There are so many cloth diapers, so where do you start? To be honest with you , I'm an instant-gratification-amazon-junkie. A mom told me about fuzzibunz and I went to amazon for some one click shopping, put them in my cart and was ready to go. But then, my mother stopped me....
Mom: What are you doing?
Me: Investing in cloth diapers.
Mom: That's great, but what are you doing?
Me: Buying them on Amazon.
Mom: Weeelll, how do you know they will fit?
Me: Uuuuuummmmmm....
Mom: Maybe you should wait until we find a store that sells them.
Me: But mooooom, I want them noooooowww.
Mom: You should wait.
Me: Ok....
So instead of ordering on Amazon I decided I would find out where these things were sold. Some are sold online, some in stores. I found a specific cloth diapering store when I was staying in Iowa and we ventured on. And I am so happy we did, because I got a full tutorial on cloth diapering.
You see, not all babies are made the same, some are small, some are big, some wide, some long. So it really helps to know what kind of baby you have and what kind of diaper you need on them.
When I checked out fuzzibunz at the cloth diapering store they looked ginormous. You see, Hayden is a banana baby, and at that point she was at about the second to fifth percentile. The kid eats and eats and just poops it out! If I bought her those Fuzzibunz, she would have leaked out of them- they were to wide for her long and lean frame. Good thing I had options!
Option 1: Go the traditional route, or as I call it, the old school way- buy the diapers according to weight, get diaper pins which are now called snappi, and a plastic cover. This usually is the cheapest.
Option 2: Bum Genius diapers- closest diapers for a skinny baby i could find. The one I purchased is a one size so it is adjustable from 8-35 lbs.
Option 3: Homemade. The ones I have are also one size which is awesome. These are my favorite!
These options, are for a long and lean baby. I have lots of issues with my daughter because she is very skinny, so she does not fill out much. The traditional route or homemade ones have been the best for us. I also prefer diapers with buttons because I despise velcro. Whenever I throw anything with velcro in the washer or dryer it is a disaster
Taking care of the dirty diapers:
If it is a breastfed only diaper, I either throw it in a bucket or directly in the wash machine. If solids have been introduced I dump that poop in the toilet, then the diaper goes into bucket or wash machine. I fill the bucket with standing water and then add Shaklee's H2 all purpose cleaner or Shaklee's Basic G which keeps anything from smelling funky.
When my load is ready I have all my diapers in the wash machine. I do a rinse only load in cold water first to make sure all the poop is gone and does not stain. Then the wash load with the detergent in hot warm.
When you go to wash your diapers you need to have a natural, non toxic, fragrence free detergent. It is not only better for your baby and the earth, but better for the diaper. I use Shaklee's fresh laundry concentrate. It is cheaper than Tide and it does 224 loads! If you need to get stains out try Shaklee's Nature bright laundry booster and stain remover. This is also natural and will not harm your baby nor your diapers.
And thats it. A lot of people hang dry their cloth diapers because it helps preserve the diaper but I really don't have the time of day for that, especially since I live in a humid climate. If you can find a cloth diapering store near you I encourage you to try it out!
Diaper brands:
Econobum
Fuzzibunz
Bumgenious
Sunbaby
G diaper
GroVia
Rumperooz
Thirsties
Happy Heiny
and tons more!
Always here to answer any questions!
No comments:
Post a Comment