Flat Challenge Day 3

Today's topic: How do I use my flats? 

When we are not doing the Flat Challenge, we use the birdseye GMD flats pad folded in pockets, and the Bamboo terry with a doubler in the origami fold at night under a woolie. During the Flat Challenge and camping or when the washer is out, we like to use the origami fold with the long ends tied in front under a PUL cover. This has better coverage for us than pad folding, and doesn't shift around like pad folding and you don't have to look for pins or snappies to hold you diaper together. I tie a loose square knot with the extra wing fabric, roll the edges under around the legs and snap on the cover.

All Tied Up! GMD large flat with wings tied in a square knot.

Since we have a Houdini who loves to rip off his diaper and streak through the house the knot helps foil his attempts. I have recently fallen in love with the Disana tie nappies too! I pad fold or origami fold a smaller GMD flat and lay in the nappy. I then wrap the ties around twice and tie in the back and he cant undo the bow in back and it is to snug for him to wiggle out of. He can go cover-less in this set up, the pee never makes it to the outer knit and he can't pull it off. Love it!!

All Tied Up! Disana Tie Nappy on my 2 year old.

The other ways we use flats are as kitchen towels. Nothing beats how they can absorb a ton of spilled milk and still wash clean. I just ordered a new set of 12 small flats from GMD because the last 6 have holes and need to go to the rag pile. I've used them as nursing covers, burp cloths, sun shades over the car seat and over the car window (unroll window a little way, put a quarter of the flat over, roll the window up), bibs, changing pads, capes, barber aprons, regular aprons and the list never ends LOL. The old ones go to the rag pile in the garage and they are my husbands favorite rag to wash the car and do detail work with. Incredibly versatile I can't imagine my life without flats now!

Flat Challenge Day 2

I didn't have a chance the past few days to get all the details down with my visiting father-in-law leaving, and sick kids, but the topic for today was supplies. What have I, and what do I now use for hand washing diapers? What does my stash look like?  What do I think is the bare minimum to get by.

Supplies: 

Flat diapers and covers - not shown
Diaper pail
Bucket and plunger to wash
A place to hang dry diapers
Detergent.

Optional:


Ecover laundry softener - helps soften line drying
Stool - to sit on so your back doesn't get sore.
Diaper Butler - clips to diaper for soaking, it's hanging off of the towel rack.
Diaper Duck - can help squeeze water out, it's hanging off the side of the toilet.

I have a 5 gallon bucket with a plunger that I use for washing about 8-10 diapers at a time. I have a larger 20 gallon rubbermaid container that I use for washing more than that and for regular laundry when we go camping.

I use 2 tsp biokleen liquid detergent for the 5 gallon bucket and maybe a tsp of oxyclean depending on how dirty the diapers are. We have hard water and that seems to work the best for us. I use only a tsp of fabric softener in the last rinse and omit it on a windy day, as the wind keeps the fibers from stiffening.

You don't have to have a bucket or plunger. In the past when laundry day rolled around and the machine decided to break (aack!!) was washed the diapers in the tub. I used a blunt stick (end of broom handle) for washing when the water was to hot and then used my feet for the rinsing using a grape stomping technique.

We currently have an expandable drying rack that I want another 2 of. I adore this rack like you wouldn't believe. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000TR5MW/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00
You can read my review, my name is Amber.

Other ways and places I have hung diapers and clothing to dry is: 

Using coat hangers with the diapers folded in half and then hooked the hangers over the shower rod, which was a little annoying when people wanted to shower.

Hooking the hangers over the door frame.

Outside hooking the hangers over the porch banister.

Outside on a strung up line.


How I hand wash:

1.) Rinse: Soak diapers over night in warm water, maybe plunge a few times before dumping the water.

2.) Wash: Fill bucket with hot water and detergent and mix with the plunger. Add diapers and plunge for about 4 - 5 minutes. Let rest for 4 - 5 minutes and then plunge again for 4 - 5 minutes. Do this until you have about 15 minutes of plunging.

3.) Rinse: Dump water, and press most of the soapy water out of the diapers. Refill bucket with hot water and add diapers. Plunge for 5 min, dump water, squeeze most of the water out of the diapers. Repeat this time with warm water and wringing the diapers out as well as you can. Sometimes you can see soap bubbles when you fill the bucket for the second rinse. If this happens rinse 1 more time with warm water.

Plunger, bucket, diapers during rinse cycle.

4.) Wring the living daylights out of them. Seriously, this is the key to fast dry times! I sometimes will wring again as I get to the bottom of the pile when I'm hanging stuff up.

5.) Hang dry.

Tip: If you need some diapers and covers to dry faster here is a trick I learned from my Aunt who learned from my Grandma. Lay a couple of diapers and covers out on a towel. lay another towel on top. Carefully fold the whole thing in half and tightly roll up. Hold onto the sink or wall and carefully walk on the roll to squeeze out any extra moisture. I do this with my woolies every time to shorten the drying time and save my arms. This works when your traveling and want items dry before you leave the next day as well.

Here is my drying rack in action!

Flat Diaper Stash:

6 GMD large flats
6 Flat fitted pockets with 6 small flats pad folded inside.
6 Bamboo terry flats
6 Disana tie nappies

Covers:

2 Thirsties duo size 2
2 flip covers
2 Blueberry covers
2 wool covers I up-cycled from sweaters for nights.

The bare minimum to get by with? For a Toddler I would say 12 flats, for an infant 18 at least. Covers vary for child, I would say at least 4 for a toddler and 6 for an infant. I wouldn't want to do the bare minimum with line drying. I would want to have a comfortable amount that I wasn't stressing over getting dry before needing again.
A comfortable stash would be 24 flats for a toddler and 30 for an infant. I use them in other ways (burp rags and mopping up spills) than just diapering and I would run out of diapers if I had the bare minimum.

Flat Challenge Day 1

Today is the first day of the now annual Flats Challenge!

For 7 days I will be hand washing in a bucket all our diapers!

I decided to participate in the Flats Challenge this year. I have had the flat love since my first child 10 years ago! Gerber flats were our very first cloth diapers, and we used them solely and entirely for his first year along with gerber pull on plastic pants and pins. We were to broke to even upgrade to prefolds and snap on covers. Seriously, we cloth diapered our oldest for $50 for an entire year! Since then, and through 3 more babies, I have always had flats in our diaper stash. They wash clean every time, and dry in a flash.  

Here is the link to the game and rules: http://dirtydiaperlaundry.com/second-annual-flats-and-handwashing-challenge-may-21-27-sign-up/

I think flats are integral to cloth diapering! At night (pad folded in a pocket) when pee is extremely concentrated, when your baby is in-between sizes, when your washer goes out, or power is lost, or camping, or for emergency supplies (my youngest developed a yeast rash after a round of antibiotics and I didn't want that in my pockets microfleece), there are just so many reasons to have flat diapers on hand.

Types of flats:

There are several different kinds of flats being manufactured. My personal favorites are, the birdseye fabric found at Green Mountain Diapers, http://www.greenmountaindiapers.com/diapers.htm  often referred to as GMD's, and bamboo terry. I made my bamboo terry flats, but you can buy bamboo terry flats here: http://www.orangediaperco.com/  However, you can make a flat diaper out of just about anything!

Things I have used as flats:

 I've used receiving blankets, tee-shirts, sheets, tea-towels, flour sack towels, newborn ones out of 2 washcloths, (one pad folded in another). I had a very cute set of overnight flats I made out of printed flannel, that  finally wore out this Christmas. So I got to make some new flats out of beautiful, squishy, bamboo double terry for nights. They are AMAZING!!! 4 kids cloth diapered full time has allowed me to try various types of flats and be quite creative with making flats.

My old homemade flannel flats, with a T strip of snappiable material, doublers and wipes.

My Reason for doing the Flat Challenge this year: 

We go rustic camping for weeks at a time every year. Since we always have a little one, we use our flat diapers and bucket wash them. After last year, I decided I wanted a better system for flats that acted more like fitteds, and a better system for night-time diapering, that is, a diaper he couldn't undo in the middle of the night and was super absorbent!

A fitted that acts like a flat:

Over the winter I converted half my large GMD flats into a 2 layer OS pocket fitted, that you stuff with a small flat. I definitely wanted to try  them out before actually camping in them to make sure they wash well in a bucket, dry fast and perform like I want them too. I'm not sure if my upgraded flat fitteds fit the criteria of the Flats Challenge, because they are now two layers of birdseys fabric not one. However, they are stuffed with a small flat which makes them a pocket diaper and pocket diapers are allowed, as long as they are stuffed with flats, and hand-washed, so I'm going with that LOL. I will convert another 8 if this works out well.

My converted flats into OS fitteds. 

Two layers of birdseye, stuffed with a flat. This one is shown with a small flat doubler.
I use a small GMD flat, pad folded and stuffed in the pocket for quick changes on my toddler. 

Night-time super absorbency:

I have never hand-washed the bamboo double terry and I wanted a trial run to see how they washed up and more importantly how long it takes for them to dry before including them in our camping trip. I want diapers that dry in one night or 1/2 a day, so I can use them again right away. The bamboo double terry works so well at night for absorption it blows my mind, but I'm afraid they will take forever to dry!

My new Bamboo double terry flats and wipes.

A diaper he can't get out of:

Recently, I got some flat Disana Tie Nappy diapers on sale at tinybirdorganics. They are closing shop :'(. I've always wanted to try them, but never could afford them. They came today! Yay! I got them for camping trips and at nights since my little ninja can get out of all other type of closures except for pinning. I'm hoping that tying on the stretchy knit over the bamboo flat will be more comfortable for him, and me than pinning.
I've never used the tie nappies before and I am terribly excited to try them.

Dinsana Tie Nappy with a small GMD flat pad folded with angel wing spread.

Flat Challenge Beginning!

2nd Annual Flats and Handwashing Challenge Begins Today!

Why, you ask, when you have a perfectly good washer and dryer you can use? Well I have my own reasons which I will go into detail later, but here is the link to check out the challenge and what others have to say about it.

http://dirtydiaperlaundry.com/second-annual-flats-and-handwashing-challenge-may-21-27-sign-up/

My newborn stash!

I posted earlier about making my newborn stash of fitteds with wool covers! Well I have been working hard to upcycle 2  knit sheets into some Darling Diaper fitteds for a newbie and now I'm going to show them off!  

I made these with the free Darling Diapers red pattern from her site here: http://www.darlingdiapers.com/Darling%20Diapers%20Free%20Newborn%20Fitted%20Pattern2009.pdf

I made one diaper from the xs newborn pattern and one diaper from the larger newborn yellow pattern. When I was done, I noticed that the xs newborn pattern was about the same size as mainstream newborns and the yellow pattern was more of a size small. I wanted a true newborn sized diaper so I went with the red pattern.

Total cost for this project was  $4 dollars for the knit sheets, I used scrap pieces of cotton velour for the tops of the doubler so around $6, and elastic $6 =  a grand total of $16 for 24 fitteds.  $0.66 cents per diaper! If I added snaps that goes up to $1.66 cents. Not bad for a stash of newborn diapers!

Layers are 8 layer internal soaker, 2 layers for knit tie dye outers, and 6 layers for the doubler. I think they are adorable and gender neutral without being bland! The one thing I would have changed would have been to have 2 more layers throughout the body of the diaper to add stability. I wanted to place snaps but the knit fabric isn't strong enough with just 2 layers. I am brainstorming ideas to strengthen the snapping areas, but will be totally happy using a snappi if that doesn't pan out.

What I found to be the biggest surprise about cloth diapering...

I found that I love doing diaper laundry! Who would have thought, right? I will say that laundry is my favorite chore, if one could have a favorite chore :p. However, diaper laundry ranks even higher than regular laundry! I think it has to do with the fact that diaper laundry is all of one category. In regular laundry you have multiple items from various sized people, and you have to check sizes, turn things right side out, match socks and then put them away in various rooms. The size thing for our family of 6 can be a little tricky, because several of the boys are close together, you can't just eyeball their clothes as you fold. Diaper laundry, however, is a pleasure to fold. Everything goes together, folds and stacks neatly and is put away together. I also get a sense of deep pleasure in seeing the colors and textures, the money we are saving, and how much better it is for our kids' skin!

The second biggest surprise about cloth diapering is how many choices you have now in the CDing world and how easy it is to make your own <3 ! I want to try each and every diaper made. Just about every diaper company started out as a way to make a better diaper for their baby. So many ideas and different systems, and each one is totally awesome, from the fanciest AIO (all in one is the closest to a disposable) to flats and covers (like what your grandma used)! Not to mention you can design and sew your own ideal diaper from items found in your closet and free patterns online. You can be frugal or incredibly lavish when buying or making cloth diapers. I will say, I do have my favorites and they are all for different reasons. I love pockets diapers for quick changes, plus you can stuff them with whatever you wish! I love flats for camping and hand washing; they wash clean and dry fast. I love fitteds for keeping blow-outs in even when going cover-less. Finally, I really like wool covers for breath-ability. If  you pair a fitted with a wool cover you have an all natural fiber diapering system!

Funnily enough, the wool with fitted diapers can be the cheapest or most expensive system LOL. If you sew or knit or know someone who sews/knits, you can find free patterns online for wool soakers and fitted diapers. You can dig around in your closets for old tee-shirts or nice wool sweaters, or go second hand shopping and pick up a few used. I made 2 small cashmere longies and 2 small soakers, from 1 extra large sweater I bought for $4.00. They are soo soft and luxurious! Or you can buy wool soakers ready to use from various sites with bamboo fitteds and spend at least $20 for a fitted and $30 for a cover. I am currently making fitteds and wool covers for the newborn stage as I started with prefolds originally and totally want to do fitteds the next time around!

Here is A Tutorial For Adding Extended Tabs to Your Prefold!

Hello all you wonderful cloth diapering people! Have you found that your prefolds are too narrow but just the right size in length? I did, and this is how I solved the long and narrow. You will need snappi-able fabric from old teeshirts, loose weave fabrics, a waffle weave (thermal) to use for extended tabs. Take a 3 inch stripe of fabric the length needed (14 inches for my infant prefold). Fold the edges under and iron. Fold the stripe in half and iron (So now it's about 13 1/2 inches long and 1 1/2 inches wide). Then open the strip up and center the prefold in the middle of the strip so there is equal amounts of tab on both sides extending beyond the prefold. Fold the strip over the prefold, and pin. Sew the edges down, and voilà!

You can also make an embellished prefold by cutting a long rectangle of matching fabric the size of the middle section on your prefold, ironing the edges under and sewing over the edges.

 Turn this into a pocket by taking the top edge of the added fabric folding it over one more time and sewing it down, before pinning to prefold. Sew the other 3 sides making sure to leave the top open for stuffing! If you click on the picture you can get a close up and see more directions. :)