When I pregnant with Lily, my husband lost his job. To cut down on expenses, I decided to cloth diaper our baby. I researched it and figured out the least expensive diapers would be flat diapers like my Mother used or prefolds. These diapers are made of cotton so of course you need some kind of covering. My mother used rubber pants.
Nowdays people use either PUL, wool, or fleece. In earlier posts I showed how I've made fleece soakers for diaper covers. They are soft and machine washable, easy to care for and they work well. I've also made wool pants (called Longies) for Lily from sweaters, these are wonderful, especially for night, but they do require more care. Wool has to be washed by hand and lanolized, but you only have to wash every couple of weeks unless the wool gets dirty or starts to leak. I've also used Thirsties Duowraps which are PUL. These are ok but they don't breathe as well and we get more diaper rash with them so I mainly use them if I need a really trim diaper cover under those cute two piece baby outfits she has.
In addition to cloth diapering, we practice Elimination Communication or EC. EC is based on the idea that even little tiny babies know they need to go potty. But in our culture, we teach them to use diapers for their elimination needs. In many countries, diapers are not used and babies learn early to eliminate on cue and then later to signal that they need to eliminate. "Potty Training" as we know it is unheard of in those countries. So I started practicing EC with Lily at 7 months old and after a week, she learned to pee on cue. That doesn't mean she does it all the time or that she doesn't still go in her diapers. But with every trip to the potty, that's one less diaper I have to wash and one more chance for her practice her potty skills. Before she started walking, she was even getting up at night to pee. She was successfully going all night without peeing in her bed or in diapers. Once she started walking and cutting molars, everything changed and nightime potty trips are fewer but that's ok. Lily is perfectly comfortable going potty in public bathrooms or even in parking lots crouched behind a car door.
So between cloth diapering and practicing EC, I have found that we do many things differently than we did with our first two kiddos. For one thing, I dress Lily much differently than I dressed the others. No onesies, they are a pain in the butt to snap over top of a cloth diaper and diaper cover and an even bigger pain in the butt to unsnap in a hurry when you are trying to get a baby on the potty before she pees. This winter Lily has mainly worn fleece or wool Longies paired with a tshirt and sweatshirt. She stayed warm enough without them... Who knew. If I had cloth diapered my first two, I would never have bought all those onesies or two piece outfits. This summer she will mainly wear fleece or wool shorts with a cloth diaper or training underwear underneath and a t'shirt or dress.
Cloth diapering is a little more work than disposable, but not much. Until Lily started eating solid food I didn't have to do anything special with her diapers. You just dumped them all in the washer, did one rinse cycle and then washed on hot and rinsed twice. After starting solids, you have to wash poopy diapers out in the toilet first but that's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. After all I already had to go through washy poopy underwear when the first two went through potty training right? Knowing what I know now, I wish I had cloth diapered the first two. It would have saved us so much money. And even more, I wish I had learned about Elimination Communication when I was pregnant with my first. Many people who start EC right away with a newborn baby are completely out of diapers by the time the baby is one. Lily is 16 months now and I don't see her out of diapers any time soon but sometimes she tells me she needs to go or that she went in her diaper. And even going potty a couple of times a day helps because I can go longer between washing diapers. I am thinking I might just put her in training pants this summer and see how things go.
Well, I've rambled enough for now...
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