Accidentally Crunchy: Cloth Diaper Edition: Part 2

I posted here about why we cloth diaper, but I would feel remiss if I didn't throw my two cents about how we diaper out into Internet-land with the 29,472,819,473 other blogs about how to cloth diaper. I read so many of them when we were researching and planning our cloth adventure and so many were really helpful. If I can help another mama, I'm going to!

These are all the actual items we use, right down to the patterns on the bags!

First and foremost: It is not as hard as you'd think, nor as gross {due in part to your idea of "gross" evolving after you have a kid}, nor as time consuming.

We use Bum Genius 4.0 Pockets with snaps {not Velcro, because I read that it wears out too fast}. That means that the absorbent, microfiber liner gets stuffed inside the diaper and you change it like you would a disposable diaper. They are also one-size, so the same diapers will last him until potty training. {Then we can reuse them all when we have another baby down the road!} I don't mess around with prefolds and covers and snappis or pins or anything. I just don't have the time patience to deal with all that, and I doubt daycare would be on board if that were our style of cloth.

So here is our current routine {our original routine was even easier, but then O's diet changed from breastmilk only to solids+breastmilk and the poops changed too}

1. Take dirty diaper off the baby.
2. Throw wet diapers in the wet-bag.
2.5 If there is poop, set the diaper aside until baby is changed.
3. Wipe the baby's butt and throw wipes into the trash.
4. Put a clean diaper on the baby.
5. Throw actual poops into the toilet and the diaper in the wet-bag*

Boom. Done.

*We use Mio Liners in the diapers, which catch the poop and can be flushed. We tried going without and just rinsing the diapers in the toilet but it was just too big of a pain in the butt.

See! Not really that hard at all! If you felt like step 3 was too much, you could try cloth wipes and then they can be tossed right in with the dirty diapers. I don't mind the extra step so I stick with the disposable wipes.

Now, the wash/dry/stuff routine that is specific to my HE washer:
1. Take the wet-bag to the washing machine and turn it inside out into the washer, tossing the bag in as well. {Note the lack of touching any actual dirty diapers in this step}
2. Run a "rinse and spin" with "water plus" feature selected.
3. Then, {the gross part} open the washer and un-stuff any diapers that didn't un-stuff themselves during the rinse cycle. I say the gross part because they are rinsed at this point but not clean. So, they aren't visually gross, but they smell dirty. We un-stuff at this point because the spin cycles during the wash will just send anything left still stuffed into a little ball inside the diaper and I just don't feel like that gets them clean, even though they come out of that situation looking and smelling clean. Maybe I'm being crazy.
4. Run a "normal wash" cycle with the extra settings as follows: hot, soil level heavy, extra rinse. I use a splash {about a fourth of the recommended amount for HE washers according to the soap cap} of Ecos Free & Clear detergent. {We landed on this detergent from the list of cloth diaper friendly detergents because it was cheap and available at Target, rather than having to order online. We use it on the diapers and all our other laundry}
5. Pull the diapers out and hang to dry, toss the absorbent liners {we just use the microfiber ones that came with the diapers} and the wet bag in the dryer.
6. When everything is dry, leave them in the middle of the living room floor for a few days, picking out one diaper at a time as needed  stuff the liners into the diapers and put them in the drawer of the changing table.
7. Sometimes we add a Mio liner to each diaper as we put them in the drawer, but sometimes we do that during a diaper change. We are still tweaking this part of the routine since it is fairly new.

That's it. Really.

Ok, so I realize the wash routine has a lot of steps. But they really only seem like a lot of steps when they're written out. Plus, it's not like I have to sit and watch them wash for an hour. ;)

We are lucky to have our laundry room just off the family room in the basement, so we can easily do laundry as we watch TV or play with O.

Like I mentioned above, when O's poo changed from breastmilk poop to real poop we had to adjust our routine, but once we found those Mio liners we were set. They're cheap, I buy them at Target.com with my red card so I always get free shipping, and we just lay them on the diaper between his butt and the diaper itself. It takes 2 seconds.{Our routine before O was on solids was just tossing everything in the wet-bag. Breastfed baby poo is totally water soluble and washes out no problem in the washing machine}

Another thing I want to mention: our wet bags rock. They totally contain the smell of the dirty diapers. Our big one that hangs on the side of the changing table is Planet Wise, as is the smaller one {with separate clean and dirty diaper zippered pockets} that we send to daycare. In the diaper bag we have a smaller Itzy Ritzy bag. EVERY mom should have a wet bag in the diaper bag. I have used the smaller bags to toss wet swimsuits in, drool or spit up soaked shirts, etc. They are wonderful.


So, I hope this chapter of my crunchy life opens your eyes a little to how cloth really works these days. I know I had some misconceptions about it, and I know lots of other people do, too.

Look at that fluffy butt! I can't even stand the cuteness!

-H