How Do You Fold your Flats?

I am taking part in the Second Annual Flats and Handwashing Challenge hosted by Dirty Diaper Laundry.  For 7 days I will be using only flat cloth diapers and handwashing them in an effort to prove that cloth diapering can be affordable and accessible to all.  You can learn more about the rules and why this challenge was started by visiting the announcement post.  This year there are over 450 participants from all over the world! 

Padfolded flats ready for tomorrow!

How do you fold your flats?  Me?  I'm mostly padfolding.  Why?  Because my mom and hubby don't want to deal with complicated folds.  For the hubby, I put the padfolded flats into pocket diapers - he won't use the Flips.  For my mom. who watches Addie while I'm working, I just padfold them for her to put into the Flip covers.

Once I get home from work, I have tried a diaper bag fold and a kite fold.  I'm not going to lie, putting on the Boingos is challenging when you have a squirmy 8 month old on your changing table - especially when you're new at it.  So far, I'm finding the Snappi more convenient as I have yet to get a good hold with the Boingos and still hold up the middle of the diaper.  It tends to fall out on me - and of course that is a MAJOR problem!  No middle diaper = no coverage in the wet zone.  I'm hoping that by the end of the week I can try out some more folds and master the Boingos.  I want my little girl to run around in the cute tie dyed diapers without a cover!

Diaper drawer!

Just in case there is someone who doesn't know, a padfolded flat is basically a flat folded down to a rectangular shaped insert.  Essentially you fold the flat into quarters and then trifold it.  You can flare out one end a bit to have more coverage in the bum area.

Padfolding is a lot more absorbent than I expected.  I am highly considering replacing the microfiber inserts for my pockets with my flats after the challenge is over!

The Basic Supplies - Cloth Diapering with Flats

I am taking part in the Second Annual Flats and Handwashing Challenge hosted by Dirty Diaper Laundry. For 7 days I will be using only flat cloth diapers and handwashing them in an effort to prove that cloth diapering can be affordable and accessible to all. You can learn more about the rules and why this challenge was started by visiting the announcement post. This year there are over 450 participants from all over the world!


One of the neat things about the Flats & Handwashing Challenge is that it was initiated to show low income families that they can cloth diaper for very little money, instead of reusing disposables and having to buy more every month. While I am using some things that I don't necessarily need, like the pocket diapers for my husband to use and my diaper sprayer, I am trying to also use items that can be pretty easy for the general public to buy.

My supplies and their approximate costs:  

Diapers

Seven flour sack towels, five of which are from Wal-Mart and two that were old kitchen towels being re-purposed. Cost - $4.38

Four receiving blankets that were purchased at Goodwill. Two are regular sized and two are extra large - essentially just longer than normal. Cost - $4

Microfleece liners - I have a handful of these and use them to provide a stay-dry liner between my little one's bum and her diaper. Cost - $5

Covers - Flip Covers. Today we went through three of them because Addie pooped in two and the other was her overnight diaper. Cost - $14 each I also am using a wool cover for nights. I actually did not pay anything for this cover because I won it on Facebook from 123 Cloth Me. Pockets - Yesterday we used 5 BumGenius 4.0 pockets stuffed with flats, because Daddy only uses Pockets & AIOs. I am not including the cost here because this is not a necessary item.

Wipes - I am using cloth wipes with a homemade solution. You can find my solution recipe on a previous post. I use Bumkins flannel wipes and baby wash clothes. I have 4 dozen wipes total costing about $20 total. Handwashing daily, I only use a dozen max, so you could get away with about $7 worth.

Fasteners - A boingo and snappi, cost about $11 for both  

Washing Set-up

Diaper Sprayer - Again, this is not necessary to cloth diaper but it sure comes in handy with those peanut butter poos. I have a Blueberry Flo Sprayer. They retail around $43.

Washer - I am using a 5 gallon bucket and my plunger. The bucket is repurposed as it used to hold salt for our saltwater fish tank. I did not buy a separate plunger; I am using the one that we already had.

Detergent - The detergents I am using are the random samples I have laying around, most of which I got for free at the Great Cloth Diaper Change in my Swag Bag. The rest were freebies that were sent with Diapers I had ordered.

Drying - My diapers are being dried on a tiered drying rack that we have had for years. I can't find the exact model I own, but it seems like most of them are around $25-$30.

So if I add up the values of the necessary items I am using, the cost comes to about $97.50. Now this doesn't include the cost of the detergent, bucket, or plunger because most people will have something laying around they can use for these. Considering the fact that you can buy less expensive covers, or even make them, this isn't so bad. I spent almost $300 on disposables by the time my little one was five months old (averaging $60 each month) I do not feel that a little under $100 on cloth diapers is that big of a reach.  For less than the average family spends in two months on disposables, they could cloth diaper their baby through potty training.

Handwashing!? Are you Crazy?

I guess I am!

For anyone who didn't read the other day, I am taking part in the Second Annual Flats and Handwashing Challenge hosted by Dirty Diaper Laundry. For 7 days I will be using only flat cloth diapers and handwashing them in an effort to prove that cloth diapering can be affordable and accessible to all. You can learn more about the rules and why this challenge was started by visiting the announcement post. This year there are over 450 participants from all over the world!

As I write this, I have yet to wash my diapers for tonight, but they are soaking.  And in the spirit of experimentation, I did handwash a load on Saturday and it did not really take that long.

So why I am I doing the challenge?  Well first of all, I thought the history behind the challenge was pretty cool.  Since switching to cloth I have realized how gross disposable diapers are.  I can't imagine having to reuse them because I couldn't afford to buy new ones.  So it's cool to show others that you can cloth diaper for very little money.

The second reason?  I had never tried flats before and thought it would be fun to give it a try!  I even spent the time tie dyeing some of them over the weekend to make things more interesting.  I was able to dye five flats and a t-shirt for my little girl and had a lot of fun doing it.  Here's a few pictures of my dye job.  I am looking forward to letting my baby wear these on her bum!

Day 1 my little girl wore pockets (namely BumGenius 4.0s) stuffed with padfolded flats because Daddy was home with her and he won't use anything but pockets and AIOs.  She is currently sleeping in an extra large receiving blanket that was padfolded and put inside a Flip cover.  She is wearing a pair of woolies over the top.

Well I suppose I should stop procrastinating and wash my diapers!  I'll be back tomorrow with an update after day two.

Flats and Handwashing Challenge...Ready or Not, Here I Come!

And right now that is leaning more towards the not....

The Second Annual Flats and Handwashing Challenge starts on Monday.  While I am excited to have a full week devoted to flats, I am a bit nervous at the same time.  I decided to do the challenge because I have never used flats and I think it would be nice for Addie to run around cover-less when its triple digits here  in the summer.  But because I'm new to flats, the challenge is a bit scary too.  Finding out which folds will work best for us might be interesting.

Oh and not to mention, I haven't even told my hubby or mom, who is my daycare provider, that I'm doing this.  I plan on padfolding/stuffing pockets for them.  And I'm pretty sure they would think I'm crazy if I told them I was handwashing my diapers.

In regards to the supplies, I guess I'm mostly ready.  I don't have any real flats.  I have about seven flour sack towels and four receiving blankets.  I have the five gallon bucket and detergent, and of course, I have the covers I need.  What I don't have is a plunger.  I guess I'll have to pick one up tomorrow to drill holes in.  Really I guess the lack of plunger is what makes up the majority of not being ready.

I did some trial runs this week to try to figure out a night diaper.  I had success with padfolding a standard receiving blanket with a microfiber doubler inside of it.  I also tried padfolding a flour sack into an origami fold with a wool cover.  That one didn't work, everything was wet in the morning.  I would like to try to only use flats, so I am going to try padfolding the extra-large receiving blankets (They are the same width but longer and rectangular, which will provide extra layers) into a Flip cover followed by the wool.  We'll see how it works.

So ready or not, here I come!  I will make sure I am ready by Monday!

Wipe Away!

Cloth wipes.  If you use cloth diapers, you might as well use them too.  After all, it is no fun picking disposable wipes pieces out of the aplix in your diapers.  Sound complicated?  Nope, it definitely is not.

So what do you use?  There are a lot of different brands of wipes out there made out of a lot of different materials.  My favorite?  Single-layer flannel wipes are the most similar to disposables.  Bumkins flannel wipes are not very expensive, about $7 per dozen.  They maybe aren't the cutest wipes, as they are a natural tan, but the rainbow serging helps make up for the lack of prints.  They are soft and the serging holds up great.  For people used to disposable wipes, I would definitely recommend the Bumkins.

And now for the solution.  I have heard of some moms that just use plain water, or water with a little baby soap.  I use a variation on that.  And I like my variation because it not only gets baby's bum clean, it also uses coconut oil for slight diaper rash prevention.

I don't really have an exact recipe.  I mix my solution in an empty baby wash bottle (9 oz).  I put in three squirts of baby wash, like California Baby (or one squirt of Dr. Bronners Castile Soap), a three second pour of coconut oil (should be about the same amount as the baby wash), and 3 drops of Tea Tree Oil.  Then, I fill up the rest of the bottle with hot, purified water.  Shake, and dump over the wipes.  Let it sit for about 20 minutes and ring any excess solution out of the wipes.  Store it in your mixing bottle to use next time, or put it in a mini spray bottle for the diaper bag.

Why hot, purified water, you ask?  I actually use reverse osmosis water, but distilled would work also.  Basically, you want it purified to help get any sediments or bacteria out.  The water I use is actually also boiled first.  It comes from the RO system into a water heater used to make tea, so the temperature is usually around 160 degrees.  You also want hot water to make sure the coconut oil is in liquid form instead of solid.  Oh and the tea tree oil should help prevent future bacteria growth.

I store my wipes in a disposable wipes container and fold them so they pop up.  I found the Huggies containers work well for this.  More on the folding some other day.  With the recipe above, I find I can make about 20 wipes or so and not need to wring out excess solution.

So, cloth wipes anyone?  I like these because they clean my baby's bum quite well and I can also use them to wash her face and hands without worrying too much about her ingesting a lot of chemicals.  Yes, there might be some, depending on what baby soap you use, but at least I have more control over what's going on her bum - I know exactly what is in the solution.

So, are you ready to get wiping?

Review: BumGenius 4.0 Pockets

Addie at about 6 months in an Eiffel Tower from the Artist Series

My first cloth diaper review!  The first group of diapers I purchased were from CottonBabies.  This was mostly due to their 30 day money back guarantee since I was concerned about the transition from disposables to cloth.  The first pocket diaper I came into contact with was their 4.0s and I have found that I really do like pockets for their convenience.  They are great diapers for people who are considering using cloth, but don't want to lose the convenience that disposable diapers give them.

BumGenius 4.0s are a One-Size pocket diaper that is listed to fit from 7-35 pounds and up. The front of the diaper snaps down to adjust the rise for a small, medium, or large setting.  They come with both a one-size microfiber insert that is three layers as well as a two-layer newborn microfiber insert. The inner of the diaper is suede cloth and there is flap covering the back of the pocket, so your baby won't  be exposed to any PUL from the outer.  They currently come in 15 colors and 2 prints in both Aplix (hook & loop) or Snap options.

Pros: The one-size insert has a snap down setting on it to adjust for the different lengths.  There are small, medium, and large settings.  The small makes it the same length as the newborn insert.  It is a bit difficult to see the snaps, but a photo of the newborn and one size insert is to the right.  The snaps are on the bottom of portion of the insert in the picture shown.  I love that the insert snaps down because I don't have to worry about it unfolding while stuffing the diaper or putting it on.

These diapers fit my daughter very well.  With the one-size insert, these are pretty trim diapers.  This was important to me since I used disposables until my daughter was about five months old.

The variety of colors.  There are enough colors for you to have one to match just about any outfit.

The snaps on these diapers are pretty strong.  I do not have problems with the snaps on the rise setting coming undone like I do on other one-size diapers I own.

The pocket on these diapers is fairly wide and they are easy to stuff.  The PUL is not as sticky as other diapers, which adds to the ease.

Cons: The aplix on these diapers is not super strong and fuzzies get stuck in it fairly easily.  While the diaper does have laundry tabs, they are only useful while your aplix stays put.  These diapers have been used for about 3 months and the aplix needs to be cleaned out or replaced already. 

My only other complaint is also about the aplix.  I wished it matched the diaper.  It's not a huge deal, but matching aplix just makes the diapers look a bit nicer.

Overall, I really like these diapers.  They are not too expensive and fit my daughter very well.  With the one-size insert they are fairly trim, as you can see in the Dazzle Addie is wearing (on right, 7 months).   With all of the other insert options available, you can customize the diaper to fit your needs.  I enjoy these diapers and would not mind adding a few more to my stash.

***These diapers were purchased by me and not provided free for this review.  I am not affiliated in any way with CottonBabies and wrote this review for informational purpose of my readers only***

My New Laundry Routine

We do a lot of laundry around here.  Between my husbands work and school uniforms, regular clothes, Army Uniforms, my clothes, and our daughter's clothes I feel like I'm doing it constantly.  And laundry detergent is not exactly cheap.  You pay about $18 for the big container of Tide and it would only last about a month.  I figured there had to be a way to do laundry and not spend as much on the process.

A few years ago, I saved a bit of money by replacing dryer sheets with "homemade" dryer sheets.  I bought a 3 pack of washcloths at the dollar store.  Then I took my favorite liquid fabric softener and mixed it half and half in a spray bottle.  Spray on the washcloth and throw in the dryer.  One bottle of fabric softener lasted about a year.

But I wanted to do more.  So I looked up homemade laundry detergents.  There were actually quite a few different recipes out there.  I picked the easiest one.  The recipe is below:

Powdered Laundry Detergent

1 cup washing soda
1 cup Borax
1 grated bar of castile soap

Mix all ingredients in a food processor and store in a covered container.  Use 1-2 Tbsp per load of laundry.

The washing soda and Borax are about $4 a box and you can get a 3 pack of castile soap for about $3.50 at Wal-Mart.  All of the ingredients cost less than one large jug of Tide and will last much longer.  You can use any bar soap you want, but in the effort to be more green, I chose a natural one.

The new laundry routine consists of 1 Tbsp detergent, 1 Tbsp OxyClean and a Downy ball filled to the XL line with Vinegar.  The vinegar works as a fabric softener/static reducer.  And no, your clothes will not smell like vinegar.  The smell will go away as the clothes dry.

If you prefer not to use vinegar, you can use the dryer sheet idea mentioned above.  And if you want to add fragrance to your detergent, you can add a few drops of essential oil to it and mix it in.

So that's my new, green laundry routine.