The A-Team

Ham in his Super Undies - The Blue Bandit!

Abel sporting his AIO Grovia

Backside shot. Not any bulkier than a disposable! Love it!

Well, today was mixed. I know there is a learning curve so I am going into this knowing it will take me a bit to figure it all out. Not that many of you care, but here is how today went.

I used a Grovia All-in-One  (that I bought on craigslist) with an extra microfiber insert for overnight. Abel is not a heavy wetter at night. This worked FLAWLESSLY! He woke up dry – no leaks! His skin wasn’t terribly wet either! Score 1 for cloth diapering!

Then we began our day. I changed him into a Flip diaper with microfiber stay dry insert. I love aplix/velcro!! I forgot to add the flushable liner to catch the poop. So I quickly fixed that but it had been long enough that I needed to change the insert. So reuse of the cover just new insert along with a liner. We finish breakfast and he poops. Here is the first test run! The flushable liner did okay in catching the poop. There was some staining that went through to the insert. I did realize that I had the insert in wrong – it was upside down as in wrong side facing my dude’s bottom. I fixed that for the next change. This was the last insert I had for the Flip. He goes down for a nap and wakes up with no leaks! He was soaked inside the diaper and the cover was wet too but it never made to his clothes or sheets! Another score for CD’ing!

This time I change him into a Best Bottom diaper with Hemp/Organic cotton insert that snaps in.  Love the fact this diaper has snapped in liners. Keeps them from moving around so much not that I have lots of experience or anything. I decide to take the kids out for lunch today. We went to McD’s (in honor of you mom!) to get some chicken nuggets and free french fries. We get those through the drive-thru and I head over to Subway to get MY lunch. This baby LOVES Subway right now. I get my sandwich and we all sit down to eat inside. 1 hour has elapsed. Munchkin has been drinking and drinking quite a bit. He is HEAVY wetter during the day. I predict I will need to change the liner soon. I check him as we leave and he was actually A Okay! We move on to the next stop: Speedway. Yes, I still drink caffeine. It is either drink a very limited amount of this or take meds that 100% will cause defects to baby OR suffer from ridiculous cluster headaches and basically WANT to die my entire pregnancy….I chose caffeine. Anyway, I digress…I grab a quick drink for me and a refill (G2 gatorade) for the kiddos for AFTER playtime at the park. We now get to the park, this took a whopping 15 minutes from checking him at Subway to walking into the park for play time. We played for probably 30 minutes before he ever felt damp. I was super happy! We went to the car and did a quick change out of the insert and I did change his pants because when I carried him, it made them even wetter. I would have preferred to have changed the diaper cover too but didn’t have any others with me. I am just testing the waters here and not investing LOTS of money…yet.  We go back to playing for another 15 minutes or so and head home. Abel downs nearly 2 sippy cups worth of G2 just on the way home! That kid drinks as badly as his brother! (in quantity only). Maybe if I just gave them water things would slow down….but again I digress. We get home and they play outside while I empty out the car (maybe 10 minutes). We get in the house and I start getting things ready for us to go upstairs to have some quiet time resting from the park…his pants are SOAKED. He drank that much that fast! I foresee water in his future…anyway, we go upstairs and I change him into a Grovia 2-in-1 with an organic cotton soaker with flushable liner. He goes through that one in about 30 minutes. I am beside myself! Thank goodness I decided NOT to put pants on him! It is now naptime…I am SUPER afraid of leakage becauce of how much he has been going and how much he has been drinking. I switch to another Grovia 2-in-1 because I have a total of 4 of those with only 4 soakers. (2 of the diaper covers I got on craigslist, the others I bought as a trial). He had some leaking when he woke but mostly up and out the top. I have noticed this a bunch. The tops of some of the diapers just don’t catch it all. I will have to work on this.  He gets changed after wake-up and by this time and I am to my 2nd to last diaper  cover. Another Grovia 2-in-1. I get him changed with liner. I quickly race to my washing machine and get the other diapers going because I need them! All goes much better for the rest of the evening. He drinking slowed down dramatically which of course means less pee. Since that was the case, life was MUCH easier! No more accidents or leakage! Time for bath. I go to strip him down and take off the diaper….boy was I surprised! I seriously had ZERO clue that this little turkey had pooped a 2nd time! It wasn’t a clean poop either. It was a messy, messy, messy diaper. The flushable liner….didn’t really help with this. Sure it caught some of this poop but it was EVERYWHERE. All over the insert, the diaper cover, and him. I get it all cleaned off him and just stash the nasty diaper and insert in my bathroom sink until I can deal with it. I get the kids bathed and ready for stories. I bide some time with a few minutes of a show with singing (Abel’s favorite and ONLY thing that will keep his attention for any amount of time – Ham will watch ANYTHING). I quickly run downstairs and throw my last 2 diapers in the wash. The others I already washed where thankfully dry and ready to use…kinda. The inserts were ready but the cover/shells have to be hung to dry. They were still wet/damp. I still had one more diaper cover upstairs to use and several inserts (3 that are specific for overnight usage). Abel was in my last Grovia 2-in-1 with a Best Bottom overnight insert thrown in (I had no Grovia inserts and no Best Bottom cover, I improvised!) I will let you know how that works out!

I check on my “dirty” laundry and see that the insert that was poop stained is still poop stained (not too bad) but noticeable. Aaron will definitely NOT like that. I feel defeated most of the evening and think CD’ing is not for me but I come across LOTS of people that have staining and letting the insert dry in the SUN will take the stain right out! Hmm. What do I have to lose? Icky but clean insert went into a ziploc with water to keep it wet overnight and tomorrow before church I will be setting it outside to dry on my deck or porch. I shall let you know how that experiment goes.

Recap: Cloth diapering is not for the faint of heart. I despise the very idea of dunking/swishing or even spraying poop off of a diaper. That is why I was so excited about flushable liners! Well, they are a bit of a disappointment with not so solid poop.

You do have to change diapers frequently! But if you read the packages of disposables, you are supposed to change those every 2 hours! I sure didn’t do that!

I think I might look into fleece liners as those are supposed easier to remove poop from and protect baby’s skin and your diaper from staining. They aren’t expensive….plus I can surely find some rogue fleece around here and try it for FREE!

I also think I might go down the road of a pocket diaper. All the ones I have been using are Hybrids. They have the cover with an insert that lays right up next to his skin. They are used primarily for people who buy the disposable insert (not liner). You get to feel good about using a “disposable” diaper but without the environmental impact (inserts are compostable, flushable or just plain tossable and they will break down in about 150 days versus 500 years for regular disposables that have plastic in them (huggies/pampers and the like). Anyway, a pocket diaper has the “shell” or cover and has a pocket (didn’t see that coming, right?) that you stuff with an insert. The cool thing is there is a nice soft liner that touches baby’s skin and wicks away the moisture. You can stuff with WHATEVER you want. You find what works for you and go! It is fairly similar to a disposable diaper routine. You grab a pocket diaper that has been stuffed and put it on baby! Simple as that. Time for a change? Remove pocket diaper, put in wet bag or whatever for laundry, clean up baby if needed, put on new pocket diaper that was stuffed. No switching inserts, wiping out shells/covers, no “airing out” between changes, etc…

Wow this is a really long post. Sorry. I am sure that 99.9% of will care absolutely NOT for this journey I am on but all pregnancies bring on some sort of obsession and this is mine…for the time being.

I started down this road in search of a washable pull-up for Abraham at night only. I needed something that would really keep him dry but not be something I had to go to the store and buy repeatedly. When he was wearing pull-ups, he would wake 1 to 3 times a night and demand a NEW one if it was wet! That was getting VERY expensive. With his Super Undies that we found, he does great. He doesn’t wake often and if he does, he never asks for new undies and should he wake due to the urge to go, he can go without any problems (it isn’t a diaper, they are underwear!). We had such great success with these (after trial and error) that I just know cloth diapering will be awesome, once I get the hang of it. Well, enough of this. I think the boys are just ADORABLE in these cloth diapers/undies!!!

But oh, didn’t we have so much FUN today!!!

Ham at the park

Taters at the park

And just for the record, I was absolutely beat when I finally told the kids we were leaving. I did exercise this morning and then chased after Abel and little bit of Ham the WHOLE time at the park. It was very tiring especially pregnant. And now look at me, it is midnight, I have church in the morning, what am I doing? Posting to my blog! Geez. Good night everyone!