Bigger Diaps, Colder Water

Month 20 has arrived, and we have a couple of pees in the potty, so there's a yellow-y light at the end of the tunnel...

In the meantime, a subtitle for this post could be called "bigger boy, more pee." We've got the next size of the Thirsties Duo (there are only two sizes, which have adjustments so each size can be three sizes, for a total of six, if you follow). My experience with the Thirsties has been largely good, though at the margins of the sizing in the Duos (starting out when the Boy was very small - then transitioning to the Duo Size 2) there's some compromise. When we made the size leap, the size ones looked a little like bikini briefs, and the size twos were a touch big even on the smallest setting. The offspring has admittedly slender thighs, which has been an issue with all gussets.

I would recommend hang-dry only for your Thirsties - the velcro wears out really fast if they make it into the dryer. I was hoping to get some mileage of my Size ones when offspring 2 happens by, but some of the size ones aren't going to make it, I'm afraid. The threads also blew out - I think also related to throwing them carelessly in the dryer.

We got some big organic cotton prefolds called 4-8-4's which means they're pretty thick in the middle - the numbers refer to the layers of cotton in each third of the diaper. The pace of diapering has changed, so we have a couple dozen big diapers, and only ordered 6 of the Thirsties Duo Size Two - and that all seems to be plenty.

As for the G-diapers - I applaud the reverse-pointing velcro tabs as difficult for the willful toddler to remove, but I can't recommend the G-diaper cloth inserts for anything. I have used them sort folded up in another diaper to extend the night-time soakage factor - but that's so ridiculously bulky I stopped. Basically, one good whiz from Mr. Whizzer will soak a G-diaper cloth insert completely through. Then it kind of wads up in the diaper and does nothing.

I remain a HUGE fan of the G-Diaper flushable inserts, which can be doubled up into a large cover (Thirsties or whatever) for super-soakage, long drives, whatever you might need it for - I've even done that overnight.

Along with this change in size has come an improvement in communication and a toughening of the butt, eliminating the need for much, if any diaper cream. Poops are speedily identified and disposed of before they can get mashed around. Mostly, they happen once a day, and I find that the whole cloth-diapers-are-better-for-the-skin thing really comes into play at this point. The difference between two or three hours in a cloth diaper and a few hours in a disposable is pretty dramatic in terms of the happy-looking skin under the cloth, as opposed to the squashed and sweaty-looking skin that appears from under a disposable.

As a result of the swifter poo detection and the absence of diaper cream, cold water wash seems to do a great job once more. I have switched soaps for diaper washing. I was using Seventh Gen laundry soap (they make a concentrated one for diapers that I never did use). I picked up a bottle of Method super concentrated laundry soap and a refill bag. Avoid the "Lavender Cedar" scent - it's kind of patchouli inflected - the other scent is something bland like Mountain Air or Fresh Breeze and it smells more or less like laundry. It was a touch pricey but really easy to use, reusable dispenser, refill bag - incredibly low-waste and because low volume, lower carbon footprint to transport. I found mine at Target.

I'm going to post a video of me folding up some diapers and putting them in the covers, since I couldn't really find information about that and had to make it up myself. 

Water Water Everywhere!

If you read the last post, you'll know that our battle against diaper rash has caused an escalation of unguent. Since the heavy-duty creams are harder to wash out of the diapers (though they have succeeded in staving off the rash), I have had to "break down" the diapers - meaning wash the s*** (literally and metaphorically) out of them. I do this by using a hot wash or two. That works pretty well.

I have been washing the diapers on cold only - heated water being the second-most energy intensive part of cloth diapering next to heated drying. So I tried an experiment - not to break down the grease film, but to expand the time between break-downs.

Normally after a cold wash in a small amount of water (adequate for the entire first 9 months at least) a film, or ring of diaper-grease would form around the inside of the wash at the top of the water line. The cold water couldn't keep the residue dissolved until it drained - so it stuck to the washer instead (as far as I know, the inside of the drain pipes look like Dick Cheney's femoral artery...). This film was also indicative of what was left on the fibers of the diapers.

There are two ways to increase the carrying capacity of the water to dissolve the solution: increase the temperature of the solution, or increase the amount of water. So I'm experimenting with washing the diapers in the next-higher water setting. Seems to work so far - no ring around the washtub.

Of course, which of these methods you use might depend on where you live. If you live in an arid area, but you have access to passive solar - use hot water from the roof! If you live in a cold area (like me) with more water than you know what to do with - and you have to heat it with $3.50/gallon #2 heating oil - it makes sense to try using a little more cold water.

Hope that was refreshing!

Tao of Poo

Funny thing about having a kid, a job, and another blog: you don't get much time to write (or reflect).

Mr. Whippersnapper is nigh on 14 months now. Much has changed - especially the consistency of his poo - which, now that he is eating more human food, is more like the kind of poo you step in on the sidewalks of NYC than the innocuous cheezy custard of his early months.

Current solution for removing sticky, sat-in poo from a diaper: old rubber spatula in a jar behind the john. Works pretty well. I'm still laundering the same way more or less: less line drying (hard to time everything out with the job and the sunny days). Mobile kids also eat up more time and 14-month-olds are awake a lot more, so that's even more of a jam.

The sticky older baby poo also seems to increase diaper rash problems, which requires the use of more heavy-duty cream - I use A&D Ointment - a combo of lanolin and vaseline, basically - for the base layer, and then a thick paste of off-brand Desitin - essentially 40% strength zinc oxide.

It helps.

I've also virtually eliminated the bowl of warm water at this point. The frequent wetting and rubbing of the bum exacerbated the rash problem. Instead, in the event of a poo, I use off-brand scentless, alcohol-free wipes (note: these say "flushable", but I accidentally put one through the wash, and it came out in perfect condition. Wouldn't flush these if you really care about your plumbing - definitely a no-no if you're on septic).

After the wipes, I smear on gob of A&D which works like a make-up remover and odor-eliminator. I wipe some of that off and then apply the zinc cream. I have to do this pretty much every time because he's a pretty regular kid, and you never know when he'll drop the bomb.

If he pees and things look pretty good, I just reapply some ointment and cream and go with it. That seems to cause less damage than all the cleaning.

The use of the heavier creams has made the laundry a little scummier, which brings me to the title of the post. Rather than subscribing to some formula for getting things clean, listen to your diapers. Watch your washer. They are telling you a story about poo and goo. Go with the flow - use different amounts of soap, switch between hot and cold water if you think it's necessary. Don't wash your wife's pretty things right after the diapers.

If you can, line-dry. It's still the best energy saver and smell-and-stain remover.

May the poo be with you. Always.

g-Wiz

Welcome to month 8!

Catching up on a few things.

Firstly, we have some poops acquiring the consistency of tomato paste. Whippersnapper has been eating "solids" - which are actually purees, plus whatever biscuit bits migrate into his stomach after copious slobbery gnaws. He's mostly breastfed still, but eats this stuff daily. We get poops every 2-4 days.

I throw the poopy pants into the dry diaper bucket and throw everything in the wash - still on cold, still with vinegar, and it comes out fine. I did do a hot wash of a bunch of diapers I suspected of diaper cream buildup, but it was more for psychological reasons than rational ones: the diapers were still performing more or less the same. I've read of "breaking down" the diapers every three months with a hot wash or two - diapers that had become essentially waterproof.

I don't know what those folks are using for diaper cream (axle grease?) but I haven't encountered any pee beading up on the cloth...

Number 2...hahahahaha....

Jocoseriously, I got some gDiapers. We're on the verge of going up a size from the Thirsties Duos Size 1, which work great - but being an epic dabbler, I had to try out the gDiapers.

On the whole, it's a toss up. If you're using Duos and you like them, I can't recommend switching unless you're just dying for a change of scene. On the upside, you don't need as many g covers because they have snap-in "liners" or pockets that actually take the diaper. I have 7 Little gPants and about 15 liners. I bought some extras, and some two-packs of the gPants had an extra pocket/liner each in them.

The gDiaper has a good disposable liner which I can recommend. It's biodegradable, and flushable - if you follow the instructions, and you're not on septic...and if you have relatively modern plumbing. If you're on septic, you'll just fill it up, and if your house is prone to clogs, you'll certainly have trouble flushing these blobbies - but in a new home on sewer, they're fine. You have to break them apart with a little swishy-stick.

I haven't had the opportunity to try out the flushability firsthand - I'm on septic AND I have old plumbing.

The gDiaper disposable liner does seem to cut down generally on waste if you're working back and forth between cloth and disposable. Added benefit: you can preload a snap-in pocket with a disposable liner and take it on the road with you for easy change. Functionally, the benefit over the Duo is that the gPocket thing constrains the diaper on all sides, front and back - the Duo only loads in the front, leaving some creative folding and stuffing to be done while fastening and fending off arms and legs.

The gPants cover has some nice comfort features - wider waistband comfy thigh gussets. They also cleverly fasten around the side toward the back - timely if your tyke is getting grabby with the front-fastening diapers (which is everything else on the market - including all disposables).

The Duo has a narrow elastic waist, and generally tends to bunch down in the front in a way the appears a little uncomfortable. On the upside, the general construction of the Duo seems to breathe better, and we're still using some Thirsties Small covers for nighttime use with a great wad of diaper to keep the butt dry (we've been having rash problems).

The snap-in pocket/liner of the gDiaper is really pretty much plastic as far as I can tell - great for dry outside, but no breathing inside. The Duo is polyester lined with neoprene, so it breathes pretty well and stays dry outside. The gDiaper restricts the diapering function to the "hot zones" and leaves more area not needing absorbency generally open to the world - which is good for those parts.

The gDiaper constitutes a system, including the disposable liner, and a custom cloth liner made of polyfleece and cotton. These are pretty nice, soft on the baby side, but are a little light-weight when it comes to absorbency, and tend to wad (not quite wide enough). I should mention that were using "Medium" gPants and "Medium/Large" liners. The disposable liner looks big enough to size up, but I'm skeptical of the custom cloth liner - it's only just big enough to fill the Medium gPants. I mostly use a folded up cotton prefold that stays in place better and absorbs more than the custom liner. We use custom liners for times in the morning when we know we'll change him again soon - maybe he likes a break with the softer ployfleece.

(Probably it's all in my head - the kid eats carpet and sits in his own excrement without batting an eye. Studies have proven that sad babies don't care if they're wet or dry - they'd rather just be picked up and held.)

The Duos promise to get your kid out of diapers in two sizes - which is a big cost benefit. If you started out with a small kid and end up with a big one, you could be into 4 sizes of gPants. On the other hand, you'll need at least 8, and preferably 10-12 Duos in each size, whereas you could get maybe 6 gPants and 6 extra snap-in pockets in each size of gDiaper.

Laundering is the same for both. I'm curious about how the pockets will hold up after repeated washings, but I imagine they'll do fine. The gPants do take longer to line-dry. They're double-layered poly-cotton. The Duos dry really fast, even indoors - maybe a few hours at most inside and an hour or less outside on the line. The gPants take about as long to dry as a t-shirt.

If you're brand conscious and you want a stylish baby, the gPants clean up. Other than that, it's probably just preference. I would recommend getting a gDiaper rig to try - and if you're a gDiaper user and you need to go up a size, try out a Duo. Go with what you like. I don't know about anything else because I haven't used it. I guess you could pack a paper bag with straw...

Fun Shapes

1.19 x 10^57 atoms pack a lot of cleaning power

Bleach. HA!

Hot water. HA! HA!

Dryer? meh.

Check out the awesome atomic power of our own sun!
This is a cloth cotton diaper stained with poop. I washed it in cold water with 7th Generation liquid and some vinegar. This picture is post-wash just after I hung it up.


Then I hung it in the sun. Not even the direct sun. It was pretty overcast, but bright. Below is the result.


It hung out there for about 5 hours. During that five hours, I did other things while the atomic power of the sun did its thing. It's too bad my cell phone can't record smells because a line dried diaper should have its own cologne. Maybe I'll pitch it to J-Lo.

Save your money, save the planet. Line dry some stuff.

Unctuousness

Isn't that a great word. It means a lot of things, (like insincere) but it also means "oily."

Whippersnapper has developed a stubborn rash, and so we're trying on some different diaper creams. We used to use some olive oil based balm from a great place in the St. Lawrence river valley (which smells great and works very well on garden variety diaper rash. It also came in handy for use on cradle cap, various dry spots, and dad's hands and cuticles).

We used Burt's Bees Diaper Cream and some regular old petroleum jelly. In response to the rash, we've upped the ante, using the goo more liberally, and we also starting using Bordeaux's Butt Paste. I just did a load of diapers after adding to our arsenal, and for the first time, there was an unctuous (but very sincere) ring around the inside of our washer.

It doesn't look too bad, but if it persists, I might have to find a solution. My first response was to get an old rag and wipe away the ring of oily stuff from inside the washer before it got too thick.

I'll post again about whether this becomes a persistent problem and if I discover any cheap, friendly solutions to it.

Also, as soon as I find my adapter, I'm going to post the awesomest before/after photo of a lined dried diaper that will convince you that bleach and heavy detergent is totally useless compared to the awesome atomic power of the Sun.