You’ve chosen to cloth diaper and then you find your baby has developed a rash. You feel like someone just played a nasty trick on you. Did you just get conned by the Earth warriors campaigning for ‘no disposable diapers’? I assure you, you didn’t! Truth is that all babies get rashes at some point in their babyhood. Rashes can be due to teething, sensitivities or even food intolerances. So before you gather all your cloth diapers and set the pyre alight, let’s look at some common reasons why rashes can happen even to cloth diapered babies and let’s tackle them too. Continue reading
Category: Cloth Diapering (Page 1 of 3)
One of the first eye-popping parenting moments for me was when I discovered cloth diapers. I knew I didn’t want to use a chemical laden plastic diaper. However I did not know of an alternative. When I chanced upon the cloth diapering world and discovered that a cloth diaper is made of safe cloth and is still efficient enough to hold for long hours without making baby feel wet, I was sold. Continue reading
So you’ve started Cloth Diapering. You’ve built cloth diaper laundry into your daily wash routine and daytime diapering is going great! Night times, ah, now therein lies the rub. For, what if the diaper doesn’t hold or there are leaks and what if baby wakes up when you change. Most cloth diapering mamas dread taking the first step towards nighttime cloth diapering. But as I experienced and so did most of my cloth diapering mama friends, the first night is the hardest. The morning after the first night of Cloth Diapering is pure joy.
W hen you find that the cloth diaper did indeed hold up all night and baby’s skin is still dry and soft and no rashes or redness, it is pure happiness. Night time cloth diapering is not as scary as it sounds and this post is meant to encourage you to take that step and try it out. Continue reading
Hey there! I know I’ve kept you waiting a long time since my last post on #ClothDiapers. Well, life and Mommying happened as they say. Have you ever noticed how just as you plan to do something major on your blog or in your personal sphere, things are thrown out of gear by a new baby growth spurt or teething or just general mood off? Well, that’s what happened here too. But we have kind of defeated that and here I am to talk about Cloth Diapers.
There are many kinds of people. Book people. Coffee People. Horror Movie people.
And then there are Cloth Diaper kind of people. Even within that, there are the pre-folds people, flats people, pockets people and whatever suits them kind of diaper type of people. There are also people who want to try it all (Me!). Bottomline is that cloth diapers are not a one size fits all solution. A lot depends on the individual’s comfort and convenience and baby’s needs too. But let’s make an attempt here to simplify it and tell you, realistically, about the kinds of cloth diapers that you will most likely use and want to have in your stash. So here goes… Continue reading
If you have been following my blog or my accounts on social media you would know that I am a die hard fan of cloth diapers. I discovered the concept of cloth diapers when I was pregnant. My first thoughts were that they were like nappies or langots as they are called in India. I imagined them to be fancily designed langots and laughed at all the women going nuts about them. Like really?
Until I discovered what cloth diapers were really all about. And then I became one of those moms who was going all ga-ga about them. I then spent the last two months of my pregnancy reading up all I could about cloth diapers, the materials, how they worked, the wash and care routines, sizes, types. I was intrigued by how the basic concepts like multi-layering of fabric, and material with wicking properties were being used to build effective tools to hold bodily extracts – read: baby pee & poop. I was sold, hook, line, and sinker for cloth diapers.
I have written several posts about cloth diapers on my blog.
If you want to understand what is a cloth diaper and how they work, read my post on My First Cloth Diaper.
Cloth Diapers are essentially diapers made of cloth, and as such safe from harmful chemicals, fragrances and plastic/ paper. Like disposable diapers, they are totally waterproof and leakproof. They have great capacity – can use cloth diapers overnight too. However unlike sposies (as disposable diapers are known) cloth diapers are washable and hence reusable over and over again. That one diaper will last you till potty training is done.
However, I felt that they lacked structure and somewhere I skipped the basics. So all this month I am going to be talking about cloth diapers and sharing information and my expertise. Topics for the blogs will range from a basic 101 guide to cloth diapers and then help you build your stash. I also want to talk about a very common problem that most people face with cloth diapers and that is getting the perfect fit and sizing. Lastly, I do see a lot of new parents and caregivers adopting cloth diapering but shying away from using cloth diapers at night or when out of the house. I want to give very simple and doable solutions to this category. While I respect everyone’s individual choice to follow something as per their convenience and comfort, I really want to urge them to at least try and then decide if it would suit them or not.
So stay tuned all of this month. Is there any specific topic you would like me to cover about cloth diapering? Let me know in the comments here.
5th June marks World Environment Day and like most people I do stop to ponder about the impact my actions & living choice have on the world & its environment. World Environment Day is not a hallmark holiday. It is a very important and grave part of our modern lives today. We need to talk more about the Environment and the legacy we leave behind. The old Indian saying which has been quoted far too many times, rings loudly in my ears…
“We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children”
Before I had #BabyT I would roll my eyes at those tree hugger type of people who would advocate save trees, go green, save water and all of it was mumbo-jumbo to me. I mean how does just one plastic bag I use make a difference? Right?
Turns out I was wrong. When they put that shriveled up & pink little dumpling in my arms I was transformed. I vowed to do everything to protect him and bring him up as a good human being in a better world than you and I know today. A cleaner, greener, healthier world. And so I joined the “Hippy bandwagon” – the term hurts me sometimes, but this is what some people now refer to me as. A hippy. But the hippies are a cool lot, they spread love and harmony and did a lot for the world that they graced their brief lives with.
As is the case with every day of the #AtoZBloggingChallenge, I rack my brains all day, start panicking by evening and then suddenly a light bulb comes on somewhere in my brain and I find a topic for the day’s alphabet. But today was a moment I have been waiting to write about even before I started the #AtoZ Challenge and in fact the whole purpose behind my blog I think. Today’s topic was also fueled by this little boy, the reason for everything else right now. <3
Wooden blocks FTW
After losing a small piece of my mind, over why #babyT was not yet stacking stuff (Yes, when you are a mom, such stuff is what nightmares are made of. I exaggerate of course.) I decided to take the plunge and buy him the very expensive Wooden Blocks by Melissa & Doug. We do have several types of blocks already, stacking rings, shape sorters, but i wasn’t seeing him enjoy them nor was he sharpening his fine motor skills. So the wooden blocks happened. And what do we have? I opened the packaging and placed the blocks in front of him and he stacked them. The boy stacked them. 5 in a line. He did!! I went into “hence proved” mode and for the n’th time accepted that natural parenting was the right way to bring up our child. Continue reading
Cloth diapers got me totally cray cray y’all. And I mean they’ve captured my very soul and essence. So obviously the letter C was bound to be my favourite one in the #AtoZChallenge
I’ve written many posts about Cloth Diapering, but still its never enough. And i think you will agree when I say that you have never met (ok maybe barring 1 – 2 people) anyone who cloth diapers and is NOT obsessed with them. I am the biggest example of that and everything mentioned here in this post is about me. 🙂 Quite shamelessly too!
But why are most new moms obsessed with cloth diapers?
Here’s my feeble attempt to justify all my CD obsessions by giving seemingly valid and scientific reasons for the insanity.
My precious laundry pile
If you have remotely heard of Cloth Diapering you may have also heard the word “wet bag” being thrown about casually in conversations about wash routines and diapering accessories. Essentially, a wet bag is a bag that holds wet stuff. TaDa! No surprises there. It is, in fact, a reusable, waterproof and leak resistant bag which holds in odours and of course prevents liquids from escaping. But did you know that a wet bag can be used for many purposes other than just cloth diapering? This makes it an investment that is quite worth it and very handy around the house. Especially a house that has a child.
Firstly let me give you some insight into why a wetbag is so important in a cloth diaper’s journey. Wet bags are essentially made of PUL/ TPU and so are reusable (yayy for planet Earth) They are also waterproof and leak resistant (yayy for all who cloth diaper) Wet bags allow you to continue cloth diapering even when you are out of the home. This without having to stink up and flooding your diaper bag with baby bodily outputs. And you do not need to use plastic bags. At all! Yes, you heard right. Continue reading
Now that babyT has been on two holidays, and one staycation and many weekend stayovers at family’s and having exclusively cloth diapered on these, I can assure you Cloth Diapering is #FTW
When I started off cloth diapering, I made sure I followed everything to the T (not babyT’s T) and generally made stuff more complicated than was warranted. But over the months and now with a year of CDing behind me, I think my routines and CD schedules are easy-peasy and I weave CDing around my life events and not the other way around. My household has not seen one disposable diaper since the early months of Ts life (I regret even that) and I have gone on to prove to family members that CDing is natural and easy and doesn’t inconvenience even on the go.
We just got back from a wedding in Mangalore and we cloth diapered over 5 days. We were staying in a hotel, and I am not sure if they had laundry service as I never bothered to find out, but we cloth diapered, oh yes, we did! Here’s how we did it. We took along:
- 10 Pocket diapers with good old microfibre inserts
- 7 Natural fibre AIOs for the nights & during the wedding events
- 3 Hybrid diapers with disposable inserts for longish outings, road & air journeys
- Grovia Biosoakers (disposable inserts for hybrid diapers)
- 3 Fleece liners (never leave home without my colourful fleecies 🙂 )
- 2 Wetbags
- 15 Reusable wipes
- Tiny bottle of coconut oil
- CD friendly Detergent: Soapnuts by Bubblenut wash
Home to airport to hotel and vice versa:
For road and flight journeys we relied on our Grovia hybrid shells and Grovia biosoakers. Ok I admit that I was very skeptical about using something disposable, but Grovia assures that they are environmentally friendly, in the sense that they are made of biodegradable and compostable materials, contain no chemicals unlike sposies, and are fragrance / dye / chlorine & plastic free. And they are so incredibly thirsty. One biosoaker lasted us around 5 hours, no thanks to getting stuck in road traffic and a delayed flight due to fog. I had no intention of leaving it on so long. But after those 5 hours, while the biosoaker was heavy with pee, it still had capacity to hold some more & the gussets it comes with made sure no leaks sprouted.
For smaller trips which involve lesser amount of traveling time we are good with one All-in-One. I mainly use Superbottoms Plus. It has an organic bamboo cotton soaker which in itself is quite abosrbent. But I add a booster during trips.
Pic source: Google
Grovia Biosoaker in a Hybrid shell
The main reason I wanted to use Biosoakers was because I did not want the hassle of lugging around dirty diapers or inserts in a plane or enter the wedding party smelling of ammonia. It was a close family wedding & I was quite involved with the ceremonies to pay minute attention to dirty diapers. Earlier trips had also shown that it was not so easy to find a spot to change or that babyT would cooperate for a change between journeys. Although I am quite impressed with the performance of Grovia Biosoakers, it remains debatable whether they are truly good for the environment. But it did mean a lot of convenience on our holiday.
For the day & smallish outings
Pockets and good quality micro-fibre inserts held well for day times and any other times we were just lounging around in the hotel room or our family’s homes.
CDing at Brittos, Baga beach, Goa, India
I use pockets by Superbottoms and their stay dry soakers (meant for covers, but I use them for pockets too.) They are incredibly thirsty and justify their price, as they hold around 3 – 4 hours for us. Micro-fibre also dries fast making it the best to use while travelling.
Nights
I rely entirely on my natural fibre AIOs – Blueberry, Thirsties & SuperBottoms, for nights or longish outings. I add a very light booster as babyT is not a very heavy wetter and we are good for the night. With the exception of Thirsties NAIO, the other two brands also dry reasonably fast, making them ideal for CDing on vacation. I did have one night of leak as babyT is a tummy sleeper, but I carried extra AIOs for the night so we were alright.
Storage & Laundry
I store all soiled diapers in wetbags. My ‘Superbags’ from Superbottoms are guaranteed leak proof, very spacious and keep all stinks in. I store the diapers in them before rinsing and once rinsed too. On vacation, once I reached the hotel room, I drip dried the rinsed diapers on the towel rack or hanging rod, until laundry day was possible.
CDs getting a luxurious dip in the bath-tub in our room.. the life these guys lead, I tell you!
I have washed CDs in the hotel room but this time around I had access to the washing machine at my uncle’s home and I washed twice. Nonetheless I have fond memories of me washing diapers in the hotel room – it was my birthday, we were in Goa and while babyT and his daddy slept (like a baby, may I add)… I was washing cloth diapers. And I enjoyed the quiet moment as I ushered in my birthday, doing what I love best.
Drying diapers
Many hotels provide a detachable drying line in the bathroom or the balcony. I usually dry stuff in the bathroom over the towel rod or the balcony. I have carried my own rope to tie up in the room, but never felt the need to actually use it.
How to plan for CDing while on vacation?
If you would like to extend your commitment to cloth diapering and want to try it while on vacation too, give a thought to these areas.
How many days will you be away?
This is basic and simple math, if you use around 5 diapers per day and plan to do laundry on holiday, carry enough diapers to last you for around 3 days. So that’s about 15 diapers. This is still a comfortable number even if you plan to launder every day. Always carry more diapers than you will need.
I do recommend taking along diapers which have good capacity and will hold well for longer periods. So I leave behind my fitteds which only last me around an hour and trust my pockets with microfiber to last us at least 3 – 4 hours.
The number mentioned above does not include night time diapers. For nights, I just take along 1 diaper per night that we will be away and 1 extra for good measure. This takes care of any leaks or accidents.
How will you manage poop incidents?
This trip, we managed poop incidents with our Grovia biosoakers. All I needed to do was plop the mess in the pot and throw away the soaker. However you may want to carry along liners – disposable or reusable to hold mess. There’s no guarantee that you will find a sprayer or the time to clean poopy diapers.
If you don’t have any liners or the thought of cleaning them still seems like a pain, cut up some old cotton fabric and use them to line your diapers. You can just throw them away when soiled and still be rest assured that they will degrade naturally and not harm the environment.
I would also recommend you carry wet bags vs. plastic bags. Wet bags are washable and reusable. Also they contain the messiest of messes, so it is worthwhile investing in a couple of these. Make sure what you are buying is waterproof and leak-proof in case you’re planning to toss it into your diaper bag or other luggage. Not all wet bags give you zero leaks. K
Where are you traveling to? What is the weather going to be like?
This is a very important factor… are you off on a beach vacation or are the hills calling? How much humidity the place faces and how much sunshine you’re going to get will determine how fast your diapers dry and in turn will help you decide how many diapers to carry along. If you’re visiting Mumbai in the monsoon (not exactly a vacation spot, I know) but chances of your laundry drying even over two days are slim. J
What access will you have to laundry facilities?
This is most important of course. If you are going to be away with no access to any laundry facilities, then you will have to rely on hand-washing where you’re going to be staying. I don’t give cloth diapers away to hotel laundry services because it is just too complicated to explain to them about extra rinse and no softeners etc. Besides you never know what else is going into the wash with your clothes. >:-)
So carry detergent along in a small container. I carry soapnuts along because they clean effectively without needing several extra rinses. They work well with all types of water – hard, soft etc. They are also gentle on skin and don’t harm baby skin even if some residue remains on cloth.
For reasons unknown, this is one of my favourite pics from vacation. 🙂
You may also want to consider carrying a small piece of coir rope (not plastic) along to put up a drying line. J
Cloth diapering on vacation is easy. It may seem difficult to think about, but once you’ve tried it you’ll see that it is no different from how you would cloth diaper in your regular space. Always be prepared and plan ahead. You should sail through if you’ve done your preparation well. And don’t be afraid to fall back on a sposie if need be. Your mental sanity and peace and the much needed R&R on vacation score much higher.
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