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.