Cloth Diapering 101: Day to Day

Now that you know about the basic types of diapers and how much you need in your stash, lets talk about the day to day.  You know, how to use them and what to do with them on a day to day basis.  Since I am speaking of my own experience, I will mainly be discussing the use of flats with covers.

You start by preparing your diapers for use.  All diapers need pre-washed.  Different types of diapers require different types of prep.  For our flats, they had to be washed about 5 times.  For our FLIP inserts and covers, they only needed a single wash.  Once you have them all washed, they (flats) need to be folded. This is how I do it.

If you take a close look at a flat diaper, after you've washed it the dimensions aren't quite squared.  There is a folded edge (seam) or a flat edge (no seam).  

For smaller babies, you can fold the diaper seam to seam (makes it a little shorter).  Once a baby grows a little you can fold flat edge to flat edge to make the diaper a little longer.  BUT since Annie is still small, we fold seam to seam.

 



 Now that my diaper is all folded, it's time to put it on the baby! (or in this case... a little kitty).

 

 

 

 

So here is my flat (right) and my diaper cover (Flip brand).



You simply lay the flat in the cover.




 (side note: Many of you, like me, might get the urge to start singing "soft kitty."  it's ok, sing away!)
Lay the baby on the diaper like so.... and fold it up to her tummy and such like you would a regular diaper!




99% of our diapers have snap closures, but you can get them in hook and loop (velcro), so I just snap it to fit and you're done!  See, this diaper even fits this little kitty!

Now, you may be asking... what do you do with the dirty diaper when you change the baby? Well, that's easy.  If the diaper is just wet, you remove the flat (providing the cover is still dry) and throw it in the pail!  No rinsing.  If the diaper is dirty... you take it off (sometimes the cover can be reused but most of the time it gets diryy too) and you throw it in the pail.  I will cover a little more detail in my laundering post, but for babies that are exclusively breastfed (no formula or solid foods) - there is no rinsing required.  Breast milk poo is water soluble... so it will wash out!  No pretreatment.  You may think "Ugh. that's gross."  But trust me...its fine!

Now, I'm not sure what formula fed babies poo is like, so rinsing may be required...you'll have to do some reading on that one.

If your baby eats solids, then the consistency of the poo changes and will need to be rinsed out before going into the pail.  You can do this a number of ways, but you can take a spatula dedicated to poo scraping and scrape it into the toilet, you can dunk your diaper in the toilet, or you can get a fancy diaper sprayer that hooks to the toilet (Like THIS one or THIS one)... and just spray it off!  Annie isnt eating solids, but we plan to do the diaper sprayer method!  Once you have rinsed it, just throw the wet diaper in the pail and you're done!

Again, I would change baby every three hours or so, depending on their sensitivity!


Annie's hiney isnt a fan of moisture, so we keep baby powder on her bottom (the kind with cornstarch, not talc) and she never gets red!  Sometimes when she has a nasty stinky it'll irritate her bottom.  We've put creams on her (Note: most diaper creams like desitin, aveeno, etc are not ok for use on cloth diapers!!  Be sure to research what creams are ok to use!), but cream = moisture... so when she does get red, we keep powder on her and are sure to bathe her and the redness goes away within a few changes!

Out and About:
When you're out and about, you follow the same protocol regarding diaper changing, but instead of the pail, you just place your dirty diaper in the wet bag.  If your baby is exclusively eating breast milk, you just dump the diapers into your pail when you get home.  If not, you will have to do some rinsing.

Any questions?



Next Post: Laundering