DOUBLE NOTE: Thank you to Diaper Junction for supplying my flats!
I jumped the gun, and yesterday used flats for the very first time. I thought the challenge started yesterday. I'm not sure why, but I did. *sigh* Oh well, it was certainly an adventure!
What is the challenge? The Flats and Hand washing challenge! Go check out Dirty Diaper Laundry for all the details, but basically I agreed to use only flats and covers, and to only hand wash them, for a full week err, I guess I'll be doing 8 days. Haha, oops.
I decided to challenge my self further, and not learn any of the folding techniques, or washing styles. I wanted to "wing it" and get some raw experience that I could pass along. Yeah. Great plan. I'm so glad my child is patient with me (most of the time) =)
The flats & folds
Turtle-Love actually slept until about 2 pm yesterday! He woke up to feed twice but that was it! Even at 2 pm I finally woke him up to nurse him and change his diaper that weighed a good pound! No, I'm not exaggerating! I very well may have a super soaker! Anyhow, I put his first flat on him at 2. While he was sleeping I took my time and folded it into a plan I thought would work pretty well.
I folded the flat into a triangle, then in half to a smaller triangle. Pointed it down, and turned up the side corners to make it look like the picture.
Insert baby on the triangle, pulled up the center, pulled one side directly across, and then the other.
This worked well enough, I mean it didn't leak, but at the same time I didn't feel like his wet zone was adequately covered. I needed to do better.
This time, my anti cloth sister thought she could do a better job. I let her try. What she came up with was an okay idea, but it wasn't fitting just right so I modified it into what I'm calling "the knot".
Pull the right corner that is now on the left side back across the waist and tuck into the band. Flip the baby over and tuck the tail.
Cover, voila!
It leaked but only slightly. Maybe the fold was wrong, maybe the cover wasn't on right, or maybe Turtle-Love flooded the diaper or it was on for too long. I'm not sure.
Next we did a really easy fold, one that I showed my s2bDH so that he can use it this week.
We folded the flat into a square.
Insert the baby, then fold the front together so it makes three layers (really 3x4 layers) and a pocket. Pull the front up over the wet zone and fasten to the wings on the back with a snappi - I call this "the prefold". Of course, use a cover, and done!
This one was really successful with good wet zone coverage.
The wash
Ohhhh boy. Do NOT use too much soap!! That was my lesson for the night. =/
I used 1 scoop of Tiny Bubbles in 64 oz (2 quarts) of water in my plugged sink. I washed all the pee diapers first, saving the messiest for last.
The wash process:
Dunk. Scrub it together with itself. Dunk. Repeat til super soapy. Squeeze out excess. Move on to next diaper. Repeat.
After all the pee diapers were washed I tackled the poo diaper by first scrubbing it without soap in the toilet to get rid of the excess mess. Then I applied the same wash process, making sure to continue repeating until all the stain areas were gone.
Then I let out the soapy water and poured on 64 more ounces into my plugged sink. I scrubbed each diaper again in the plain water to get most of the soap out of each one. It wasn't working very well. I decided to use a little running water.
The rinse process:
Rinse the diaper under running water 2 times. Plug sink and dunk and scrub. Drain sink and use pitcher 1/2 full with water and my arm to make a mini washing machine and agitate the soap out. Repeat mini machine with new water. Plug sink and dunk and swirl to be sure all soap is gone. Squeeze water out and hang on towel rack.
Attack other diapers for rinse process.
When I had 2 left to rinse Turtle-Love was fussy (my mom had him) so he hung out on my back in the Ergo for the first time. I danced and sang my way to his happiness while rinsing the diapers.
The drying process:
I then neatly draped each flat and cover on my drying rack. Unfortunately, I forgot to check them this morning to see if they were dry before I left for work.
Have I mentioned today is my first day back in the office?! More on that later.
Over night
Oh yes, we were brave. We used the flat over night in the "prefold" fold. With success!!! My son usually doesn't pee much throughout the night, but in the morning during his first feed he likes to flood whatever diaper he is wearing. We had zero leaks =) Hooray!
When I signed up for the Flats and Hand washing challenge, I did not think I would be back in my office at the time of the challenge. However, recent events have lead to my working in the office starting this week. For the past 5 months I have been working from home. My s2bDH promised to use only flats while I'm at work, since he will be home with him this week. When I get home, we will see how HE did =)
You are doing great!!