4/21/2011 - Living in Cloth

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...

10/15/2010 - Diaper Soakers for Sale

All 15 soakers

Newborn size soakers

Fits up to about 9 lbs.

Small Size Soakers

Fits up to about 13 lbs.

Small Long size soakers

In Between small and medium.

Medium Size Soakers

Fits up to about 18 pounds.

8/9/2010 - August Days

I can't believe Lily is 8 months old!  Her first birthday will be here before I know it.  She is such a Joy in our lives.  Lily is the best birthday and Christmas present I ever got!  Today is our anniversary and we went out for Thai food.  The owner of the restaurant came over to hold Lily and talk to us for a bit.  She talked about child rearing in her country and how different things are here.  The funny thing is we are already doing some of the things she mentioned.  I wanted to ask her about potty training practices there as we have begun teaching Lily to go on the toilet, but we were out of time.  We had to get home to pick up the kids from VBS.
About 10 days ago we started playing around with EC - Elimination Communication or infant potty training.  It is absolutely amazing to me to see Lily peepee on the toilet.  I never knew that you could really do this...  Of course she still uses diapers but we're using less diapers now that we know about EC.  She still wears mostly cloth diapers and disposables at night.
As for diaper covers, I've learned to knit now so that I can make her wool diaper covers.  They are so soft and comfy.  She seems to like them.  Here is the newest one.  I still need to sew some bigger fleece ones.  Fleece ones are much faster to make than the wool ones.  I like them both.  For fall I'd like to knit her a pair of legwarmers to wear with her diaper covers.

4/17/2010 - April Days

No pictures today but I will put some up soon.  Lily is 4 months old already!  I can't believe how fast it has gone.  I finally finished her baby quilt last weekend.
Cloth diapering is going well.  It's alot easier than I expected.  Now that Lily's getting a bit older, I only have to wash diapers once or twice a week.  They hold up really well and we've had virutally no leaks and only an occasional blowout.  If I known then what I know now, I would have cloth diapered the first two, at least now during the breastfeeding only stage its super easy.   Not sure how things change once you introduce solid food but for now I'm loving it...

8/23/2009 - Having Fun Sewing with Joanie

Well, I couldn't figure out what I did wrong on my first cover, so I cut out new leg cuffs and a new waistband and put it together. 

My first Cover

Unfortunately, I forgot to turn it inside out before I sewed on the first leg cuff.   I quickly realize that and sewed the waistband and the other leg cuff in the right way.   Joanie likes that the first three I made have the polar bears on the butt.
 
Then we realized that we only had blue covers and we thought a pink one would be nice if we have a girl.  I also figured it would be nice to have some size small covers on hand for when Baby outgrows the newborn size covers.  So Joanie and I went to JoAnn's fabric and bought some colorful fleece.  Joanie helped me cut out and assemble 1 more newborn cover in pink and 5 size Small covers in various colors.

Cutting out pieces

Pinning it together

So after cutting out and sewing the parts, Joanie laid them out and played around with what color cuffs should go on which cover.

 

Then she rearranged them again and I got busy sewing them together.  I now have 4 newborn size covers (at the top of the next picture) and 5 small size covers. 

Finished Diaper Covers

I think now I might make some longies to go with them.  Longies are like little sweatpants for Baby.  They take the place of the diaper cover but keep the little legs warm too.

I never got to around to sewing for my other two babies so I've been having fun sewing for this one!

8/15/2009 - Making Diaper Soakers

So we're planning on using cloth diapers with this child, at least in the beginning while he or she is breastfed.  Now I've been trying to figure out what to do for diaper covers (soakers).  When you use cloth, you have a basic diaper and then a cover over the diaper which is often called a soaker.
Right now I'm experimenting with Katrina's Soaker pattern.  I've only made one newborn size so far and something's not quite right, the waistband and leg bands seem too small for the body of the soaker.

So now I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong.  This one is supposed to be a fleece soaker.  Maybe I'll just cut longer waist and leg bands and try that.