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.

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.

How do you keep a fish from smelling?

...Cut off its nose...

The offspring will be four months old tomorrow. During his first month, he was very small, and we were a little under-prepped for cloth diapering. We didn't start until he was 1 month old.

In my last post, I exhorted the efficacy of cold-water washing. I remember now, I left out a point - I wash on cold, but I use the "heavy soil" cycle so the diapers really get agitated. (They calm down again before we use them.)

In the last few days, I've noticed the offspring developing a pretty strong urine smell when he pees even a little, and after the last cold/cold wash, I noticed that a general baby-diaper smell was starting to accumulate and not go away so much in the diapers after the wash.

Today, I threw everything in for a hot wash with a tiny amount of Borax to break down some of the odors and stains. I'll see if that doesn't help with the accumulating urine odor. Keep in mind, that this is a single hot wash after three months of use - and all the diapers and butt rags are in there.

If you're trying to save on water or energy, and you mix in a hot wash every now and then, think about other ways to save energy and water:

• Are all your toilets low-flow? If not, a new toilet is only about $100 and very simple to install. If you can change a bike tire and connect a garden hose to a sprinkler, you have the skills to replace your toilet.
• Do you have CFL bulbs in all commonly-used lamps?
• Got night lights? How about LED night lights instead?
• How about a low-flow shower head (appx 1.5 gallons per minute)? Mine has a shot-off valve on the shower head, and I turn it on the get wet and to rinse, and off to lather up. (TMI?) Anyway, it save a lot of water!
  

And so on. I'll let you know if the hot-wash does the trick on the urine smell, or if the kid is just developing an odor internally.

A Rose by Any Other Name

How do you keep fish from smelling?

Cut off their noses.

How do you keep your diaper pail from smelling?

You don't. It has poop and pee in it. Keep the lid closed. Wash the contents every other day.

Don't waste your time washing the pail - just try to let it air out after the diapers go in the wash and before a new diaper gets in there. If it gets really gross, I guess you could wash it. I try to drop diapers into it in a way that doesn't spread the contents around.

I've read about the wet and dry methods. They both sound like a hassle.

You Can't Stop It - Your Only Hope is to Contain It

Once you get a poopy or pee-y diaper, you have to put it somewhere until you wash it. I use two of these. One is for regular laundry and diaper covers (which get a little poopy, but can be washed with dark colors with no detriment to the laundry). The other is for soiled diapers and the rags I use to wipe baby's butt. (I also don't like wipes - mostly because of the fragrance, but also because of the feel. There's a reason you wash your body with a cotton rag and not a paper towel. Paper, however soft, has never been recommended by anyone to rub on your face. Why use it on baby's butt if you don't have to.) The waste pails have removable plastic liners. I don't use bags. I empty the crappy pail into the wash and sometimes spritz the liner with a little Lysol if it smells really bad. It gets a little damp and funky in there, so I let it air out a little whenever I do the diapers. The pails are about 3 gallons, which is enough to run a small batch of diapers about every other day - which is about as long as you can let that gross stuff hang out in there. There are some opinions about "wet storage" which involves soaking all the stuff in water - but that just sounds nasty - plus you have this 3-5 gallon bucket of water to deal with. The proviso at the moment is that my kid is about 11 weeks old and exclusively breastfed, which makes his poops a lot more manageable than solid food or formula poops. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. You can get a Diaper Genie, but the product has been designed like Gillette razors and consumer-grade vacuums to force you to perpetually purchase disposable, refillable, replaceable bits and pieces on a regular basis. And when you're done with babies, you have a nasty old Diaper Genie. When I'm done with babies, I have two great wastepaper baskets. I'm trying to tackle things in the order they come - but I feel compelled to deal with a part of the Big Carbon Footprint issue - so: up next...The Drying Game!