Vintage Childhood is moving!

I've gotten my own domain! From now on, Vintage Childhood can be found at http://www.clothadventures.com/. If you were wondering where I've been for the last week or so, I've been working on moving everything over to the new domain. Ok, actually, my husband has been moving it over for me (I would have no idea how on my own), and I've been managing. This move allows much more customizability for me, and there will be an option to share to Facebook and Twitter!
Thanks for bearing with me!

The Ease of Cloth Wipes

I did not plan on using cloth wipes when I began my search for cloth diapers. My primary motivation for using cloth diapers was (and still is) saving money, and I really didn't see that using disposable wipes would be that expensive. A friend had told me that her family had gone through less than a Costco case of disposable wipes in her daughter's first 11 months. I had no frame of reference for that comment, so I just assumed that was normal. If so, that was about $20 for wipes for one year, which didn't make cloth wipes seem like an economical option to me. Now that I'm four and a half months into parenthood, I have no idea how on earth my friend stretched those wipes so far. Obviously, my daughter is far messier than hers was. We are halfway through our second case of wipes, and we primarily ended up using cloth wipes after all.

Ultimately, we switched to cloth wipes for convenience, not financial reasons. Although I do think cloth wipes will ultimately be cheaper, it ended up being a pain to have to sort dirty wipes from dirty diapers at a diaper change. All parents know that, regardless of cloth or disposable diapers, when you change a dirty diaper, you wrap the dirty wipes up inside. If you're using cloth diapers with disposable wipes, you can't really do this. You have to sort the wipes into the trash can and the diapers into the diaper pail. This goes against a parent's natural instinct. Many is the time that I have fished shredded and partially disintegrated disposable wipes from the interior of my washing machine after a load of diapers. It's gross and inconvenient. If you use cloth wipes, you can stick the wipes inside the diaper and throw them both in the diaper pail, without having to try to remember to put the wipes in the garbage. I know this seems like it shouldn't be a big deal, but after fishing for the tenth disposable wipe in my washing machine, I realized it was. Twenty dollars later (the cost of a case of wipes from Costco), I have enough cloth wipes for full-time use, and it's so much more convenient. As a surprise bonus, I typically only use one or two wipes per poopy diaper. With dispoables, the typical poopy diaper took around five to six wipes. And those cloth wipes will last basically forever, which is much better than having to shell out $20 every three months.

What Is the Best Kind of Cloth Diaper?

This is the question I was trying to find an answer to when I first started researching cloth. The trouble, and what I wish I would have known, is that there is no real answer to this question because cloth diapers are highly personal. It would be like asking, "What is the best kind of underwear?" The answer completely depends on the circumstances, which can change at any time. I wear different underwear to work out than I do to go shopping, for example. The same is true for cloth diapers. Not only is each baby different with different needs, but babies' needs change throughout the day and change even more as they grow.

If you're new to cloth, there will be a learning curve as you figure out what works for you and your child and when it works. If you're waiting on a new baby, you can't possibly prepare a perfect stash of cloth diapers that will be ready when the baby comes. You can't know which quirks your baby will have that make using cloth exciting. Each baby is so unique, and that's what I didn't fully understand before my daughter was born.

Here are some of my daughter's quirks that have affected how we cloth diaper that we couldn't have known about before she was born:

• She has skinny legs relative to her size
• She's tall, and therefore long in the rise
• As a newborn, she hated feeling wet for even a moment
• She eats more, and consequently pees more than average babies her age
• She has fairly sensitive skin
• She's bigger than 93% of babies her age, and therefore blows through sizes much faster than we anticipated

Your baby will have his own set of quirks that affect your cloth system. The absolute best thing you can do to prepare is to have a large variety of diapers. Don't buy all one kind. If I could start over at the beginning, this is what I would change. 

What's On Your Changing Table?

The changing table may seem unglamorous, but when you have a baby, it's a crucial center of life's daily activity. I spend approximately five minutes at the changing table about 12 times a day. I had never thought about it, but that's a whole hour of my day spent at the changing table! In fact, the changing table is possibly the tidiest corner of my house, and now I realize why it's so important to have it orderly and well-stocked with all of our most important items. Here is what is in and on our changing table:

• Baskets of diapers organized by type: all-in-ones on top, then prefolds, then pockets and inserts
• Behind the baskets, there are spare Gerber prefolds and spare inserts
• A diaper pail
• An extra bag of disposable wipes in case we run out of cloth wipes before diaper day
• A roll of flushable diaper liners, which I have never actually used

On the top:

• Changing table pad with no fabric cover because I prefer to be able just to wipe it off
• A stuffed bunny to distract my daughter during changes (decreases the wiggle factor significantly)
• A Gerber prefold to catch urine if she decides to go during a change
• A bottle of hand sanitizer
• A bulb syringe
• Shea butter lotion
• MotherLove Diaper Rash & Thrush diaper ointment
• An old Huggies wipes tub with cloth wipes inside
• Kissaluvs Diaper Lotion Potion
• Diaper pins
• Snappi

I plan to discuss some of these items in more detail in future posts, so stay tuned!

Babywearing: How I Got My Life Back

It doesn't get much more old-school than babywearing; the practice has been around since the creation of textiles. In its simplest form, mamas use a piece of cloth, similar to a scarf, to tie their babies to their bodies. It's been a traditional method of baby care in Africa, Asia, and South America for hundreds, if not thousands of years. For some reason, it's only recently been introduced to Europeans, though Native Americans and Mexicans have known about it for centuries. Sadly, most baby carriers on the market in America are, at best, fairly uncomfortable for both mom and baby.

There are tons of internet babywearing gurus out there who will tell you all about how wonderful it is for child development, and it really is fairly convincing to me. I, however, don't do it because of all the amazing developmental benefits. I do it because it helps me function in everyday life. I can do laundry, clean the kitchen, or whatever without having to stop every five minutes because someone is throwing a clingy fit.

And really, this is why moms have been babywearing for thousands of years. When you need to get your work done, and you can't afford a nanny, this is a fabulous alternative. I know exactly where my daughter is, I can respond to her needs quickly, and I can pay attention to my work. If she falls asleep, I can hear and feel her breathing, so there's no need for a baby monitor. Yesterday I did 5 loads of laundry and tidied up the bathroom with my daughter on my back. Before I threw her up there, she had been cranky and fussy, and refusing to nap. I put her on my back, and within 3 minutes she had settled down. Within 30 minutes, she had fallen asleep. And I got my laundry done (No, it wasn't diapers; for some reason, she never minds when I do that load). At the end of the day, I had a small puddle of drool at the back of my neck, a clean house, and freshly laundered clothes. What's not to like about this scenario?

The Unexpected Tragedy of my Lost Snappi

I love diaper pins, as I've mentioned before. I love that they're simple and effective, and they hold the diaper in place without putting anything restricting across the waist or down the crotch. Now that my daughter is starting to sit up, I'm loving prefolds and pins because they leave her waist unrestricted, and it makes it easier for her to sit. Having said that, I lost our only Snappi just over a week ago, and it was much harder to survive without it than I thought it would be. I don't even know how many times I ended up reaching for an all-in-one because I didn't want to have to wrestle my daughter down to use pins on a prefold. I also discovered that, while pins are fine with the cheap Gerber prefolds, they are really hard to poke all the way through our higher quality, thicker Green Mountain Diapers prefolds. I ended up using a lot more Gerber prefolds and a lot less of the GMDs, which meant I ended up changing her diaper a bit more often.
I broke down and bought a new Snappi today- red, instead of mint. I used it the rest of the day, and it was like being reunited with an old friend.

Pail Liners and Wet Bags

If you're using a dry pail, it's really nice to have a washable, waterproof pail liner. The best ones are made out of PUL (polyurethane laminate), which is the same material that makes most diapers waterproof. Some are made out of nylon, but those aren't worth your money. When you're ready to wash your diapers, you just pull the bag out of your pail and use it as a sort of glove to push your diapers into the washer, turning it inside out as you do it. That way you never have to touch the dirty diapers that have been sitting in the pail for a day or two, and the dry exterior of the bag is all you ever touch. With the nylon bags, you can feel the wetness of the urine from the outside of the bag as you push the diapers into the washer. So, although the nylon bag keeps the diaper pail from collecting puddles, it doesn't protect your hand from having to touch urine. I have one of each style, and I hate the nylon bag. My Wahmies bag is awesome, and I love that my hands stay clean and dry. It's the liner in the picture, and you can see the nice elastic edge that keeps it so tidy in the pail. It is important to line dry the bag, though, or the PUL will wear out much faster than it needs to. This is why it is nice to have two bags. While one is washing and drying, the other one can line your pail. Babies don't stop soiling their diapers just because your pail liner is in the wash.

You also need a wet bag for your diaper bag. This can be an old grocery sack, which will probably have to be changed each time due to stink buildup on the inside, or it can be a reusable one that you wash with your diapers once in a while. Mainly, it needs to be waterproof so you don't have dirty diapers leaking into your diaper bag. My diaper bag came with a wet bag, but you can also buy them separately.