Adventures in Cloth Diapering

Diapers, a totally boring subject, but because diapering occupies a large part of my day, I think about it a lot. For the past 2 weeks I have been using mainly cloth diapers. I'll use a disposable here and there out of laziness, but I mainly stick to cloth.

We had been spending $12 every 3 days because the only diapers that fit the lad were the Seventh Generation diapers. $120 each month on diapers is pretty insane. I've spent about $65 on cloth diaper products so far just to see what I like. I've tried all the main types: the basic prefold, the hybrid, and the pocket diaper. Most frequently I use the prefold with a diaper fastener and a cover or the pocket diaper(which i plan to buy more of, because I love them.) But I use all these different types because, truthfully, I think they are all great.

I was a bit ambivalent about the change to cloth diapers because I thought it would be gross as well as time consuming, I've found the opposite to be true. As for the grossness, I just keep a waterproof washable bag next to the changing table and when it's full (every other day) I toss the whole thing in the wash.

So what about the poop? I line each diaper with 1/2 of a biodegradable liner and toss it in the toilet and flush. Almost no mess! Unless... Yesterday Hunter had a huge blowout, which I hadn't experienced yet. So I took the whole diaper off and held it in the toilet stream and flushed. Not so bad, but I did do the wash immediately.

The change to cloth has gone so smoothly I've started making reusable cloth wipes too. I figured if I'm doing the wash anyway, I might as well reduce this extra amount of waste. These are so easy I even use them when I use the disposable diapers. And it's really easy to make your own. I cut up an old t-shirt of Adam's and made my own wipe solution that I store in a travel squeeze bottle. You can search for diaper wipe solution but most of them seemed too oily. Here's my recipe:

1/2 c water

1 T baby wash (I use Burt's Bees)

2 t baby oil (I had a sample of Burt's Bees apricot baby oil, but olive oil will work too)

1/2 t alcohol (leave this out if there is a diaper rash)

You can vary this recipe using different washes, oils (like vitamin e) and you can add in aloe or tea tree oil. Just remember the basic solution is water, cleanser, moisturizer and sanitizer. I've been using it for a week and it doesn't bother the boy a bit. He hasn't had a rash yet but he did have a little redness before I started making my own wipes, and he hasn't had redness since.

xoxo,

Lauren

Good Morning, Sunshine!!!

I'm feeling much more refreshed this morning than I have in a long time, well 5 weeks to be exact. I actually got some real decent sleep. Hunter is a good sleeper, but he's been feeding around the clock without any sort of real schedule. I was warned not to put him on a schedule because he needed to gain some weight. Now that he is above average in weight and 5 weeks old, I decided to start a sleep routine.

We started the routine with his last evening feeding, it was 9:00pm last night and I'm going to try to move it to before 8:30 tonight. Then he got a warm bath which he settled into easily without any fuss, he's usually pretty good but yelps a bit at the onset. He then got a baby massage with some Burt's Bees Baby Bee Buttermilk Lotion, I adore the light scent, and I think Hunter did too. And then it was story time.

Story time was my favorite part because it actually gave me some time to read, and added to my relaxation. I just read my book (The Art of Racing in the Rain) in a soothing voice, and about 3 minutes into the reading both Adam and the dogs joined us, sprawled on Hunter's nursery floor. By 10pm Hunter's eyes began to droop so I swaddled him super tight and put him in his crib and he got himself to sleep by 10:15pm.

The best part was he didn't wake up until 1:45am and he did a really quick feeding (quick by my standards of breasts, bottles, pump) and was back to sleep by 2:15am. And he stayed asleep until 5:30am this morning where he had another quick feeding and was back to sleep at 5:45am. He's just stirring now at 7am.

I know it's not a normal schedule just yet, because sleeping through the night is defined as sleeping from 12am-5am, but it feels normal in the sense that Hunter mostly slept from 10pm to 7am. And I got over 6 hours of sleep!!! Woot woot!!!

I know that I'm writing this too soon and that he's going to be up all night tonight, crying, screaming, with some vomit and projectile poo thrown in. But I feel like we're, at least, on the right track.

Brown Bagging It

Adam alerted me to this blog this morning.

http://fedupwithschoollunch.blogspot.com/

Judging from this, Hunter will be bringing his lunch.

Best Laid Plans

I'm a planner and always have been. And I'm pretty meticulous in my planning, making them far in advance, sticking to them and pretty much always being early. So it's been quite challenging to have this tiny human calling all the shots. I get prepared to do something, get all my ducks in a row, and then Hunter decides there's something much more pressing, such as, puking all over the dogs. I swear he does this just to teach me a lesson. I just saw a quote by Mike Tyson (so he's no Lao Tzu but this is appropriate) "Everybody has plans... until they get hit."

Wednesday was such a beautiful day I decided to take both Hunter and the dogs for a walk. I got the leashes on the dogs and the Baby Bjorn strapped on. I changed Hunter's diaper right before putting him in his carrier. I turned to the side for a split second to put the diaper in the trash and when I turned back I felt something cold and wet on my shoulder. I was hit! White baby vomit was dripping from my freshly washed hair (ok, so it was washed 2 days ago, but that's effing clean these days.) I looked down and it was splattered on the edge of the Baby Bjorn as well. Awesome. But the worst part was the little white chunks hanging off the dogs' faces, necks and front legs.

I don't even know how it happened. How was that projectile vomit so widespread? My walk was inevitably delayed. But the good news is that the dogs got their much needed bath. I think Hunter decided we were all too stinky and it was time for us to bathe. And we do what Hunter says.

His initials are HRH: HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS (as all the grandmas and great grandmas have pointed out)

Happy Month of Life, Hunter!!!

xoxo,

Lauren