Cloth diapering update

So I "officially" started cloth diapering Sammy on January 16. That means that we've been going at this for almost a month now. Wow! If I hadn't looked at the calendar to figure that out (because we all know I have no concept of what number day it is around here), I would have guessed that I'd been cloth diapering for MONTHS now! Possibly even a year!

I don't mean that in a bad way (well, not entirely, at least). I just feel like we're running through them quickly and then hey! It's time to do diaper laundry again! This has been a good thing though because laundry is one of my areas of weakness. (Don't look so shocked.) And you would think that this would be such an easy task since a MACHINE does all of the work for me. But that machine is so efficient! It dings and then I forget about it and a few days later when I go to do another load of laundry, I find that I never quite got around to emptying those towels out of the washer.... ew. So at least with the (near constant) washing of diapers, it has kept me more on my toes about cycling the wash around. It tends to get washed, dried, folded, and put away faster than before.

I have not come up with some stellar alternate plan of air-drying the diapers since the last time we talked about this. That little rack is so perfectly sized for the amount of diapers and inserts that I wash that I can't bring my (lazy) self to do anything else. So the dogs have to be surrounded by clean laundry while they sleep! Tough life! I'm sure they will learn to deal.

We solved the nighttime leaking issues by putting one of his disposable pee pads in his diaper at night, just like we used to with his disposable diapers, and we haven't had a leaking issue since.

Sam used to have a lot of irritation and rashes down in his nether regions (sorry future Sammy, or are we calling you Samuel now?) when wearing disposables, and while we made sure to keep dry diapers on him and apply ointments and creams, it never cleared up. Finally, FINALLY, we have some relief. He has made a 100% improvement in that department and I truly believe it was the chemicals in the disposable diapers that were causing his skin irritations.

I don't know if it's Sam's stage in life or what, but I am not finding a diaper sprayer to be necessary. Forgive the graphic nature of this sentence, but I find his poops so well-formed that they literally just fall right off the diaper and into the toilet. Of course, you must have some cat-like reflexes to avoid being hit by the splash of the turdlets (sadly, big pregnant ladies are not known for their quick reflexes). I have only had to employ the spatula two or three times, and those have all been since he started on his antibiotic this past week, so I'm obviously blaming the medicine for those particular BM's.

So this cloth diapering thing has been no big deal so far. I highly recommend it! And Cotton Babies is still running the sale where I initially stocked up on Sam's diapers, making each diaper approximately $11.96. Quite the steal when you see that they are usually selling for about $20 a pop. I noticed that they only have hook and loop diapers left on sale, and I can't speak for those since I purchased all snap diapers. So proceed with caution! Do a little research! Leave a comment or email me if you've got any questions about our cloth diapering experience so far!

**Unfortunately, no one compensated me to write this post or gave me free diapers, or even discounted diapers, and Cotton Babies has no clue who I am. I'm just hoping that if you're interested in cloth diapering that you might check them out and see what they've got, and maybe the stuff on clearance will work for you. I'm all about clearance, baby.**