Any other Cloth Diapering families?

[Livinzoo]

I use green mountain diaper prefolds, snappis and Thirsties duo covers. I love it. My daughter is 9.5 months old. I just got some rock n green detergent. Seems to work good.

 

[dewey]

I haven't read all the posts but my 2nd born wore cloth-only from birth on for comfort's sake, even though it was totally frowned upon at that time and most folks thought I was nuts, lol. I never used covers and never had any issues...I just doubled up as needed and changed every single time. It was a little more work but worth it to me for my baby's comfort.

 

[Mattemma]

I used cloth most times with my little ones. Had some motherease,various covers,and some homemade *pad* like dipes that were used before they crawled.Also tried natural cotton dispose dipes. I always found a lot of dipe covers and baby slings looking new at resale shops. I think a lot of people buy stuff,but it just doesn't work out for one reason or another.

I did buy some wahm dipes for a while but gave up on those since they fell apart pretty fast.Just keep shopping till you find good stuff,and read those reviews.Diaper sewing patterns are online if you are good at making stuff.

Enjoy your little one!

 

[YooperK]

We used cloth with our son, now almost 5. Kept it simple, prefolds with some flats (best for traveling IMO, since they dry the fastest) and Bummi's super whisper wrap covers. We used both Snappis and diaper pins to close. After poops were coming less frequently, I switched almost exclusively to a couple of wool covers (wool "shorties" and "longies") I made at home out of old sweaters. The wool has the advantage of being more breathable, but you can't put it and a damp dipe in compression (like in a car seat) or the pee will wick through to the outside clothes.

We used homemade wipes that were one side flannel, one side thin terry, and a pump pot (like for coffee) to hold water next to the changing table (which was the top of a dresser....

)

Even later (around 8 months), we started practicing elimination communication. DS was doing pretty well by about a year, and totally out of dipes by 18 months.

With our next baby (hopefully in the next year or so), we plan to use EC right from the start. Seems to me that *all* diapers have a pretty hefty environmental impact, compared to no diapers. So, we'll use dipes when we need to, do our best to hit the potty, and try to keep sane about the inevitable misses!

 

[krcote]

Our little bun is still in the oven, but we are planning on g-diapers.

 

[JustPeachy]

I'm really interested in this elimination communication, how do you go about doing that? I mean, do you have the diapers off or what, otherwise how would you know when s/he is going? So far the fuzzi bunz perfect size are my favorites! Lots of people who thought I was crazy while I was pregnant for wanting to go cloth are now surprised when they see how cute the colors/patterns are. Everyone really makes it out to be so disgusting and its really not. But I am also breastfeeding, which a lot of these same people didn't/dont plan to do, so eh... they just wanna raise their babies differently than I do, doesn't make my way gross, but I have to say, I wish they weren't so negative, especially when most had never used cloth diapers themselves.

 

[Southernbelle]

I did Elimination Communication with my 3rd, aka Natural Infant Hygeine. It's not really "training" them or anything. I choose to raise my children with attachment parenting including breastfeeding, co-sleeping, cloth diapering and baby wearing. As an attached parent, I know my child intuitively. I knew when my babies were happy, sad, hungry, tired, bored, uncomfortable, etc. For instance, you learn to read small, non-verbal cues to know when they're hungry - a certain sound, rooting on my chest, trying to eat their hands, etc. You tune into the baby's cues and you think back to the baby's last nursing to conclude they're probably hungry, so you feed the baby.

Learning when they need to go to the bathroom is similar to that. You tune into the baby's body language combined with knowing the last time they peed to know they need to pee. Once you get into the rhythm of EC with your baby, you can associate a sound with the act which cues your baby it's time to go. I would hold my daughter and make a sssss sound, and she would go.

Even with the sucess we had with EC, I always kept her in a cloth diaper for back-up. I still had to change wet diapers during the day when I'd miss her cues or if she went down for an unexpected nap, I wanted her protected. By the time she was 8 months old and mobile, she didn't want to stop what she was doing to potty anymore. She started to fight with me, so I felt the best thing to do was not pursue it, so she went from an EC baby to a cloth diapered baby.

All in all, it was an eye-opening experience about the abilities of infants, but it is time consuming and it's difficult to do unless all the baby's caregivers are on-board with it. A good book on it is Diaper Free: The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene by Ingrid Bauer

 

[YooperK]

Quote:
I don't know if I would say our EC experience was any more time consuming than changing and washing diapers, but then again, we didn't start from birth. I guess it could be harder if your baby has different caregivers - my husband and I cared for our son tag-team while we were in grad school.

Diaper-Free is the book I was going to recommend, too. With our son, we started just part-time. Most babies need to pee immediately after they wake up, so we took him to the toilet after naps and in the morning. Right away, we were catching all his poops (the cues were much easier to read) and pretty soon we caught a lot of pees too. After a few months (so, about a year old) we were only using a couple of dipes a day. When we were going most days on the same dipe (at 18 months) we just bit the bullet and switched to underpants. Still had an occasional accident, but no big deal. Better than putting on diapers everyday!

Mostly, we used a "backup" diaper, but often with no cover on while at home. We didn't stress out if we missed a pee or whatever. I think that's probably really important for long-term success. Not being casual about it could definitely turn potty-time into a power struggle, which is, I think, the opposite of what you're trying to achieve.

Previously mentioned son desires to add some smiles to this post.

 

[Runt Of The Litter]

Quote:
if they were successful,that is a good skill to have!

the chilled out cat is also a advertising point there,but am terribly biased for the lazy buggers.

ever thought about making them for extra money on somewhere like ebay? there are probably plenty of parents who woud love to get nappies [UK term for diaper] that were designed by a parent,obviously depends on interest/time/cost of material vs cost to sell etc but it coud make some extra cash to spend on the children/kitteh.
sister has decided she is not going back to her job but wants to work from home so she can dedicate time to the baby and make money towards her bills,she is thinking about making baby clothes and one off/custom handbags for ebay as they look awesome but she has issues with getting the material she needs cheap enough to be worth it.

as for nappies/diapers,sister was originaly going to use the washable terry towel types but said it woud cost a lot more in water and electricity bills , her baby is six months old and she is still experimenting with different brands of the disposeable types at the moment-she is prefering the supermarkets own branded ones as opposed to pampers due to price but says they all differ in quality.

My grandma gets mad at my cousins who have kids because they are 2 years old and not potty trained.

she sounds like jo 'supernanny' frost.

all children develop at a different speed and if look into it will see even three years old is not uncommon to still need them.

am twenty seven and still need protection due to not being able to feel the need to go toilet unless its at pressure point,they also make nappies for babies/toddlers but these are mine:
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/645/imga0119.jpg
abena abri flex [strongest absorbancy] -these ones are pullups,and on the other side are tena slip maxi-nappy/taped,prefer tena flex to slip as flex uses velcro instead of tape so its easier to open without ripping the nappy or losing the sticky off the tape.

councils in the UK [well,in some boroughs including tihs one] actualy give pregnant mothers a free pack of the washable/reuseable terry towel type which is pretty awesome,surprised they dont do it everywhere as it woud save on landfill-thats something which americas and the UKs governments strongly go on about.​

 

[twinklemama]

I absolutely love cloth diapers. My son never gets diaper rashes from them unlike disposables.