Clear Blue Skies

I didn't get a chance yesterday to write a post.  My husband and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary by going out to dinner and leaving the kids home with a babysitter.  So I spent the entire day cleaning the house.  

So it was Day 6 of the challenge.  Yesterday's handwashing went fairly easily.  I did a large bunch of diapers first thing in the morning while the little guy was eating his breakfast and put them out on the line.  They were dry by lunch time.  I washed his morning diapers at lunch and hung them out.  It was a gorgeous day -- clear blue skies, low humidity and plenty of warm sunshine.  Perfect weather for line drying diapers. 

I put him in his g-Pants when the babysitter arrived.  She fed the kids supper and then gave the little guy his bath.  I laid out a pocket stuffed with flats for her to put on him and then I changed him into his night time flats and wool longies when I got home.  

So flats can even work for a babysitter.  If I were going to have a babysitter often and I was using only flats, I would teach her how to use them.  For last night, the pocket worked just fine.

I did notice yesterday that he leaked through a few times.  I don't think I was changing the diapers any less often than the earlier part of the week so I'm not really sure why.  Maybe he just nursed more.  It wasn't a big deal and not something that couldn't be fixed by adding another flat, but just an observation.

We have decided that we are going to go on vacation this summer to the mountains of North Carolina.  We probably won't be camping, but we will be away from home and without a washer and dryer.  So I will most likely be using flats and handwashing again.  I plan to get another dozen flats before then, as well as knit him at least one more pair of longies and probably 1 or 2 shorties.  I'm not sure yet about the 8 hour drive to our first stop, but I have plenty of time to figure that out.  

Now if only we had skies like this every day!

I love days like this.  Line drying is a breeze!

Always be prepared

I made it to Day 5 of the Flats and Handwashing Challenge without anything very interesting happening.  Today was a little different.  I was rushing around last night getting everything ready for our trip to the aquarium and I didn't wash all of yesterday's diapers.  This morning I had the realization that I probably didn't have enough to last all day and since I'd be gone and couldn't wash during the day, we might have a bit of a problem.  Ooops.

So when I packed the diaper bag this morning, I threw in a dish towel, just in case.  That's right.  A striped dish towel.  For the 2 hour trip in the car on the way there, he just wore 2 flats.  When we got there, I wasn't sure about how often I'd be changing him so I put him in a pocket stuffed with a doubler and 2 flats.  This lasted just fine while we were there.  

I put another 2 flats on him for the ride home (which ended up being almost 3 hours because we hit horrible rush hour traffic) which left me with ONE clean flat.  We had to head straight to my older son's soccer game so my poor little guy had to get through an hour of soccer and then supper in that one flat.  

After we finished eating, I quickly washed his nighttime flats and was ironing them to get them dry when the little guy pointed to his diaper and said, "Eee-yew."  Sure enough, he had pooped.  So he got to run around naked while I finished my ironing.  He promptly peed on the floor twice.  Silly kid.  Thank goodness for tile floor!

So today's question from Dirty Diaper Laundry is: What is working?  For me, the flats and handwashing are working just fine.  Flats are absorbant enough even for overnight, something I was not expecting.  Handwashing does take more time, but it's doable.  I like how trim the flats are.  I love my soft, cushy prefolds, but they are so bulky!  I'm not loving the air drying.  I do dry my prefolds on the line when the weather is nice, but I have enough prefolds to get me through a few days and I can always throw them in the dryer if they're not dry when I need them.  I think the real problem is just that I don't have enough flats to really make it work well.  If I had another 5-10, I'd be fine and I wouldn't be ironing diapers because I don't have any dry ones.  So if we do go camping I'll probably get another dozen.  

Flats take longer to change than pockets.  I've used prefolds with him since he was a newborn, but once he hit the stage where he fights diaper changes, I started using pockets stuffed with prefolds.  They're so much faster to get on.  Especially when he's doing his alligator death roll, I need a diaper that can be put on in seconds!  That's one of the things I like about the g-Pants.  Since they velcro, they're faster than snaps and I can still get them on mid-roll because they velcro in the back instead of the front. 

I have to admit, I was really temped to cheat today.  I mean, who would have known if I had thrown the diapers in the dryer tonight before I gave him his bath?  Who would have known if I had just put a prefold on him for bed?  I would have, and that's what really matters.  So while I was tempted, I didn't cheat.  His flats may not have been 100% dry tonight when he went to bed, but he was wearing flats.  

The aquarium was great.  The kids loved it and the hubby and I are exhausted.  Before I head to bed, I'm going to make sure I have clean diapers to change him into when he wakes up.  

The kiddos looking at the fish.

Supplies & Preparation

Flats & Handwashing Challenge, Day 2.  I have to admit, I didn't exactly prepare for this challenge.  I didn't really decide to participate until Monday morning when I put the little guy in flats.  So my preparation was nil.  Which may be why I found myself at Wal-Mart this morning, buying a package of Flour Sack Towels.  Yesterday went fairly well, but I did feel like it would be easier if I didn't have to wash each diaper immediately after use.  So far today, I've washed once.  I wanted to wash the new towels before using them.  

I have a total of 9 flats that were given to me as hand-me-downs.  So I paid $0 for those.  I'm using g-Pants during the day and those were gifted to me when the little guy was born.  So I paid $0 for those.  At night, I'm using a pair of wool longies that I hand-dyed and knitted myself.  I paid ~$8 for the yarn and $2 for the dye, so around $10 for the longies.  For detergent, I'm using Maggie's Soap Nuts that I've had forever so I paid maybe $12 for it originally?  I honestly don't remember.  I just bought a package of 5 flour sack towels today for $4.98.  So for me, this has been very inexpensive.  If you had to buy everything new, it would still be inexpensive.  A package of 12 flats is around $12 at Wal-Mart and of course you can use regular laundry detergent.  

I did end up ironing some of my flats yesterday to help them dry faster.  It also made them a bit softer -- line drying tends to make cloth diapers a tad stiff.  I was also concerned about how well the flats would hold up overnight.  I put him in 3 and while he was very wet this morning, he didn't leak through the longies.  I was impressed!  

No washer. No dryer. No problem!

So today is Day 1 of Dirty Diaper Laundry's 3rd Annual Flats and Handwashing Challenge.  So why did I decide to participate this year?  Well, we're considering going camping this summer and I want to prove to myself that I can use flats and wash by hand for a week.  Florida is also often hit by hurricanes.  In 2004, after Hurricanes Charley and Francis, we lost power for 8 days.  I'd like to try this challenge so that if we have any storms this summer where we lose electricity for a few days, I'll be prepared.

I'm not really nervous about the handwashing part -- I typically rinse out the little guy's diapers by hand and I'm not squeamish.  But just using flats on a heavy wetter? That's what could get interesting.  I think for overnight I will have to use the wool longies I made for him.  During the day I'll either be using Thirsties Duo-Wraps or g-Pants.  So far today we've gone through 4 flats (I put 2 in at a time) in his g-pants.  I washed the first pair of flats right after I changed him.  I don't own a lot of flats so I figure if I wash them right away, hopefully I won't run out at the end of the day.

Washing wasn't hard.  I used the bathroom sink and a few of Maggie's Soap Nuts.  I rinsed the diapers with really hot water, then filled the sink with hot water.  I added 3-4 soap nuts and swirled the water around a bit until I saw some suds.  I plopped the diapers in, swished them around for a few minutes and then rinsed them really well.  The only problem I saw was that a few little bits of soap nuts got stuck in the flats, but next time I'll just use the mesh bag that they came with.  Problem solved.  I wrung the diapers out and they're hanging outside to dry.  While they could easily be dried indoors, I decided they'd dry faster in the sunshine.

So, while the day is far from over, I'd say it's going pretty well so far!

Update:  The day is done and the little guy is sleeping upstairs in his longies.  I used the kite fold on one flat and put 2 pad folded flats in for extra absorbency.  Throughout the day, I washed each set of diapers after I changed him.  It worked, I didn't run out of diapers and I'll have plenty of clean, dry ones ready for tomorrow.  I do think tomorrow I might head to the store to buy a few more so I don't have to wash them as I go, but I do know I'll be ok if I don't get any extras.  I'd also like to try waiting until the end of the day to wash so I wash everything all at once.  While it took a little extra time today to stop and wash diapers, as a whole the challenge hasn't been very "challenging" so far.