Comments on: Adventures in Cloth Diapering

By: Milehimama

Milehimama — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 14:55:19 +0000

She’s not potty trained but I think it was just a fluke – bladder capacity. Her brother has polyuria, which is so much urine there’s a medical name for it and she follows his tendencies with high BP, etc. even though she never got an official dx of polyuria.

Thanks for the tip though. I did indeed make my own although right now I’m using All Free and Clear, and I have a bottle of Purex Free on my shelf, too.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 12:49:01 +0000

Your baby may be pottytrained by now, but I was going to say that the detergent you use to wash the diapers can affect the absorbency of them. Here is a website with star ratings on many different detergents. I know you probably make your own, and I honestly don’t know which recipes would work best on cloth (I bet google does). I have used cloth, and my favorite detergent so far is Purex Free and Clear, you use so little, I had a bottle last me 6 months, and it only cost about $6 at Target. I only used it for the diapers, no other clothing.

Here’s the link:

http://pinstripesandpolkadots.com/detergentchoices.htm

By: Becky

Becky — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:30:48 +0000

I only do cloth part time with my foster daughter. I use prefolds (I think indian I got them as seconds) and motherease covers. I tried quite a few covers and these were the only ones that seems to work because I could adjust both legs and waist. Also are you using a snappi or pins or just laying in the cover, snapping might contain things better. My foster daughter floods things too. Right now she’s 2 1/2 very close to potty training but the only other thing that will hold her is pampers not the store brands.

By: Milehimama

Milehimama — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 03:58:45 +0000

Mary, I haven’t tried them yet, Ali’s still a little too small! They’re mediums.

By: Lerin

Lerin — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:19:48 +0000

I am using cloth diapers full-time this time… I use BumGenius. It is also for $$$ purposes, but I could claim I’m being “green” to be much cooler in certain circles. I’m not having any trouble with leaking, not yet anyway!

By: Mary Alice

Mary Alice — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:58:02 +0000

Have you tried the “g” diapers I sent you?
You should be able to find more inserts at Kroger. I used them when my baby had a bad rash-they’re flushable and biodegradable for compost piles.

By: Peggy

Peggy — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:57:26 +0000

I have heard that using homemade laundry soap can lead to soap residue build-up on cloth diapers, and less absorbency, and that it’s best to use a cheap scent-free powdered detergent–just a small amount per load. But other people have said that the homemade soap works fine for them.

My little guy gets his cloth diapers soaking wet, too.

By: LucyT

LucyT — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:41:04 +0000

I just wanted to say that baby is beautiful.I only have five living children and do not cloth diaper so I can’t help in that area.I cloth diapered my third baby for about oh a half hour.I used duck tape instead of pins.I think that says it all.

By: Milehimama

Milehimama — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:50:21 +0000

I bought them on eBay, but they were new. The other homemade diapers I used for my 2 yo for a while. I wash them in homemade laundry soap (Zote, washing soda, borax) and I’ve tried vinegar in the rinse or just a plain rinse.

I soak overnight in laundry soap + water, then finish the cycle in the AM. Then I run it again on “light wash” with nothing added, just plain water (or sometimes white vinegar). Dry in dryer.

I think she’s just… prodigious. Her brother had high blood pressure and polyuria (lotsa pee); Alli has the high blood pressure but not the polyuria dx. But all of her bodily fluids are, um, forceful. From all ends, KWIM? LOL!

By: Millie

Millie — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:38:09 +0000

How are you laundering the dipes? Some laundry detergents can affect the absorbancy as will any fabric softener. Also I’ve heard of needing to ‘strip’ the diapers using something like Dawn dish soap. Possibly since you got them pre-owned they need the stripping.
I love cloth diapers. We do about 90% cloth here even though we are still using the laundromat (washer and dryer will be here Thursday!) it is still so much cheaper and for me better. I have the opposite problem as you. My little guy leaks through the disposables.

By: Milehimama

Milehimama — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:15:20 +0000

She gets changed very often – she poops before she eats, when she switches sides, and after eating, too – and will cry if she’s the tiniest bit dirty, LOL! We go through about 20 diapers a day… which is how I recouped my investment (such that it is) so quickly.

Thanks for the tip though!

By: christy

christy — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:02:09 +0000

They used wool. But I hate the way wool feels on me so I can’t bring myself to use it on the baby. HOwever I went through that stage too and actually started crying. I was so determined to use cloth diapers and she was leaking on everybody. No one outside our family wanted to hold her. I felt like she had the plague.

I use pro-wraps that I got off of e-bay and bumgenius. I love the bumgenius. I use pre-fold with fleece sewn down the middle for the wraps. They work really good, but I have to be careful to change her if I know it might be awhile before I could conveniently change her again. (like at the gymnastics place.)

By: Kelly

Kelly — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:48:47 +0000

I’m on my fourth child in cloth diapers and I like Bummis Super Whisper Wraps for the cover, and chinese prefolds for the inside. It costs more upfront to get the nicer covers (but what I use is by no means the most expensive) but you will be more likely to stick with cloth diapers if you don’t have leaks.

How often are you changing her? I always change within 30 minutes of a feed, then after another 45 minutes or so. No more than 2 hours, or you’ll get leaks, even in the best of cloth systems. I think that’s the hardest part of switching from disposables for most people.

On the other hand, I always change them right before a nap, and found that my babies are dry during naps from a pretty early age. I can put a diaper on them, they’ll take a 2 hour nap, then I nurse, plus 30 minutes for digestion, THEN I change them. My longest time of non-diaper changing in the day.

By: Alias Mother

Alias Mother — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:58:32 +0000

This is so obvious that I apologize for even mentioning it, but are you changing her frequently enough? I found that when my daughter was a newborn, I had to change her every hour or hour-and-a-half. Cloth just can’t take as much liquid as the disposable gels can.

It may be the kind of prefold that you have as well. I found the unbleached Indian prefolds to be much more absorbent than the Chinese bleached. And I hear that the Gerber ones are useless, though I never tried them.

Random thoughts from a completely inexperienced mother of one. So, you know, there’s not much I can teach you. But this…this I have some experience with.