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.

Diaper Pails

Whether you cloth diaper or use disposables, you are going to need a diaper pail. If you use cloth, though, you don't need to buy a Diaper Genie or Diaper Champ. In fact, they really aren't great for cloth diapering at all. In the old days, people used to keep their dirty cloth diapers in a pail with a bleach and water solution. Now, most people keep their diapers in a dry pail with a washable pail liner. It doesn't really matter what shape or type of pail you choose, but it does matter what it's made out of. Plastic holds onto odors like crazy; no amount of bleach or disinfectant will take care of it. Ideally, it's best to get a metal diaper pail because you can just wipe it out, and it smells all fresh again. It's also generally better not to have a tightly sealing lid. Airflow helps keep the diapers fresher and less stinky. We got ours from Ikea, and it works great. It reminds me of Oscar the Grouch's can a little bit.

Must-have Cloth Diaper Accessories

You really can cloth diaper with very little supplies, but there are a few that are absolutely necessary.

• Diaper pail
• Wet bag for the diaper pail
• Wet bag for the diaper bag
• Pins or Snappis (if you're using diapers that have to be fastened)
• Washer and dryer (if you're seriously hardcore, you can use a laundromat, but I am not that hardcore!)
• Clean-rinsing detergent

Optional, but so very helpful:

• A second wet bag for the diaper pail when the first one is in the wash
• Changing table
• Bins or baskets to keep the diapers organized
• Cloth wipes
• An old wipes tub or wipes warmer

That's really it! See, it's pretty easy.

Whatever Happened to Diaper Services?

I remember the diaper service truck being a frequent visitor to my street when I was a kid, but I don't think I've seen one in at least ten years. However, diaper service is still available in most areas, though certainly not as popular as it was when I was a child. Whether you should choose to go with a diaper service or not depends entirely on your reason(s) for cloth diapering. If your reason is to save money (as mine was), it's not the way to go. Diaper Service typically costs about the same as using disposable diapers. If your reason has to do with protecting your baby's sensitive skin, it still might not be the best option. Commercial diaper services usually use a more chemically rigorous wash routine than you would be likely to at home. If you truly have concerns regarding which chemicals potentially touch your baby's skin, you're probably better off laundering at home so you know exactly what goes on your diapers.

If you choose to cloth diaper because of environmental concerns, then diaper service is probably the best option.  The amount of water and electricity it takes to launder cloth diapers at home ends up being significantly less than the water and electricity consumed to manufacture disposables for the duration of your child's time in diapers. The amount used by a professional diaper service is even less. By washing many more diapers together, the amount of resources consumed to wash the diapers commercially is even less than the amount you end up using to wash them at home.

I chose not to use a diaper service because it's more expensive, and because I wanted to be able to use a gentler detergent and wash routine. I have sensitive skin, so I figured it would be likely that my daughter would as well. As it turns out, I was right. Diaper service probably wouldn't have caused any skin problems, but I wanted to be on the safe side. Diaper service also limits you to using only prefolds and covers, and I wanted to be able to use all-in-ones and pockets as well.

Why Everyone Needs a Handful of Gerber Prefolds

Gerber prefolds are the cheapest of the cheap when it comes to cloth diapers. There are a couple of different versions, though. The mainstream Gerber Birdseye Prefolds are the least expensive, and they are the most readily available (you can find them in Target, Walmart, Fred Meyer, etc.), but the center "absorbent" panel is actually a polyester pad sewn between the cotton layers. Polyester is non-absorbent. What that means is that the cotton exterior does all the absorbing, and the pad is basically there to make you think it's more absorbent than it really is. That being said, I do use these as actual diapers from time to time, despite most internet recommendations to the contrary. They are great between naps because they are trim, and absorbent enough to do the job for an hour or two. I would never, never, never use them overnight or on a longer car ride, because they will leak after a short time. Gerber also makes different varieties that are 100% cotton throughout, but they are more expensive and probably much better as actual diapers.

What they are utterly fabulous for, though, is an all-purpose household cloth. I've used them as burp rags, changing pads, dish towels (in a pinch), bibs, dust rags, napkins, handkerchief, face wipes, and so much more. Basically, there are a few of these sprinkled through each room of my house, several in the diaper bag, and a couple in the car. You simply cannot have enough of these lying around. More than anything else, though, I've used these to sop spills out of carpet. We have had an entire Guinness spill on our off-white living room carpet, and these bad boys soaked up the beer so well that we didn't even have a stain. We used no carpet cleaner at all, but merely soaked up all the beer into the Gerber prefolds, and it is completely gone. I don't care if you even have a baby; you need some of these in your house.

Diaper Pins Vs. Snappi

I'm not sure what it is about diaper pins that is so intimidating, but most people are really loathe to use them (as was I until fairly recently). One of the major objections that I frequently hear regarding cloth diapering is that parents and caretakers don't want to have to use pins. If you think about it, there's really nothing that bad about a safety pin. As long as you aren't completely careless, the worst that could happen is you prick your finger, it hurts for about half a second, and you move on. You'd have to be extremely careless actually to prick your baby.

However, it is completely possible to use cloth diapers without ever touching a diaper pin, thanks to the Snappi. As I mentioned before, it works a bit like the fasteners on ace bandages: it has little claws that grip the cloth at each hip and down the crotch. While there are internet Snappi gurus all over the place, I am not the biggest fan. Admittedly, it is easier to stretch a Snappi quickly over a prefold on a vigorously squirming baby than to try to pin the diaper. However, if you don't have a thick enough prefold, the claws come through the fabric and leave little red marks on the baby's hip (which can't be comfortable). There is a serious learning curve to learning how to Snappi that nobody tells you about. You can get it on on your first try, but it takes a while to learn how to put it on well. Finally, in order to stretch it tight enough to keep the crotch claw from coming off during wear, you have to pull a strip of rubber really, really tight down the baby's crotch. I don't feel like this is particularly comfortable for my baby girl, much less a boy. It nearly always comes unclipped, and my baby isn't even mobile yet. However, if the crotch claw comes unclipped, the only thing keeping the front of the diaper from slipping out from under the Snappi is the cover. I must admit, though, that there are times when my daughter is too wiggly to use pins easily, and I reach for the Snappi whenever that happens.

I actually really like diaper pins. I think the most comfortable diaper for daytime is a cotton prefold fastened with pins. I can't completely verify that because I don't remember wearing diapers, and my daughter isn't quite capable of communicating her opinion. However, a well-pinned diaper stays in place well without pinching or rubbing. Only the soft cotton prefold touches the baby's skin, and there's nothing squishing the crotch area. You have the freedom to use looser diaper covers, which tend to impede movement less than the kind with velcro because they don't cinch the tummy tightly. In the summer, you can let your baby crawl around in just the prefold without a cover because the pins can't fall off or come unclipped. This gives your baby's skin some valuable breathing time (something you can't get with disposables at all). It's also easier to pin certain folds (like the bikini twist) than to Snappi.

Diaper Covers

As I said in previous posts, if you're using a type of diaper that does not have a waterproof exterior, you'll need to use a diaper cover to prevent leaks. When I wore diapers, that meant a pair of plastic pants, probably made by Gerber, pulled up over my diaper. Although that type of cover is basically still available, there are now other options. The most popular and common style fastens with velcro and fits snugly over the diaper, as opposed to ballooning out like the old plastic pants did. The cover in the picture is a Bummis Super Whisper Wrap. Velcro (or snap) covers are great because you don't necessarily have to fasten the diaper underneath (eliminating the need for pins or Snappis); the cover holds the diaper in place. Additionally, if there's no poop on the cover at a change, you can usually wipe it down and reuse it. This means that you may only need 5-6 covers.

Prefolds: Old-School and Awesome

Prefolds are what most people think of when they hear someone talking about cloth diapers. They are simply a rectangular piece of cotton fabric with an absorbent pad sewn lengthwise down the center of the rectangle. This is what I wore when I was a baby. They're called prefolds because even more old-school are flat diapers, which are just large, square pieces of cotton that have to be folded to get an absorbent pad in the middle. Flats are what our grandparents would have worn. Ironically, you do still have to fold prefolds a little bit to fit them on a baby.

Prefolds have to be fastened, and they need a waterproof cover to prevent leaking. My mom used pins to fasten the prefolds I wore, but pins are not popular fastening options anymore (though pins are actually my favorite fasteners). Most people use tight-fitting covers that hold the prefold in place without a fastener. The covers fasten with velcro or snaps and work pretty much like disposables, once the prefold is placed inside. Alternatively, some people prefer to fasten the prefold using a Snappi. Snappis work a bit like the fasteners on ace bandages: they're T-shaped, stretchy, and they have little claws at each end that grip the diaper. There is one claw at each hip and one down the crotch of the diaper. Fastening a prefold gives you more flexibility with your covers. If the diaper is fastened, you can choose any kind of cover, because you don't have to make sure it will hold the diaper in place. In the summer, you can just let your baby crawl around without a cover, and the breathability of just the cotton is great for the baby's skin.

Prefolds are by far the cheapest of the main cloth diaper options. They usually run about $24 a dozen (as opposed to $24 a diaper for some AIOs). They are also extremely easy to care for--they can withstand bleaching, really hot washes, etc., and they dry significantly faster than AIOs. They are also extremely flexible. Different folding techniques have different advantages, and you can choose different ones depending on the time of day and your baby's fit and absorbency needs. I think it's fun to learn new folding techniques, and it really isn't hard at all. I love being able to have so many options, and I love that they are so easy to care for. I also really like having only cotton touching my baby's skin. The major downside with prefolds is that most secondary caregivers will not want to use them, so you'll probably have to provide something else (AIOs or disposables) if you want to leave your child with someone. Some people feel that prefolds are not daddy-friendly either, though my husband likes them better than fitteds or pockets.

I love prefolds; in fact, they are my favorite diapers. I started using them because they're cheap, and now I really wish I'd started using them sooner. They're obviously the most comfortable and least restrictive diaper my daughter wears. They're just so clean and simple, and they work amazingly well.