Flats Challenge

I used a flat diaper for the first time yesterday.

In fact, I used eight of them. I joined up in a modified version of the Flats Challenge from Dirty Diaper Laundry, and the little one has been in Flat diapers since yesterday.

I was nervous to use them. Instead of the origami fold, I am simply folding them to be like a prefold newspaper fold and laying them inside my Flip covers. So far, it is working extremely well. Maybe even better than prefold diapers.

Instead of buying actual Flat diapers, I bought flour sack towels at Target for $3.99 for a pack of four. I already have the Flip covers, so I only spent 12 bucks on the diapers.

This is just a simple reminder for how affordable cloth diapers can be. And they are extremely affordable!

There are greener days ahead

Announcement: I just got an email from Barbara Frierson, the project manager for the 2011 Sustainability Fair in Charleston, W.Va.

This year's Fair will be Saturday, Sept. 24, at the Columbia Gas Transmission Building on MacCorkle Avenue. It is near the University of Charleston. 

I am waiting to get the paperwork, but Diaper Parties by Rachel is planning to attend! Mark your calendars because it should be really good!

What is in your Pampers?

A friend and fellow Diaper Parties consultant recently contacted Pampers to see what is in them.

They wouldn't answer, and told her to have her pediatrician contact them with a list of her child's allergies to see if her child would be allergic to the diapers. WHAT?

Read the full  Pampers' response here.

Rockin Green, well, rocks. And so does this giveaway.

I love Rockin Green. I love all the scents, even though it took courage to try them. We are simple "scent-free" people around my house. Thankfully Rockin Green has a "scent-free" option, too.

But now I pick a new scent each time I grab a bag. I have never been disappointed.

Haven't tried Rockin Green for your diapers yet? Now is a fabulous time to try it. Head over to The Cloth Diaper Fairy for a wonderful giveaway opportunity. I did!

Broken dryer...

I will start with this: It really could be worse.

Yesterday, my dryer died. Really died. It has been dying for awhile. It started with a person having to hold in the "start" button extra long before the dryer kicked on. And then, for about two weeks, a person would have to manually move the inside of the dryer around for a bit before you could get it to kick on and work. But yesterday, I tried these amazing techniques only to smell smoke. And have a pile of wet clothes.

The smell made me nervous, so I manually kicked the breaker. And then opened a window.

And then, hung my clothes up to dry. When was the last time you have done this?

Well, I do it often, but not with clothes. Diapers are great to hang in the sun. It's a natural bleach, and makes them smell so good. The sun whitens the diapers while killing bacteria.

But I have a confession. Since I have had two kids in diapers and the days are still with limited sunshine, I have only had a few opportunities to get the diapers out in the sun. Even then, I have had to toss the inserts into the dryer because they aren't quite dry when I need them. I have plenty of diapers for both kids, but not that many.

I still have plenty of clean diapers, but by tonight, it will be wash time. Hopefully they will dry overnight if I hang them up. I may just have to use the hair dryer on a few for the morning;)

But still, it could be worse: It could be the washer that is broken.

The real CDing mama

To me, pocket diapers just seem easier. And they are, mostly. They made it easy for me to learn to cloth diaper. They made it easy to talk my husband into using cloth, too. And I admit it, they make it easy to convert others to cloth.

But, after two years of using pockets almost exclusively, I am going rouge.

We are using prefolds.

When a fellow cloth diapering mama (and good friend) found out I was into the prefolds, she exclaimed that I now a real cloth diapering mama. (As if those two years of washing, stuffing, snapping and changing didn't count...)

And I have confession: I only used them because my sister gave them to me. And not just one or two. She passed down an entire boatload. If you know my husband, you know we never pass up free items. Ever. And because we had no diaper covers to go with them, I used the free prefolds as an excuse to purchase some Flips. I reasoned to my husband that we could use the Flip inserts with our toddler, and give the prefolds a try on our infant using the same covers. Oh, and I think I threw in that the Flip covers would be great for potty training, too. You know, to go over those simple Gerber training panties I caved in and bought at Target one day. No, we have never used them for that. We just clean up accidents. Or I let my kid go naked so accidents don't happen.

What first appealed to me about the Flip diaper system was simply changing out the insert and not the whole diaper. But, isn't this the concept of the prefold system? Doesn't the Flip system simply model the prefold system? All they did was turn the old-school model into a cool new modern version (and added stay-dry protection, which is fab!), and it caught my attention. I had to try it!

But as it is, I love the prefolds in the Flip covers. Love them! Maybe more than the Flip inserts. Maybe. And suddenly, stuffing my pocket diapers isn't as fun as it once was. (Yes, I used to find it soothing to stuff and fold diapers.)

Suddenly, it's a lot easier to just put the prefolds into threes and pile them up next to the covers.

Suddenly, tossing the entire diaper into the wetbag takes up too much room.

Or is it because I am now washing and folding diapers for two kiddos that makes the simplicity of prefolds so adorable and appealing?

Stripping with Dawn.... Hold the pole

We have had leaks. In the past three months, I have about given up on my BumGenius 3.0s. You know, the diapers that originially sparked my love for cloth.

I was stuffing them with two toddler inserts (both actually the BG microfiber that I have always loved), and it still wasn't enough. It started at night, but eventually leaks came during the day, too.

I stripped with hot water. And then again with hot water. And again, and again. I boiled water (which is impressive because I had to carry the big HOT pans of water down my stairs. I also had a huge belly as I was pregnant at the time!) and then I did it all over again.

I even did an overnight soak in Rockin Green (my choice of detergents for cloth). Still, we had leaks. Because my toddler is potty training, she is in panties most of the day. It wasn't a big deal to just stop using our BG stash. If you read my blog, you know I am all about trying new diapers these days, and I have truly fallen in love with Flips. So I really just saw this as an excuse to buy more diapers and get rid of the old ones.

BUT I just couldn't do it.

I even packed them up once to give them away. My husband, being, well my husband, wouldn't let me and wanted me to sell them. But I couldn't even do that. I do not want to be responsible for turning someone away from cloth diapers because these weren't great anymore (and they were once fabulous!).

So I finally tried something I never really wanted to do. I stripped them using Dawn.

Why did I not want to do this? Simply because I pictured my washer overflowing with the bubbles, and I honestly did not believe I'd ever get the Dawn out of my diapers.

But what else could I do? I tossed my diapers into the washer and threw in a tablespoon (okay, I didn't measure; I just squirted what I thought looked like a tablespoon. Maybe this is why I shouldn't have done this!) of regular old Blue Dawn liquid soap. I set the washer to "extra rinse" and ran three full cycles.

I don't remember my diapers ever smelling as fresh as they did when I pulled them out of the washer! No stink, no funk, just fabulous.

I didn't expect it to work, but my diapers are literally as good as new. They are even great for night on my toddler! We haven't tried them on the baby yet, but I am sure they will work just as well as they did when I used them two years ago on a little baby:)