Cloth Diapering! Is this for Me or Not for Me?

This can be a very difficult decision to make, since there are so many pressures and options to choose from out there. We have demands and pressures on our time, cleanliness, money, and also different styles, preferences, and lifestyles, etc. Things can get really overwhelming.

I hadn't thought a lot about cloth diapering before my baby was born, or until I started to run out of the disposable diapers people had gotten me at showers, etc.

I mentioned earlier, I had a mother who cloth diapered 7 children using flats and pre-folds, or even old shirts at times, and cleaned them out in the toilet. This really didn't sound like something I wanted to do since I had been sick a lot of my pregnancy, and after my baby was born I was recovering from the delivery. I was busy trying to figure out how to balance all the new demands of being a mother, with the demands of marriage, as well as how to get my personal needs and wants met.  

However, I wasn't aware of how much things had changed over the years in the cloth diapering industry, and it seems many of my family and friends hadn't either, since I only received flats, pre-folds, and disposable diapers from them at showers and such.

Once I started looking into doing cloth diapering though, I quickly realized there were many different ways to choose to cloth diaper my baby. It is great how cloth diapers have evolved overtime to meet more of our modern day demands, but it is really hard to decide what option will suit a persons needs best.

At first I was looking for an alternative to disposable diapers, as a way to save money, and my time. I wanted a diaper that didn't leak, and didn't take a lot of time to clean up when it was used.

I was tired of getting poop or pee on things, and then having to take time cleaning up the baby, myself, clothes, bedding, etc, to keep things sanitary in my house and prevent staining, etc.

Later, I learned more about the health advantages to my baby by using cloth diapers, which helped keep me going. As well as my desire to care for the environment. It was still tough at first though.

What was hard about starting to cloth diaper verses using disposables for me:

Money
Time
Health

I felt a lot of anxiety and pressure because I only had a certain amount of money I wanted to spend on cloth diapers. Since I wanted to make sure I was really saving money by using them I wanted to like what I got. I wanted diapers that didn't leaked and wouldn't take a lot of time to clean and were as sanitary as possible to clean and use.

Since there are so many different types and brands of cloth diapers available now, this was quite a challenge, especially where I couldn't find any off line to look at, etc.

In later posts I will share more about what I discovered from using cloth diapers that would save money, time, etc. Thanks for reading :) Until next diaper engineering time.

How do you make diapering more Sanitary, especially Cloth Diapering?

For me, sanitation became a key concern, when I talked to one of my older sisters about cloth diapering, and she told me her son had gotten a really bad yeast infection when she tried cloth diapering. She seemed to have had such a bad experience, I was worried something like it might happen to me.

She said what happened to her was probably because she wasn't able to wash the diapers as often as she should have. She was only able to wash them once a week. 

Now, I would be able to wash mine more regularly then her, but what she told me really got me concerned.  I mean I would be putting pooped and peed on things in my washer regularly. The thought of that started troubling me, so I got looking up ways to sanitize my laundry. It's amazing what a little education can do. These are some of the things I learned:

*Some diapers can be harder to wash and sanitize because:

                 

         -The materials they are made of will get ruined by washing them in hot water or using cleaning additives or disinfectants on them 

*Some diapers are naturally easier to keep sanitized, because:

         -The materials they are made of are naturally antimicrobial, antibacterial, anti-fungal, and antistatic, such as Bamboo is claimed to be. 

        

        -or the materials they are made of can withstand a hot wash, and the use of cleaning additives or disinfectants.

*There are many natural, even inexpensive ways to sanitize your washer, diapers, and other clothes, etc. Such as:

      -Lemon Juice with Baking Soda (used on different cycles) I add these to my white batch of clothes. I added the baking soda at the first and lemon juice during the rinse. 

      -White Vinegar with Baking Soda (used on different cycles- one at first and one during rinse) I like to use this with my towels and socks. 

     -Melaleuca Oil (or Lavender, Orange, etc) This is what I use in my cloth diaper batch for right now. I put it in a spray bottle with water and then spray some in the washer, but it can be added directly into the water in the washer, just be careful not to directly get it on clothes, unless you know it is safe to. 

I get my oil from http://www.melaleuca.com/ProductStore/ProductSubCategory.aspx?id=65. 

If you want to know about getting a discount you can look at my other blog at http://behomeyou.blogspot.com/ or just let me know on this blog. The Melaleuca company also has other environmentally friendly wellness products you can look at on the Melaleuca link above.

    -Sunning your diapers can help disinfect them as well as whiten stains. 

Thanks!

What do you like to do? Any innovative ideas for sanitizing?

Keeping the Mess in, then Getting the Mess Out when Cloth Diapering

This subject was one of my main reasons for starting this blog.

I definitely appreciate that cloth diapers keep in the mess much better then disposable diapers, at least  in my case that is how it has been.

However, I don't appreciate it when the mess gets all over inside the diaper. So what can be done to make cloth diapering less work to clean up when there is a mess?


Back in the day when my Mom was cloth diapering, she rinsed them out in the toilet. I have to say that she is a saint, and it now makes more sense why she isn't as sharp as she use to be, after 7 children.

Cleaning diapers out in the toilet is a very time consuming and quite messy way of cleaning out diapers, but one could still do this if they really wanted to or had no other options. But thank goodness, for most of us, we do have options.


Personally, I want cleaning out a diaper to be the least amount of work and mess as possible. Many people are very busy, and that is why cloth diapering has been an issue for them. They may simply just not want to deal with the mess in a diaper.  I can't blame them, before I had my baby I felt really sick and so the thought of dealing with cleaning out messy diapers was not appealing at all. So, how can cloth diapering be less work and mess?

Options:

*Many people use a sprayer to clean out diapers. This is a type of mini-shower that connects to the toilet and the diapers are sprayed off in the toilet before going in to a diaper pail. I've had to rinse out some diapers in my experience of cloth diapering, and I personally don't like having a sopping wet diaper sitting around until I can wash it.

*Diaper liners are another option for dealing with dirty diapers.

-There are cloth liners, which are usually fleece, because it helps wick moisture away from the baby, helping him or her to feel dry. Fleece is also quite easy to wash out when messed on. It also doesn't
fray. A liner can be easily made by finding something fleece or polyester and cutting it into the shape desired. I've made some of my own liners to use, like this:

One thing with these kinds of liners, is that they don't exactly make cleaning up any easier or less messy because they are cloth, but they do wash well.

-There are also many disposable liners out there. But from what I have seen they are all pretty similar, looking a lot like this (with a little variation in size, thickness, texture, and possibly shape):

I have found that these liners bunch up and do not keep the inside of the diaper completely covered, and where they can be some what thin, the mess can still get through onto the inside of the diaper. They can make clean up a little less messy, but it still can be pretty messy using just these.

- There are some pretty good Disposable Inserts available. These are probably more for people who want to use something less harsh on the environment and their baby's health than disposables, but regularly using these wouldn't really save money. So for people who are cloth diapering to save money using these regularly might not be a good option. The kind I use and really like are the GroVia Inserts, which look like this:

These work really well in keeping the mess in the diaper, and making it very easy to get the mess out. If it leaks at all inside the diaper, the clean up is minimal usually.

Now for some Innovative Ideas:

I have been experimenting with several ideas for liners. They are still in the development stage, so there's still plenty of improvement to be made on them. For now I am simply going to share some pictures of things I am using to experiment with more details will come later in a movie post I hope.

Thanks :)

Feel free to share any of your own ideas and experiments or experiences. Thanks!

What is Best for You and Your Baby?

There are so many options out there, it can be very challenging to answer this question.

I had been given a variety of disposable diapers at baby showers, so I had an opportunity to use many different kinds before concluding I wanted to try cloth.

There are many brands, as well as different types of diapers even within a brand to choose from. That goes for cloth as well as disposables. It can be quite overwhelming, especially if you are putting quite a bit of a financial investment or commitment into it, like you do when buying cloth diapers.

I just wanted something that:

*didn't leak
*was simple and easy to change, clean up, and sanitize
*and was good for the environment and my baby


After trying several kinds of cloth diapers, I now know more about what I like and don't like about cloth diapering which has made it somewhat easier to diaper, but I still wish there was a perfect diaper.

What would you put on your list or what diapers have worked well for you and your baby(ies)?

Is There a Perfect Diaper?

I don't know if it is even possible to make a perfect diaper? With all the different shapes and sizes of babies, and since each Care Taker's and Baby's needs can be so different, it would be very difficult to have just one diaper that fulfilled everything for everyone. That's why we need a variety to choose from, and it's good we have such a wide variety out there.

The goal of my diaper engineering blog, is to share what has been effective for me in my experiences, and to share ideas for improvement of what is already out there,  to make it easier, less messy, and better for our environment and children.

If in the process even better diapers or diapering systems are created than what already exist, I'd be glad to have helped. Thanks for reading!

Why a Career in Diaper Engineering?

I decided to research and purchase cloth diapers once my disposable diaper stash from baby showers began getting low.

I was really getting tired of having to change my baby's clothes every time she had a bowel movement. Also I was getting tired of having to spend time immediately rinsing her clothes out to try to prevent staining. I figured if something had to be rinsed and washed, it might as well be a diaper and not her clothes. That's one of the big reasons I made the choice to cloth diaper, as well as environmental and health concerns I could not justify though in some ways disposables were more convient. 

Now when I was pregnant I had been really sick and so the thought of cloth diapering didn't seem attractive at all, especially the way my Mom had done it with pins and flats or pre-folds and the toilet.

I still preferred that cloth diapering be as less messy as possible for my sanity's sake, though I am happy to help my baby and the environment be more healthy. So, this is where my diaper engineering career came to be and my creativeness have been able to start blossoming. I hope you will enjoy reading this blog and find ways you can save your sanity and help your baby and the environment as well. Good Luck and far well.

Until next time.

The Diaper Wardrobe

Wondering what to wear is a very common question. As a Care Taker of a child you seem to be considering this question a little more often then normal. Not just because you are getting vomited on, slobbered on, and even pooped or peed on and have to change your clothes more often, but you have to choose what your baby will wear as well, after things like this happen.

Since having a baby, I have wondered about the wardrobes available for babies. Some clothes are really nice and others are really a pain when it comes to wearing and changing diapers.

Innovative Ideas: What do you like, have problems with, make changes to or would change about the diaper wardrobe you have?

Here's my list:

Disposables

*It seems that onesies that snap in the crotch area, especially if they are tight fitting, cause diaper blowouts and leakage. It seems to help a little to have the baby wear a bigger sized diaper but not too oversized. Using pants and skirts with shirts would make less changing of a complete outfit necessary. Diapers that gusset at the top and around the legs work better, for my baby at least. Such as this:

Western Family Cozy Care

Cloth

*There are some onesie outfits that snap around the crotch more like pants than underwear which helps it fit better.

Like this one:

by TKS: The Kids Source

My Diapering Journey's Beginning . . .

The very beginning of my diapering journey began, as many people's do,  at the hospital with disposable diapers. This wasn't a bad beginning, since I had other people helping me with changing the baby's diaper. The hospital also had a secret about diapering, which was to only put the baby in a shirt and a disposable diaper that I didn't realize the wisdom of until later. That dress code of only a shirt and a diaper works much better when cleaning up after a diaper explosion. I learned the hard way that getting a onesie off after a diaper explosion or leak, isn't very fun or sanitary.

Now for a Innovative thought today:
Whoever thought it was a good idea to make a one piece outfit for a baby, where it can only be taken off going over his or her head, never used the exploding and leaking disposable diapers I received at my baby showers.

Therefore, if you are using those kinds of diapers (some of the name brands were the worst in my case), you may want to think more deeply about what you choose to dress your child in, because it would be less mess and work for you to change just the bottom of an outfit then the whole thing, especially if it has to be taken off going over your child's head.

Also, many disposable diapers leak and do not hold up during a diaper explosion, so be aware of which diapers you choose to purchase or use. Some diapers worked at first but eventually didn't hold up as the  baby grew. I found that the Western Family Cozy Care diapers seemed to work best for us, because it has elastic at the top in the back and not just around the legs. 

 *I acknowledge each person and child is different and each kind of diaper works differently for different people. These are just my suggestions based on my experiences. If you have experienced otherwise, please tell us what your suggestions would be? Thank You!  

And In The Beginning . . . . . . . .

There was diapering! 

About 5 months ago I had a baby and though changing diapers was an expected reality of becoming a parent, the reality of dealing with messy, dirty diapers (and clothes) has not been any less inconvenient to deal with.

This is why I've decided to start this blog. To help others, as well as myself, to have less of a mess to clean up when diapering.