Heat and PUL Are Not Best Friends.

I spend a good portion of my day asking my 2 year old silly questions like, "Why did you hit the baby?  Why are you pushing those buttons? or What is your fascination with the light switch?"  and I have come to the conclusion that it is because he simply wants to see what is going to happen.  He's inquisitive.  I can't fault him for that, after all he is only 2.  So what is  my excuse?  Well, like mother like son I guess.  There are just some things I just gotta know. 

So long!  It was a good 10 years knowing you!

What does this have to do with diapers you ask?  I'll tell you.  Remember my blog A Lesson Learned  where I talked about not using the dryer because of de-lamination?  Well, I apparently have not learned my lesson yet.  Back in May when I was in the hospital giving birth to our 6th child, my mother was watching our kids.  While she was there and keeping up on my laundry, my washer died.  *great*  Out with the old and in with the new washer and dryer.  I was thrilled.  Even though I had finally worked out a perfect washing routine for our diapers, I was not happy with how much time and cycles it took.  

Laundry day hit and I stuck with what I knew:  cold rinse, hot wash, cold rinse.  You know, for a while this was great, but I knew there had to be a more efficient way to wash without having to run the machines so many times.  After all these are brand new machines!  So my husband and I took a look at what we had and decided to test out the steam functions.  When we were looking at machines to buy, the sales man said that seam is helpful for releasing stains.  And as we all know in the cloth diapering world, heat helps kill stinky bacteria, so we figured why not, let's try it out.  

So on my machine, we have the Deep Clean with Steam button.  I toss everything in, set the machine to hot with detergent, no bleach, and the Deep Clean button on.  This seemed to work for a few weeks.  It made it about a 2 hour cycle, but that was okay as long as my diapers were getting clean.  I was pretty stoked that we were finding a way to clean the diapers in one cycle.  Well then my husband showed me the Steam Sanitize selection on the water temperature.  So then we started to use that as well.  This bumped the cycle up to almost 3 hours.  In my quest for clean diapers, I began thinking what kind of effect this was going to have on the elastic and PUL.  Inquisitive minds want to know!!  

Now, granted many of my diapers have been with us for over a year so I think the extreme heat was the last straw for some of my diapers.  Most of the elastic on my diapers are pretty much stretched out.  Unfortunately I have no sewing capabilities so for the Bum Gneius 4.0s in my stash once they are all stretched out I will have to retire them.  My FuzziBunz one size are still in the rotation for my almost 2 year old son and those are easily fixable with the extra elastic that they provide.  *I just want to say the old style FuzziBunz one size are my all time favorite diaper.*  There are others in the stash that still have some life in them, but not for long.  I really don't think that the heat has changed the elastic in any way.

The PUL is a different story.  Steam Clean and Sanitize really speeds up the aging on the PUL.  Some of the results are the same; you will see in my pictures the holes or splits in the PUL and others show where the PUL has peeled off.  

I have 5 diapers which I have kept although I had many show signs of de-lamination.  Unfortunately I threw the others away before realizing that they would make for good examples of what de-lamination looks like.  So here we have (top) FuzziBunz Perfect Size and a BumGenius 4.0, (bottom) BumGenius 3.0 AIO, Bummis Super Lite Diaper Wrap, Blueberry pocket.

The FuzziBunz Perfect Size totally peeled off.  It looks like a big bubble between the PUL and the purple material.  I have two others of these diapers and they are still in good condition.  I bought these December 2010 (not bad huh?).  

This is the BG 4.0 bought in October 2010.  The first picture the material is relaxed and not stretched.  It just looks like a used diaper.    

 Here I stretched out the material.  See the holes?  They look like vertical cracks in the PUL. 

 A closer look at the holes.  You can see right through them!

  

Here we have the BG 3.0 AIO which I used only as a nighttime diaper for two of my kids.  I would stuff it with a Thirsties Hemp Prefold or a Thirsties Hemp Insert.  I bought these in January of 2011.  The first picture the material is setting at rest.  You can see the speckled look.  There is a discoloration to it.  This is how I noticed that it had de-laminated.  

 Here the cover is stretched out.  You can see how it seems to have just melted off. 

This red cover is my Bummis Super Lite Diaper Wrap bought in March 2011.  I was very sad when I noticed the PUL had cracked.  I loved this cover.  This is one I had found in the dryer.  It's kind of hard to tell, but the holes are in the middle of the picture.  

 And here is the Blueberry bought in November 2010.  The first picture again has the material at rest. 

  

And here it is stretched out.  The de-laminated holes are definitely noticeable.  I loved this cover.  The velcro was strong and I loved the print.  

So, you can see that diapers will wear down.  I was able to get almost 2 years out of a diaper that's been in a constant rotation for 2 children.  I really do feel that they would still be in better (useable) shape had I not used bleach and extreme heat on them. 

 

A lesson learned.

I've always been of the mind that cloth diapers can take a beating.  I mean after all they are made to be pooped and peed in every day and then washed frequently with "chemicals" including homemade detergents.  So, I thought, "Why do I have to treat them with kid gloves?"  

I've been cloth diapering constantly for a little over 2 years.  Bleach (with my hard water) has become my best friend.  I can't wash my diapers with out it.  If I do I get major lake water smell.  Water itself is rough on the elastic, but so is using the diaper every day by stretching it to get a snug fit on your baby.  The one thing I was very careful to avoid was putting my covers, pockets, and AIO in the dryer.  So much so that I knew that if I wanted to be sure they were not put in the dryer, I had to do it myself.  Occasionally (in the beginning I was using only covers/pf) a cover would hide in the prefolds and get tossed in the dryer.  I used those covers for a good year before moving on to pockets and AIO.  Never did I have any problem with weak snaps or de-laminating.  

I started using pockets before my last son was born, so for a little over a year.  For a majority of that year I took special precaution to hang all my covers, pockets, and AIO.  I never had one problem with the PUL or snaps; and I really prided myself in that.  I thought, "Awesome!  These really will last through 2 children easily as long as I keep hanging them to dry." Plus my pockets were being used full time between two little bums.  So after one year, they were/are in great shape.  Lately though, I've slacked on that gentle care idea for my pockets, AIO, and wetbags.  Yep, you guessed it.  I've been putting them all in the dryer every other day when I do my diaper laundry.  I've been doing this for about at least a month now and I sorely regret it.    

De-lamination is almost like a four letter word in the cloth diapering world.  You don't want to hear it.  Unfortunately it is common to PUL items.  From what I have gathered there are two basic kinds of de-lamination.  The first is one caused by poor manufacturing.  Where in fact the waterproof lining has separated from the outer material.

This is a wet bag I had received.  I used it once, washed it and when I went to hang it to dry the lining was completely separated from the outer cloth.  Now, something like this is a manufacturing defect because I received another wet bag from same company in a different print, but it is still fine.  This particular batch of material just was not made properly.  

The other known type of de-laminating is when the PUL has been dried and over time it cracks.  I think an occasional, "oops it went through the dryer" is not going to harm anything, but a constant barrage of high heat is going quickly deteriorate the waterproof lining.  One of my wet bags has de-laminated because of the dryer.  I went to put it in my pail one day and noticed all these cracks all over it.  Since it is just a wet bag, I don't stress it too much because I can simply wipe down my pail if moisture gets through.  If this was on a diaper cover, pocket, or AIO, that would be a different story.  Some suggest putting it back in the dryer to see if it would reseal, but I'm skeptical of that.  Once that lamination is cracked, you will inevitably have leaks.   

Now, I'm sure there are lots of moms out there who say they put their covers in the dryer, but I'm not sure that they all do it on high heat for 60-70 minutes every other day like I had been.

Another effect of the dryer on covers/pockets/AIO is that the heat will eventually weaken your snaps.  Yep, another lesson learned.  Most of my nighttime diapers are KaWaii Goodnight Heavy Wetters.  I went to put one on my son, and as I unsnapped it, one of the snaps just popped right off.  Weird, I thought it was just a fluke.  I had noticed on one of my GoGreen Pocket Diapers that the back of a snap seemed to be melted.  Fast forward to two nights ago and another snapped off.  Great.  In my haste to trying to do things easier I have probably sped up the wear and tear on my diapers.  So, instead of my diapers lasting a year or more, I may have less than a year in them.  Bummer.  

Broken snaps can be fixed though.  I am thinking of getting myself a snap pliers to at least fix the broken snaps.  After all having two in diapers, and losing two of my night diapers is not something I'm okay with.  A de-laminated diaper, unless it is a manufacturing defect and it is within the one year warranty (check with the manufacturer for warranty info) your diaper, cover, or wet bag will be replaced.  If it is user error, you are out of luck.  

This is definitely a lesson learned that I am not willing to repeat.