Cloth diapering-Day 1

Good morning!

Sooo... Yesterday was my first day of cloth diapering Jordan from wake-up to bedtime. (It was also the grand arrival day of Tooth Number 5, so I got to HOLD that squirming, squealing fluffy butt all day!)

I am going to be honest here and say I was tempted at times to just throw a disposable on him. But I didn't. I know once I get going and figure out what kind of diapers to use, it will get easier.

One difficulty I didn't even think about was the added frequency of changing. I KNEW I would have to change more often but man! my son pees a LOT! Yesterday was a poo-free day, so at least I was spared that, but I was doing a lot of changing. And he HATES diaper changes, so he's always trying to roll away and he's complaining the whole time.

Another difficulty is just my lack of stash. I currently have a set of 12 TOTALLY CRAPPY Gerber pre-folds (and Snappis, which I'm not great at using yet but the results were better than when I tried to use pins!), then I have an all-in-one that I won on a blog giveaway but I think it's too tight around his thighs, and it always seems to leak. I have one Bum Genius 3.0, one Tiny Tush, Three contoured diapers (one bamboo fleece, one 2 ply hemp and one 4 ply hemp) with cute PUL covers from someone on etsy, three other etsy diapers, and then I have a fleece soaker, a set of wool longies and an Imse Vimse PUL cover that I haven't tried yet.

So, not really a lot to work with. Plus, the one AIO diaper is too tight and a couple others are too big. I'm finding that Jordan has chunky thighs, but a small waist, so I'm going to have to figure out what works. Even using the size charts, I have ordered the wrong size a couple times. However, it's wrong on the large side, so I'll just wait for him to grow into them.

So far, I prefer velcro to snaps, probably because I can adjust the waist more specifically, but I can't seem to keep the velcro from sticking to everything in the wash. It's VERY annoying, and I'm afraid it's going to tear up my diapers!

And then there's the matter of drying! I got some wool dryer balls from etsy and some plastic ones at Wal-mart to help dry these things, and i got a drying rack and set it up for the PUL covers, because I heard they should hang dry. I did my load of diapers last night after J went to bed, and I put the liners in the dryer and the covers on the rack before bed, and this morning it's like I just pulled them out of the washer. I keep putting them back in the dryer. I even put the covers in the dryer because they were still wet.

I am expecting two more diapers and a wool soaker in the mail, and then after I try those and get a little more acquainted with what I have, I will be getting some more of what works for me, except I can't get too many because I've already spent almost $200! (Of course, that's including the dryer balls and rack, which will be used for things other than diapers, so that's good.)

I'm also talking to someone on diaperswappers about buying a used diaper sprayer because my one incident with cloth diaper poo taught me that rinsing in the sink is utterly nasty, and being able to spray it into the toilet would be a MUCH more sanitary option!

I also need to get some lanolin and some sort of wash to treat the longies I got. Ugh, I guess I maybe need a poo spatula too.

So, I'm going to keep plugging along and hope it gets easier. I kind of found it to be a pain in the butt yesterday, but that's to be expected when I don't really know what I'm doing yet!

Here's a couple shots of my fluffy butt boy!