I'm Not a Loyalist.

I'm not a loyalist.  Well I am, but I'm not.  After my husband and I married, I quit my job and found a new one when I moved.  During the duration of our time in Orlando, I stayed with one company, Florida Hospital, for almost 7 years.  However, within that organization, I found myself moving from one department to another under the Patient Administration umbrella.  Quite frankly I got bored.  So I found myself maintaining a little bit of sanity by moving around the department.

Now I'm a work/stay/play at home mom.  One thing I have remained loyal to during my child rearing years is cloth diapering.  I'm not a die hard, all or nothing cloth diaper user since I am known to pull out the disposables once in a while.  However, I will admit, within the umbrella of cloth, I am not loyal to one style of diapers.  I have jumped from one type to the next.  

When my middle two girls were babies, I started up with cloth full time.  I started out with fitteds.  I had a full stash of Kissaluvs and Snugglebottoms.  Then I moved on to a full stash of every size of Diaper Rite prefolds when baby #5 was born.  From there I ventured on to pockets with a few AIO.  Looking back though, I have never found the love for the AI2 system.  I'm not sure why.  It's just never hit me as a "Wow! This is great!" system.  

So for the last year I've been using all pockets and AIO.  These seem to be the best for my husband to use.  However, over the last two years as my pocket stash has grown, they are starting to wear out.  I hate to even type that!  But in reality, after two years and two children in diapers at the same time with a new one making his way into the one size weight range, I need to look at replacing diapers.  Since starting the business, I have added a few new pockets and AIO, but a majority of diapers need to be replaced.  Thus my loyalty to pockets is starting to wane.  

I'm thinking about building up my prefold stash once again.  This time I'm thinking of using a different brand.  Last time I used Diaper Rite and Green Mountain Diapers, but I found them to be too stiff and bulky, even the unbleached ones.  As I write this I sit and chuckle to myself because when I mentioned to my husband last night that I was considering going back to prefolds he promptly said, "Don't expect me to change any diapers then."  HA!!  Boy I never knew he had such a distaste for prefold diapers!  So, to keep him happy and in the game, I told him that I will keep some of the pockets available for when he does changes.  Besides, I do like to keep my stash a variety, but always having a majority of one type.  

So with the recent birth of our son, I finally started cloth diapering from the day he came home from the hospital.  I had tried to use prefolds on our last son, but I did not like them.  This time I decided to use Knickernappies infant prefolds.  I also had other diapers in my newborn stash which I have talked about before.  Anyway, I fell in love with the Knickernappies the first time I put them on him.  They were so soft and fluffy.  They remained soft and fluffy even after all the washing and occasional bleaching.  

Sadly my son has officially grown out of his newborn stash at around 7ish weeks.  That's not bad considering he started out at 9lbs 7.5 oz at birth.  So I have been working him into the one size pocket diapers I have on hand.  Unfortunately due to the past two years of use and laundering, some of my pocket covers are delaminating, the elastic is stretched out, and on a few the velcro is too frayed to stick.  Now, some of you may say, "Well it is easy to replace the elastic and velcro, just do it yourself!"  And I will say, "Sure go ahead!"  HA!  For some reason the thought of pulling anything off or out of my diapers scares me.  They are still some what useable, but if I go ripping things off and then ruin it making it unusable, well that will just make me mad.  However, if there is anyone reading this blog who is taking pity on me and would like to do it for me, I'd be happy to send them to you!  

Okay, so back to my loyalty.  I'm starting to wane on my loyalty to pocket diapers.  Quite frankly I'm getting bored of them.  So, I know I already love Knickernappies.  I also have one lonely OsoCozy prefold in my stash.  I pulled this one out the other day and used on the baby and I love it.  I'm realizing though, that I must make really wide babies.  For some reason, all of the prefolds I have used so far are difficult to pin or snappi.  I can do it, but it takes some work to make it just right to get everything to hook and hold.  Anyway, I have learned how to still put the prefold on my boys without a snapppi but also not jut trifolding the prefold.  But that is a post for the future.  

Another reason why I am wanting to go back to prefolds is the laundering.  Prefolds can really take a beating.  I'm still having to deal with diaper stink/ammonia.  If I want it to go away completely after every wash, I have to use bleach with every load.  Lately I've not done that; it's been more like once a week I will put in a splash of bleach.  Call me crazy, but I "feel better" doing that to a load of prefolds rather than an entire load of PUL, microfleece/suede, and bamboo.   

So it's time to say good-bye to my pockets and bring back the prefolds.  The benefit of bringing them in is that they are so cheap!  Since I still have some good pockets, a couple AIO, a fitted, and a few other prefolds on hand, I can add enough prefolds to complete my stash for the two boys well under $100.  That is a little harder to do with pockets or AIO.  I will have to say though, I will never stop loving the ease and simplicity of pockets, AIO, and fitteds.  They are just too darn cute to give up completely.         

Night Time Diapers.

Well it looks like it is time to revamp my night time solution.  *sigh*  For quite some time now (at least a year) I have been using KaWaii Goodnight Heavy Wetters.  That is a fairly bulletproof cover, by the way.  Stuffed inside were two microfiber inserts.  I thought that was the greatest thing ever!!  Can you tell I've never had a heavy wetter yet?  So, this worked great for a while.  Then we started to have leaks.  Eh, I'm no stranger to leaks so I started researching for more absorbent inserts.  I found the amazing soakability powers of hemp.  I've heard many moms swear by hemp for night time solutions.  So on the search I went.  I really didn't need to look far as I had 4 hemp microfiber combo doublers stuffed away in my closet.  Remember my last blog about the 188 diapers in my closet?  Well I found these among that pile.  I had put them away because I bought them when I was using only prefolds with my two girls.  I would put them in my prefold for their night time diaper.  And it worked awesome too; why did I ever forget them?  Oh I should mention that they were made by Blueberry, but unfortunately I can't even find them on their website.  

So after having to actually research how to properly use them (microfiber on top, hemp on bottom) I decided to give them a try in my KaWaii.  Once again, problem solved.  Now it may sound like a lot, but I used that doubler along with a microfiber insert in my pockets.  It was a fluffy bum, but not gigantic.  With my new found love for hemp I decided to find some other hemp products and came across Hemp Babies Prefolds.  I tried stuffing this into my BumGenius AIO and for my 2 year old it was magic!  She went 12+ hours in that diaper.  Unfortunately it was too big for my son, so I had to stick with the KaWaii pockets.  

Well, now we are back to square one (sort of).  The KaWaii are no longer working for either one of my little ones.  My daughter is 2 and my son is 1 and they are peeing right through it.  My son is a tummy sleeper, and I try to keep the inserts up front, but even still, the front of the cover is soaked.  I know part of the problem is that the Blueberry doubler is only a medium and I need a large.  That may fix it but they don't make them anymore, or at least I can't find them.  I need another solution, so to my diverse stash I go.  My son is big enough that the AIO are starting to fit him, so my AIO are now my go to night time diapers.  

The hardest decision was to decide what to stuff in them.  I only have two Hemp Babies, so that will work for one night, but I don't wash every day.  In my own store I have Thirsties Hemp Prefolds.  Wow, these things are just awesome.  I had grabbed one from the store so I could simply see how well it worked.  I was skeptical at first.  This prefold looked like some cotton jersey sewn together.  Well it sort of is.  It is made from hemp jersey and it is one of the softest hemps I have ever felt.  My only complaint is that it is not very big so it really can't be used like a normal prefold where you can snappi or pin around your baby.  Well I should clarify that.  If you have skinny or smaller babies, they could be used that way, but for my big babies I can't.  However that is not a problem.  I think these diapers were made primarily for trifolding use.  So that is exactly what I did.  I stuffed it into my BG AIO and put it on my 2 year old.  Once again, I was not disappointed.  In fact I was very happy in that it is slightly a trimmer option than a regular prefold in an AIO.  I was equally surprised to find that this prefold works wonders in a flat even for night!

My final solution that I came up with is simply using a prefold.  I have some Green Mountain Diaper brown edge, Econobums, and one OsoCozy from my store.  The GMD are too big to stuff so I don't use those.  The Econobums are too small to pin or snappi on my son so they work very well to stuff with.  However they are a bit narrow when trifolded, so when I trifold it in the AIO, it makes it a bit bulky.  My favorite prefold for stuffing is the OsoCozy Indian Unbleached prefold.  These can seem a bit deceiving in that they don't look very thick, but they are.  Once they have been prepped enough and they are used in your stash, they fluff up nicely and absorb well.  

My night time stash has had to evolve over the last few months.  With growing babies, and yes let's face it, growing bladders, things have to change.  Here then is the running list of my favorite night time solutions.  

BG AIO with Thirsties Duo Hemp Prefold
Birdseye Unbleached Flat with Thirsties Duo Hemp Prefold
BG AIO with Hemp Babies Prefold
BG AIO with OsoCozy Prefold
BG AIO with Econobum Prefold

Now the BG AIO does get substituted once in a while with flats on those rare occasions of, "oops I didn't wash diapers today."  

Bleached or Unbleached.

The modern cloth diaper allows for so many choices.  You can chose from what style you want to use: all-in-one, hybrid (all-in-two), pockets, prefolds (Chinese or Indian), flats, and fitteds.  Then you can chose what kind of fabric you want to use: cotton, bamboo, hemp, microfiber, microfleece, suedecloth, and organic cotton or hemp.  With the prefolds and flats you also have the choice of bleached or unbleached cotton.  Wow, makes your head spin right?  You thought a diaper was a diaper right?  Nope, we mommas like to have a choice!  HA!

 When I first ventured back into the world of cloth diapers, I wanted to go with the cheapest option which was prefolds and covers.  Previously I had used Gerber prefolds with pins and the pull up pants.  I really didn't mind them, and they never bothered the kids even in the hot Florida summer weather.  As I began searching I had to choose between Chinese or Indian cotton and bleached and unbleached.  I didn't look into it too much, but from surface value, choosing between bleached and unbleached didn't seem too tough; choose between a cotton fabric that has or has not been through the bleaching process.  Since no chemicals have stripped the unbleached threads, I decided to go with that.  So, what is the difference?  

I found a great explanation from the OsoCozy website at alltogetherdiaper.com.  For bleached cotton, the cotton yarn goes through a bleaching process to strip the natural oils from the thread before it is woven.  In doing so, the thread is less durable and the strength of the thread is reduced.  Unbleached woven cotton has not been through the bleaching process.  Unbleached cotton threads retain their natural oils and remain durable.  However, because they still have their natural oils on them, they have to go through 2-3 washes (for flats) and about 6-8 (for prefolds) to remove their oils and be at their maximum absorbency.  

I like using unbleached because you are using the natural fabric/material against baby's skin.  Many times little one's have such sensitive skin, so keeping it natural reduces exposure to any remaining chemical residue left on the fabric.  Also, unbleached cotton weave is so super soft.  My Indian unbleached prefolds (which you can find on my website) are the softest prefolds I have ever used.