A Few Less Diapers

If you have been around our family since we have had Cap you already know we do infant potty training. This is also called Elimination Communication or what we call EC. I will not go into great detail about this since I already have in the past. I am pretty sure you can search it on our blog and all sorts of old post will come up. We are HUGE fans of this method and had Cap in full time undies at 12 months old (not that we didn't have some misses after that, especially in Kenya!)

We started EC'ing with Cap at 4 weeks old. We started with Tuolumne at 6 weeks and 2 days old. Later with her since I was busy with the Great Nap and Bryce obviously had other stuff going on besides potty training a newborn! We started pretty leisurely with it, but had 1 catch every day for 4 or 5 days straight. Then we had a couple of days where we had a couple of catches each day.

Then she started staying dry from about 8 or 8:30pm until 2:00am. I always said I would NOT EC at night! The thought of breastfeeding and taking a kid potty in the middle of the night did not sound at all appealing to me. But waiting for your kid to pee and poop in a diaper so you can change it and go back to sleep seemed more silly to me than putting your less than 2 month old on the potty at 2 am. Make sense?

Here are a few things to note about you Tuolumne:
- you give lots of cues you need to go unlike Cap who went more on timing
- if you are in a good deep sleep, you will always wake up dry
- if you are squirming and uncomfortable while sleeping you will be wet
- you like getting kisses after you go in the potty
- sometimes you take awhile to go, Cap would go quick

We still clean lots of diapers, and she doesn't go every time she is on the potty! We are just in the beginning stages of communicating with each other. As a bonus, even though our cloth diapering system is easy, I still love having 1 less diaper to clean!

Missed Pictures and Updates

I think I forgot to post a few from our little gathering. I couldn't find them on the blog, but may be I just keep overlooking them?? Who knows? Did I mention that I am pregnant and might have lost my mind a little?

On another note completely, I wanted to share a funny nighttime story with Cap.

One night, Cap and I were reading our usual Jesus stories. We were reading again about how God made EVERYTHING...birds, the sky, trees, mom, dad, etc. Then we put on our pj's and we were about to pray and Cap said something about his penis. I said what? Not understanding what he was saying. He said it again. Still not knowing, I said your penis itches? He said it once more and this time I understood. He was saying God made my penis too. Very straight faced I said yes he did make your penis. Then he said and he made my bum crack too. And of course, he is using his hands showing just exactly what God made. It was too cute! He ended it with telling me God made his cheeks:)

We have been really enjoying the weather and being able to play in our backyard so much! Cap could spend hours outside by himself digging and moving dirt and rocks from place A to place B. I LOVE that we live in a house with a fenced backyard! What a blessing! Yesterday I was wearing a skirt and today the feel like temperature at its warmest hour will be -4 degrees...yes minus. We will be back in the 50s and 60s by Thursday. 

Almost 2 weeks ago, I decided Cap needed to be in undies at night. Every morning when I would take his diaper off I would say something like, "Wow, you are wet!". And then he would spend minutes trying to convince that NO he was dry. One of the many reasons I don't like disposable diapers! It would be silly to use 1 cloth diaper a day though, so we have been using 1 disposable a day since he was about 17 months old. 

So back to no more diapers. It is not working at all. The first night was our best night. Barely wet in the morning, and a lot more morning pees than usual. Then it has gone down hill since then. We have been really playing it up about wearing his tractor undies to bed and not a diaper. He knows he gets a donut in the morning if he is dry. We cut liquids early, eat early, and I am at a lost to what to do next. I am doing lots of laundry. I don't want to go back to diapers though. I want to commit to it. He is in his bed at night anywhere from 12 to 13 hours. It is a long time to stay dry, but I just think he can do it. Any thoughts or advice? Neither one of our families has a bed wetting history. He is almost 25 months old and rarely has accidents during the day for months now. Dry at naps. Anything else???

Well, back to watching the snow. This woman is not going outside today!!! 

Cloth on Your Babies Bum

There are a million cloth diaper systems out there. After finding out we were pregnant with Cap my search began for the right cloth system out there for our family. As I read and read and read online, I eventually came across some info about Infant Potty Training. I am so thankful I did, because it helped me decide on which diapers to go with. 

We stuck to 100% cotton. They make a lot of cloth systems that will pull away the moisture just like a pamper would. We didn't want that. When Cap wet or soiled himself, we wanted him to know it from the beginning. We didn't want him to loose the feeling of relieving himself. We wanted to go with his natural instincts, so we chose cotton. 

It also was a very simple and cost effective decision. Other diapers can cost you $20 per diaper. In the long run, even $20 a diaper is still better than a 2-3 year pamper system. Our diapers estimated to be $30/dozen so $2.50 each. Then we bought 9 covers total (2 different sizes) for about $13 each. It was a great way to do it, and all the way below I break down what we spent total on our diapering system.

We ordered everything we needed from Green Mountain Diapers which you can find online. I will tell you right now, it is an overwhelming site, but very thorough. She has experience and has tried just about it all out there. It is a great resource but don't get overloaded. After reading her suggestions and comments under the things she sales, I was able to make some decisions on what we would use. Every thing I list below can be found on her site. If you have trouble locating it, let me know and I will send a direct link. 

Cloth-eez Prefold Diapers:
We used unbleached and started with 2 dozen and went to 3 dozen shortly after. We mostly did wash every other day with the diapers. There was a time when we had 2 dozen where we did it one morning on day 1 and at night on day 2. So every day in a half kind of. That much wash is only for a season. I had a friend who waited longer sometimes 4-5 days and she just soaked them in water. Soaking is NOT necessary otherwise. We did that WAY later on because we weren't dirtying as much so we just didn't need to wash them, but they smelt so bad so soaking them in plain water helped. 

I would suggest ordering at least 2 dozen in the next size up so you have some ready when they grow out of them. You will be surprised how sometimes they just wake up and something doesn't fit!   

Thirsties Duo Snap Covers:

This in my opinion would be reason enough to use cloth diapers! The covers are so cute. Cap never wore shorts his first summer, and rarely wore pants in the winter. I made him some fleece leg warmers instead. It is WAY easier to EC when you don't have to take off pants, shorts, unbutton outfits, etc. Even on some of his onsies, we would cut the bottoms off and make into shirts. 

Anyways, getting back on track we used the Thristies Duo Snap Covers. I am not a fan of velcro. It sticks to things in the wash and your baby will easily undo velcro one day with possibly dirty diaper! 

They come in 2 sizes. Cap didn't need size 2 until he was 4 months, but he was a big baby. He moved to the medium prefolds then and we used them till the end. Never needed a size bigger since we did early potty training.  

We had 5 covers of size 1. May be 4 on the size 2. Occasionally they will get a little dirty on the elastic edge, but we would just rinse it in the sink and reuse. We only washed covers once a week. These are also nice to have a couple of the next size up on. We needed them when we hit the medium prefolds.  

Wipes:

We used the 2 sided wipes. LOVED LOVED LOVED THESE!!! We never even used a wipe until Kenya when Cap was 14 months old and holy cow what a difference. With these you don't feel like you are touching poop or like your finger is going to pop through at any moment! If you are going to wash some diapers, you might as well wash the wipes too. This will also help keep all the yucky stuff off your sweet babies bum that the wet wipes are covered in. Babies skin can be very sensitive. 

Kissaluvs Diaper Lotion Potion Spray: 

We just sprayed the bum rather than any of the other suggestions and it worked great with us. We used the spray bottles she suggest as well. You mix this stuff with witch hazel, and she said to use less potion than what the bottle calls for. We did what she says and it worked perfect. Not to mention, we only bought one bottle, and still have tons left. Of course, it helped we did most of our poo's in the potty by 7 months old.

Fasteners:

We used the snappis fasteners. Those do eventually break so good to have backups. We didn't know this:) We had some big safety pins made for cloth diapers, but we never once used them. The snappis were just so quick and easy.

The Pail Diaper Sprayer: 

A MUST have in my opinion. We used a gift card. It was our splurge but we LOVED it. They make these whole pail systems, but I don't think they are necessary. The sprayer is awesome though.  

Wet Bags:

You need several of these unless you plan on going through a lot of plastic bags, which in my opinion would kind of go against one of the main reasons of cloth diapering:) You will want a couple of big ones and several diaper bag size ones. In NC, it takes a FULL day to dry out after washing which is why you need multiple bags. Here in CO, things dry must faster, but I would still recommend 2 big ones, and 2-3 small ones. 

We used a Fuzzibunz Large bag that my sweet sister in law gave us when Cap was born. I really could have used 2 of these. Then we had a medium size and a small size of the Thirsties zip bags that we loved!! I would suggest the medium sized ones for your diaper bags. The small was too small but I had ordered it first.

Total Cost Estimate of what we spent:
1 dozen newborn prefolds              $24
3 dozen small prefolds                 $84
2 dozen medium prefolds               $64
5 dozen wipes                            $55
Lotion Potion                             $8
Spray Bottles                            $3
Diaper Sprayer                          $50 (have seen now for $35)
Large Wet Bag                          $20
Medium Wet Bag                        $15
Small Wet Bag                          $12

Total                                $335

We used gift/baby shower money for most of this. We have very sweet family and friends!!! No matter how you pay for your cloth system, you will be saving TONS of money in the long run!!!

Okay, I know this was probably overwhelming but don't let it be! We didn't do pampers until Kenya and we were so glad we didn't! We enjoyed our cloth ones MUCH MORE!!!

Let me know if you have any questions.