Cloth Diapering- a year later

It has been a year since we started our cloth diapering journey and I'm still just as happy with it as when we first started. It has been such a money saver and I've learned so much along the way. I've been happily sharing my experience with other parents and totally understand the enthusiasm my friends who started before me had for sharing with me when I was new at it.

I posted a few times when we first started but haven't said much since. I've compiled my posts in a page with some info about my research and our journey to converting from disposables to cloth. Just click on the Cloth Diapering tab above to access it.

Even though we enjoy cloth diapering we've had a couple road blocks along the way, but I'm so glad we figured them out and continue to cloth diaper. There can be a learning curve, but it's still a better choice for us than disposables. Please don't get me wrong, I have no judgement about disposables. We used them for years with Malakai and for 18 months with Desmond. We still have a small stash for the occasions when we've been too sick or busy to get the cloth laundry done and we used them when Desmond was in the hospital because that's what they had and we didn't have time to pack or worry about laundry. So, I'm surely not looking for an argument about cloth vs disposable. I'm just happy to share my experience in saving money and helping the environment at the same time!

Back to our road blocks- I blogged about the first one which is affectionately known in cloth diapering communities as "poo lint" a disgusting build up in the corners of diapers (particularly pocket diapers) that due to location of snaps can be impossible to clean out. I found a simple solution for this by sewing off the tabs of our beloved diapers so that I could wash them inside out every once in awhile and any build up would get cleaned out thoroughly. Pretty easy.

The next road block was much harder to remedy. It took a lot of trial and error, but was namely due to Desmond's sensitive skin. Malakai rarely had diaper rashes, but even before we switched to cloth Des would get fairly frequent yeast rashes. We'd treat it with an over the counter antifungal and it would go away rather quickly. When we started cloth we didn't have a problem with yeast or really any rashes for quite some time. When Des did get a rash it didn't look like yeast, but was pretty red and eventually turned into angry blisters. So we'd put him back in disposables trying to figure out what was wrong and if the diapers needed to be treated. A nurse over the phone told me she thought it was yeast, so I did a ton of research online. I found that yeast can stay alive through a wash cycle and reinfect your baby, so I did everything from vinegar to Grapefruit seed extract to try to get rid of the problem. The GSE actually helped and is proven to kill yeast, I used it every once in a while just to be sure our diapers are disinfected! I also switched from Charlie's soap (I was worried about a detergent reaction) to Eco Sprouts and the rash would still come back. Then we bought some microfleece liners from Amazon and started using them overnight, never a rash since. When our doctor actually saw the rash she said it wasn't yeast, but a reaction due to his sensitive skin. We discovered that lining his diapers with fleece that would wick away moisture better when he would get the wettest did the trick. They also work wonders for easier clean up of #2 diapers. I even made some more out of polar fleece scraps and they work great.

Now that all of our first-timer and sensitive skin issues have been solved, we are happier than ever to be cloth diapering and excited about using cloth on our next baby (more about that in my next cloth post)

I've had some incredible opportunities with Just Simply Baby, from the peace of mind in knowing I can return anything I'm dissatisfied with, even opened and used,  to the incredible pricing and amazing deals and  having the opportunity to design an adorable print which they then sent me for free!

If you're interested in switching from disposables or trying cloth from the very start, head on over to Just Simply Baby right now, they are running an amazing half off package deal until April 11th! If you miss the deal or now isn't the time for you, be sure to visit them again because they are always running awesome specials! 

If you have questions about my experience, how to get started, or anything else in between please feel free to leave a comment on this blog post or shoot me an email.