of toilet paper from going down the toilet but she's getting to be pretty self-sufficient.

I could put more effort into it and make sure she gets underwear time daily or that I take her more often, but the lazy method seems to be working and not taking more energy than diaper changes. Plus, I know she gets changed immediately so I don't have to worry that she's been in a wet diaper for hours if we go a while between changes. So far, so good.

Amazon Mom

October 5th, 2010

I don't know how Amazon does it. I just ordered diapers again for 30% off and free delivery. That means I got a giant pack of Pampers Swaddlers Sensitive, 132 diapers for $28, including free 2-day shipping. That's 22 cents each for premium toddler-sized diapers. Signed up for delivery again in a few months but I'll just cancel it if we don't need it then. Amazon mom is the best deal on disposable diapers right now.

Nighttime Dryness

October 24th, 2010

We've achieve nighttime dryness! 3rd day in a row, 4th this week. I didn't even rush her out of bed this morning. First she woke me up and nursed. We talked about going to potty and she agreed. I got up and she got out of bed on her own. I went potty first and undressed her and she messed with the stool while she was naked for a minute. Then she climbed up and went potty. No problem. It's like she'd been doing it all her life. I hope it lasts! :)

Diaperless

September 23rd, 2010

My daughter has been diaperless all morning. 2 "accidents" (both in underwear with plastic pants so no mess really) and she told me immediately both times. Once was about 15 seconds after we'd left the bathroom so I KNOW she was dry, not sure why she didn't go in the bathroom, but this is actually a huge step. Before, she only cared if there was a mess to clean up. Wet didn't seem to concern her at all. Now, I'm not sure if she cares, but at least she notices and tells me.

It's been a few months since she's had significant underwear time. Lots of reasons for this: very busy all summer, out of the house often, disagreements with my husband about how to deal with cleaning up accidents*, an frankly it's easier to leave her in diapers. She still used the potty. We just took her to the bathroom when she asked or it was otherwise convenient.

Since I just was reminded indirectly by a facebook post that kids usually potty train in 2-3 days if they're ready and I didn't have much on the calendar for the next several days, I thought maybe I should try it again. Plus she just found her stash of Elmo underwear and really wants to wear it. I'm hoping the incentive to keep Elmo or Abby Cadabby dry is a good one. I'm not using any other rewards other than praise and encouragement.

Logistically, I have 2 pairs of plastic pants and one fleece cover which I'm planning on using to cover her undies and attempt to avoid messes. Now that she seems to tell me as soon as she's wet, I don't need to be able to see it myself. I think this will work for my husband also since I'm not just letting her run around basically naked to pee everywhere. Of course, this means we can only have up to 3 accidents before I run out of reasonable covers.

Update: She just woke up from her nap dry. It's 3:30 in the afternoon and she's still diaperless for the day. Whoo hoo! Grandparents will be here soon to watch her for a bit while I work, so I suspect we're done for the day but we'll give it a shot again tomorrow.



* I think mopping up the little piddle with a towel and maybe getting the carpet wet and drying it sufficient. My husband thinks we need to thoroughly scrub the spot with carpet cleaner and then rinse it. After we cleaned a few spots (food spills, not pee), the floor was much cleaner in those spots and the rest of the carpet looked gross, even though it'd recently been professionally cleaned. The professional left a lot of residue, I think. We cleaned the entire carpet ourselves using our cloth diaper detergent (rockin green) as the carpet cleaner and now it's overall much cleaner. Now we all want to keep it that way.

"Would you do the same things with a future kid?"

September 20th, 2010

Someone recently asked me if I'd do things the same way if we have another child. Would we EC again? That's easy. Absolutely! I'd definitely do it. Possibly with more dedication than we did this time. Of course, then we'd have 2 kids so that might make timing more difficult so it might not be practical. It will certainly be something we try though.

Cloth diapers? That's hard. We've had a lot of trouble with cloth diapers and I'm not a huge fan despite the fact that we're still doing it. I'm not really sure what I'd do. If we had another child magically right at this moment... I'd probably cloth diaper since I'm already doing a small load for my currently diapered child, adding more to that load would mean no extra work.

But what kind of diapers... I don't know. We've never really dealt with poop since my daughter was consistently using the potty for that by the time we started CDing. Our current favorites, all-in-ones, don't seem to make sense for a newborn because it would be harder to rinse newborn poop out and that would need to happen all the time. I generally hate prefolds and one sized diapers. But both end up bunchy and my daughter got rashes quickly from anything that wasn't better fitted. That would make me crazy if I wore them so I lean away from that for my child. So that means I'd probably look into fitted diapers. (These are the diapers that basically look like diapers with elastic around the legs but don't have a waterproof cover attached.)

I've only tried one fitted style with my daughter and I didn't like it because it was enormous and the cover we had then fit very poorly. I'd like to be able to enjoy the tiny-ness of my newborn, I think. I don't think it has to be huge though. I'd look into fitteds that were of other materials like possibly hemp (we like our hemp liners that we use for night time) or ones sewn out of prefolds. Maybe I'd even make my own. (Right... I don't really sew.) But I'd probably consider something along those lines.

For covers... I don't really like the plastic-y kind. They don't breathe well. I keep hearing that cloth is much better for babies because it breathes more. I think that used to be true when disposables were mostly plastic, but disposables have evolved to be more breath-able and cloth becomes less so when it's wrapped in a plastic cover. It's been my experience that I get better temperature control and breath-ability with disposables.

I think I'd like a more cloth-like cover for general use and then perhaps a plastic-y one for out in the car or something. I have a fleece cover that I like a lot, but my toddler can easily defeat it (velcro) and requires me to use our pre-folds (which I trifold instead of wrap around her) so all that is a lot to do with a wriggly toddler. I'd seriously consider it with a newborn though. Especially if I already had a good fitted diaper I liked. The downside is that a very full diaper can leak through with pressure. For example, putting a kid with a wet diaper in the car seat and cinching it down might squish moisture through. That's why I'd want a plastic-type cover for those situations. But when we're at home, comfort is key.

I might also consider wool. People who use wool tend to love wool. But I also think people who cloth diaper love cloth diapering, and I don't so perhaps I wouldn't love wool either. I have heard people think wool is a lot of work. We have a pair of wool underwear so I have gone through the handwash/lanolizing and it really doesn't seem like a lot of work. Hand wash once/month vs machine wash potentially every day... I actually think wool would be less effort to keep clean. However, it's very expensive. One cover can cost $50! I'd certainly try it if I happened to end up with a cover but I don't think I'm likely to put out the money for them.

So I guess I'm largely undecided but I'd probably explore fitted with non-PUL covers. And if my current kid were out of cloth, I might just go disposable and focus on using far fewer diapers in general by doing more Elimination Communication. Oh, if I did decide to do cloth with a newborn, I'd definitely get a diaper sprayer.

general update on diapers

September 14th, 2010

I think it's time for an update...

My daughter continues to regularly use the potty but doesn't do it all the time so we're still doing the diaper thing. I still don't love cloth. We do, however, love it for night time. We usually use cloth at home but not when we're going out and she might be in a diaper for a long time. Some more random thoughts...

* Not great for the environment
Our diaper usage may be the worst combo for the environment. We're still throwing diapers out (1/day on average but sometimes many a days) but even on days where that doesn't change washing habits. I still have to wash every other day or it requires extra washing cycles. Sometimes I can add in other laundry so then it's ok, but I have done loads on 6 diapers.

* Washing habits
Switched to Rockin Green several months ago after a search through several cloth diaper detergents. Safe for diapers, babies and the environment. Seems to have solved our stink and repelling problems. My washing routine is now rinse cycle, soak for hours (all night), hot wash, extra rinse, dry, dry. (This is far more simple and takes less babysitting than some of the other systems.) I can't fully get rid of the pee smell though. I think I can't skimp on the soak or extra rinses. Oh, we like this detergent well enough that we're using it for most of our laundry now. And for other cleaning things like we just used it to clean our carpet.

* Rash
Almost completely gone. It's been 6 months. The bad rash she got at the beginning was from using a bad detergent (Tide Free) so the enzymes were basically eating her skin whenever the diapers got wet. After that (finally!) got resolved, she still had a rash. It'd clear up after a day or so in disposables. It got worse after any wrinkly kind of diaper like a prefold and is least bad in the morning when she was in a very wet diaper. This lead me to think that was because of the rubbing/pressure and not because she wasn't being changed enough. So prefolds are not options for us, unless trifolded and therefore basically flat. She mostly uses bumGenius All-in-ones. Those are fine and work well at night because we can add a couple of hemp inserts for extra absorbency.

Rant about the common "cloth is cheaper" argument

August 20th, 2010

I'm really tired of reading pro cloth diaper columns that talk about cloth being so much cheaper than disposables. I think it's true, but the numbers they use are ridiculous. Like comparing cloth with the most expensive option possible for disposables. I just read one that said,
"It’s natural to check the prices of an individual cloth diaper and suffer mild sticker shock. When you’re shopping for diapers for the first time, you’ll see one cloth priced around fifteen to twenty dollars as opposed to 20-30 disposables for the same price and think you’re getting the better deal if you buy the latter."

We get the most expensive version of pampers and that's about $40 for 200. (Slightly less as you get bigger sizes and there are fewer diapers in the pack, but we just used a coupon and got a pack for $27 with free delivery.) Anyway, that means that $20 buys about 100 diapers. And if we got kirkland brand or other store brand, it'd be even more diapers for the same as a single premium cloth diaper.

Now, this still may end up meaning that cloth is cheaper. Unless the cloth diapers are only used on 1 kid and the kid is potty trained by a year old, cloth is probably going to be cheaper. It certainly can be cheaper.

I would really like to see the argument formed as:
If you buy the economy sized box of store brand disposable diapers and watch for deals and coupons, disposables will cost about $400 per year. A modest stash of expensive premium cloth diapers is half that-- and will last longer than 1 year.


In other words, if people want to convince me that cloth is cheaper, compare the best deal you can reasonably find for disposables to a relatively luxurious stash of cloth and show me it's still cheaper. /rant