How to Cloth Diaper

Everyone does it differently, but there are so many bad stigmas that deal with cloth diapering that I thought I would address them, and show you what my day consists of.

First of all, lets address the following issues:

Pins? No! Bleach buckets? Absolutely not.

Cloth diapers now have snaps or Velcro. If you wanted to buy the type that don't have these options then you could buy what's called a Snappi.

Bleach is bad for the fabrics and can break them down quickly. It's also not good for your baby's skin.

When it's time to change my daughter's diapers, it's basically like every disposable diaper that I've changed. Except that it's snaps instead of tabs. Instead of commercial wipes, I use cloth wipes. My wipes are just cut up fleece. I use fleece instead of flannel, because I feel like they keep their soft-ness, which is important to me.

Anyway, spray the wipe with wipe solution, Zany Zebra has some great recipes for making your own from home! (I'll share mine a little later.) I find that it's helpful to spray the bum and the wipe, so that both are wet. :)

After you put your baby in a new diaper, what do you do with the old one??

You buy or make what is called a Wet Bag. It's a bag with a layer of PUL in it (waterproof material.) I add a few Arm & Hammer Deodorant Disks to the bottom to keep it from stinking. Most people also have a travel wet bag, so that when they are out and about they have somewhere to put the dirty diapers. I have personally made a travel wet bag, it was pretty easy as well. I'll have to post a tutorial on that soon!

Laundry day! What do you do?

Alright, I'll be honest with you all. I don't like cleaning up poop. Shocking, right? Isn't that why people cloth diaper, the love of poop? I have a whole station for my cloth diapering washing.

It includes:
A pair of rubber gloves.
An empty gallon ice cream bucket
A stool
A diaper sprayer.
A diaper sprayer?

My husband took a kitchen sink sprayer and hooked it up to our toilet so that I don't have to scrub out the yucky diapers. The total was about $15. You can buy one as well, but they are much more expensive.

Want to learn how to make your own? Here's a tutorial!

Once all the poopy diapers are clean I just throw them in the washing machine, and I wash them in the following way:
1. Cold Prewash with Bac-Out (helps with smells and stains.)
2. Cold Wash cycle with Mountain Green detergent.
3. Hot Wash cycle with rinse with Rockin Green, so everything smells pretty. (Keeps my husband from complaining.)

No fabric softener. Sounds like a lot of detergent, right? Nope! Mountain Green and Rockin Green only require you to put in 1 tablespoon of detergent! And yes, it gets them clean! Most cloth diaper companies tell you to only use 1/4 of amount of soap that most detergents tell you to use!

I then hang the diaper covers up to dry and dry all the inserts in the dryer. I had a large enough stash to only have to do laundry every 3 days.