Urban Mamas

I used disposable diapers with our first.  I never thought about cloth diapers.  With our second, we fumbled our way around and figured out how to cloth, but I also recall hearing then about "Elimination Communication", aka "EC".  Eek - what's that?  Could it be possible to really have a diaper-free baby?  I was grumbling yesterday via twitter about all our dirty dipaers, and Milagros reminded me about their regularly occurring Diaper Free meetings (every 3rd Wednesday of the month, 2-3pm, next on is next Wednesday May 19th).  They said, you can even EC part time!

Diaper Free Baby of Portland is a local, free support group that helps promote a natural approach to responding to babies’ elimination needs. This practice is followed worldwide and is known as Elimination Communication, Natural Infant Hygiene, and Infant Potty Training. The process involves observing one’s baby’s signs and signals, providing cue sounds and elimination-place associations, and can be done with or without any diaper use.

I am no expert, but I want to learn more!  Has your baby been diaper free, full-time or part-time?  How does it work?  What are the basics?  Inquiring mamas want to know!

I am diapering my third little person.  It took me a while to figure out how to cloth, but I eventually caught on an exclusively clothed my second and, now, my third.  Even before I converted to cloth diapers, though, I was very low wipe.  I grew up with my mum washing my bum, with almost every diaper change with soap and water at the sink.  It's just the way she did it.  Even into childhood, we had a system of washing our bottoms with soap and water.  My parents may still do it this way, even to this day, to wash their own bums.  Who doesn't love a bottom cleaned with lovely warm water?

With my little ones, I was never fond of the wipe.  Mostly because the wipes seems more scenting and less cleansing.  Even the unscented wipes didn't convince me that there was a cleansing going on.  In addition, the idea that I was adding one less wipe to the landfill was appealing.  To this day, I don't mind the hand-washing of the bum.  There is some ritual to the washing; I really quite like it.  Except...  when they start the solids.  Ewww!  My boy is eating up a storm now - sweet potatoes, spinach, carrots, squash, and all the rest - and it shows (literally) in his dipe. 

So, I am rethinking my wiping ways.  Should I resume wipe usage to help tidy up that solid muck, stick to the handwashing ways, or perhaps implement another no-waste wipe method?  I have heard some mamas use resuable wipes: what is your system?

There are many Portland-based diapering systems that we love to support, gDiapers probably being one great option for those who want a sort of hybrid cloth-disposable diapering system.  Are there any other options for those mamas and papas who don't or can't go "all cloth"?  An urbanMama recently emailed:

I used disposable diapers with #1 because I could never get the hang of the cloth diapers, OK I'm just too lazy to do all that washing.  I tried the gDiapers at various points with my son too, but - again - found I had a bunch of liners and covers sitting for days in a stinky bucket because the disposable part would always squish up in the liner and I'd end up with poop/pee all over anyway. Soooooo, I'm wondering if anyone has tried the "new" Bambino Mio system of cloth diapering?

I would personally love to hear more about Bambino Mio, too.  My sister-in-law has just registered for this diapering system, and I'd love to hear more about it before we gift it to her.

From the uM archives: How do YOU cloth?

Like approaching many of our babes' milestones, approaching potty training can be a daunting task.  Betsy is preparing for her biggest little gal, and seeks recommendations:

I’m wondering what other mamas are using for training pants.  We currently cloth diaper so I don’t want a training pant that feels like a cloth diaper.  I’d rather have a panty type pant (thinner material, not as bulky) that will fit a very tiny booty (she just barely weighs 20 pounds!).  I have found Nikki pants but am wondering if there is anything else out there.

(uM note: and, what, pray tell, are Nikki pants?  Has it been that long since we've potty trained?)

We are positive that there are tons of mamas out there that have grappled with this very situation.  Share some advice, would ya?  Liz emails:

My question relates to diapers and soaking through... We have a very big 2.5 year old who has not shown any interest in the potty yet- but is huge and frequently soaks through his 6 diaper at night. We have tried to cut back on drinking at night but it doesnt' seem to help all that much- it is just not enough oomph for a 11-12 hour night of sleep. Any suggestions? It often wakes him up in the middle of the night-

Do you have experience washing your cloth diapers at home?  Jillian is taking recommendations for a new front-loader:

We have a front load washer (Maytag Neptune) that's been having mold problems.  We want to buy a new washing machine, preferably front load.  Does anyone out there use cloth diapers and have a front load washer they'd recommend?

Do you cloth diaper? Camellia is about to launch into the World of Cloth and needs your advice.

Our first baby is due in a month and I'm trying to figure out the whole cloth diapering thing. We decided to go with a diaper service for the first few months anyway, and then to reevaluate whether to stick with the service, switch to all-in-ones and wash them ourselves, use g-diapers, or some sort of combination. I'm interested in hearing about what has worked best for other parents, but first and foremost, I'm wondering what to do for a diaper pail for the first few months, with the diaper service.

Tidee Didee advised us to begin with 70 diapers a week for a newborn, they provide the diaper bags, we provide the pail, and they pick up dirties once a week. They have a 54-quart white plastic pail we can buy from them for $17 or we can provide our own. Has anyone used this system? a 54-quart pail sounds huge--can you really just throw all your diapers in there for a whole week, or doesn't that get super stinky? Is there a different pail we should get instead?

Calling all cloth diapering mamas!  Can you provide Susan with any suggestions for an alternative to disposable pull ups?

My six year old is not yet dry all night and has been wearing disposable pull ups.  He finds them somewhat irritating and uncomfortable and I would love to find something cloth for him to wear that goes on like a pull up.  However, most of what I see is for toddlers.  The few things I’ve come across are very expensive- anywhere from $25 to $40 for one pair.  I’d love to know if other people have tried any they think work well before spending that much money.

A novel idea proposed by Katie.  Anyone interested?

I'm interested in buying used (in good shape) cloth diapers.  I know a lot of ladies in town are using cloth diapers and there are a few stores that sell them brand new, but they are SO expensive.  It would be great to get a diaper exchange section on urban mamas!

In the meantime, I am looking for BumGenius One Size diapers or Kissaluv contour diapers.  If you could post a message for me, I'd appreciate it!  Folks can email me at cotatica76@gmail.com.

Apparently size doesn't matter as far as gDiapers is concerned.  They're looking for ages all sizes and shapes.  There's been much discussion about them here and even one dating back to November 2005 here.  The good folks at gDiapers are looking to innovate, and we're more than happy to help spread the word.  Read on:

gDiapers is looking for babies from newborn through to 3 years old to do some “fit testing” of our new product designs.  We are an environmentally friendly diaper company from Australia and are welcoming mums/dads and bubs who may or may not be gDiaper users.

We will be having an open house next Wednesday at our office/home in Northwest Portland.  Come over and meet other like minded parents, let the kids play, enjoy some healthy snacks, and check out our new work space (the historic “White House” on the corner of NW 24th and NW Lovejoy).

The fit testing itself will only take a few minutes, but feel free to stay as long as you like!

Please rsvp to karen@gdiapers.com, with your name and your childs name, age, and approximate weight.  Again, we really are looking for all shapes and sizes so feel free to bring your friends!

P.S. For those who are interested, we will provide coupons to purchase gDiapers (no pressure…promise!)

Date:                Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Time:                9am – 12pm
Location:          gHQ – 2415 NW Lovejoy St.
Tel:                   503-546-4666

I've gotten a few questions recently from people considering cloth diapering.  I am no expert, however.  With our first daugther, the closest laundromat was 4 blocks away.  I didn't know much about diapering services then, we never even had considered cloth.

So, when we got to Portland and had a washer/dryer, it became a real consideration.  Before our second daughter was born, my neighbor gave me a pile of cloth diapers.  I had no idea what to do with them.  Thank goodness for Google.  Two major decisions seemed to be: 1) how to pre-wash and wash? and 2) what kind of diapers?

For the pre-wash stuff, there seemed to be a soak method, storing soiled diapers in a bucket with borax or vinegar.  We decided to use the dry pail method, just getting rid of any solids first, then storing in a dry bucket with a lid until we were ready for a wash.  We'd wash once every 2 days or so.  When washing, we'd run the diapers on a cold water cycle, with extra rinse, on heavy, with NO detergent.  It served as a super-duper rinse.  Once that was done, we'd run the diapers again, on warm, heavy wash, with no extra rise, and WITH the detergent this time.  Depending on the day, we'd either dry the batch in the dryer on high or we'd hang them up.

For the type of diaper, we tried lots of stuff, and - like lots of things in parenting - it's a lot of trial and error.  Some types work for some families but not for others.  We ended up using uber fleecey Fuzzi Bunz (size medium from age 6 weeks to almost 2-1/2 years!).  We loved the Fuzzis.  It's a pocket diaper, so you can stuff it up the whazzooo with absorbent stuff and it could hold A LOT of pee (not that we'd let her go for days without a change ....)  We used the Mother of Eden micro-fleece liners, and two of those would make a super-stuffed Fuzzi that promised a dry crib all the time.

Once the li'l girl started eating big people food and having big people poop, we started using the disposable kushie diaper liners, so we didn't have to scrape, scrape, scrape the stuff into the toilet before washing.  But, until that point, I have to say that mama-milk poop is the greatest stuff.  Easy to wash out, not terribly smelly in that big-person-poop sorta way. 

Now that we're done with the diapering, we are so happy to have gone wtih cloth.  It wasn't all that hard, once we got into the hang of dry pailing, poop-dumping, and double-washing.  We're happy with our decision.  We started out cautiously, though, trying out a diaper here and there - from prefolds and wraps to fuzzis and inserts.  We'd purchased a few consigned diapers and a some new.  All told, we probably spent around $200 for our set of 18 or so.

A couple of other final tips: to my knowledge, there's only one Portland diaper service, Tidee Didee.  For all your diapering needs in Portland, try Babyworks or Milagros.

So, for those of you who did cloth, how did you do it?  Which diapers did you use?  What are your number one tips for those considering cloth?  Soon-to-be-mom Thuan asks:

Hi, I'm a soon-to-be new mama and am grateful for this site!  I'm wondering about urban mamas' experience with diapers . . . cloth, disposable, g-diapers?  What worked for you, how cost-effective was it?  We're interested in convenience, cost, and eco-friendly. ha! Is this possible?

P.S. Here is a recent urbanMamas conversation-  G-Diapers: So, how are they?