My cloth diaper laundry routine

I have been asked by a couple of people to write down my specific cloth diaper laundry routine.  First off, this is the washer we have.  It is a Frigidaire washer.  It does NOT have a pre-soak option.  It has 3 different wash options (hot, warm, cold) and only has cold rinses.  

I use 2 cycles for a load of diapers.  With my washer, I can wash all my diapers at the same time.  I believe it is about 30 diaper covers/pocket diapers, 34 prefolds and 4 microfiber inserts with each load.

For the first cycle I switch my washer to a single rinse Cold/Cold cycle.  I put in about a teaspoon of Oxi Clean.

I then let it go through the whole wash rinse cycle even spinning it completely out at the end.

I then set it up to a Hot/Cold cycle and flip the switch for an extra rinse.  I put in a tablespoon of Ecos Free and Clear detergent.  I LOVE this detergent and use it on Marsi's clothes too.

Once it goes through the Hot wash and 2 cold rinses, the diapers are completely clean.  

It may be weird for some to hear, but I have NEVER stripped my diapers.  Ever... If it starts to get ammonia stink when she pees on it I add in a cup of distilled white vinegar to the first rinse of the second cycle.  It completely gets the stink out and we are on our way.

It really is very simple to do the laundry.   I dry the prefolds on hot in the dryer on the towel setting with my wool dryer balls.  The covers sometimes go in the dryer, sometimes on the line.  I haven't had any wicking issues with drying them in the dryer. 

I have Econobum, Sunbaby, Blueberry, and Flip diapers.  I also have the regular 4x6x4 Chinese cotton prefolds from Cottonbabies. Some of my Sunbaby diapers came with a microfiber insert that I use to double stuff her night time diapers with a prefold as well in a Flip cover.

So, that is my routine!

Favorite things

It is funny seeing Marsi start to have favorites. 

Surprisingly enough, she is starting to show color preference.  She has been doing it for months a little bit, but she is even more adamant about it now.  She LOVES purple!   I mean, everything purple.  In the bath she will drop everything and crawl to the other side of the tub to get to her 2 purple bath toys.  I didn't think it started this early, but she loves purple.

She loves her princess duckie.  Like, A LOT.  It is her favorite chew toy...or teether if you don't want the dog reference.  She stole this from the bath and drags it around or chews it while walking almost all day every day.  Yeah...the crown is purple too.  I find it funny.  I have a few pictures of her and her favorite chew toy.

We can't forget her favorite kitty.  Dexter loves Marsi and Marsi loves Dexter.  This was taken tonight while she was eating her last bottle of the day.  Dexter loves his after bath loves.  He goes and rubs his whiskers all over her hair and plops down for his pets from Marsi.  They are truly the best of buddies.  

10 months

Wow...Marsi is 10 months old today!!  Where has the time gone?!?!  In 2 short months she will be a year old.  Marsi has accomplished SO many things in her short little life.  Here is the timeline of some of her major milestones

First smile that wasn't gas...~1 month

Rolling over...~4.5 months

HEART SURGERY...5 months (this still blows my mind!)

Sitting up unassisted...~6 months

Crawling...~7 months

Pulling up/cruising...~8 months

First tooth...~8.5 months

Standing unassisted...~8.5 months

First unassisted step...~9 months

Full on walker...~9.75 months

For the struggles she had at the start of her life, she is doing perfect and exceeding all expectations the doctors had for her at this age.

We love her more than anything.  Happy 10 months monster child!!

Marsi video

Wow...I can't believe I have a little toddler! She is growing up so fast and so well!  She had her pediatrician appointment today and the doctor said that she was "extremely advanced". My guess is that she said that when Marsi decided to walk unassisted to her from across the room after waving hi.  Marsi is 22 lbs 9 oz and 29 inches tall. She has almost grown a foot!  With the help of Daddy, we finally have a video of her walking.  She is our little sweetie!

Walker

Yup....we have a little walker in our house.  She decided today was the day crawling is no longer cool at all.  Walking means you can have *2* toys in your hands!!  AND you don't have to trip on your dress while crawling!

Heaven help us with our little (dare I say it!) toddler!!

Learning

Marsi is growing and learning so fast.  I am SO proud of my little girl.  The first part of August, Marsi decided to test the waters of walking...9 months old and taking several steps in a row.  She is climbing in, around, and on everything.  She never ceases to amaze me.

She went to the cardiologist on Monday for an echocardiogram.  I was hoping that she would do well with it since she is such a mobile baby.  She did SO good for it!  She watched Elmo and only tried to roll over one time with only 5 minutes left in a 30 minute echo.  I couldn't have asked her to be any better.

The great thing about the echo and appointment was that she was able to be cleared by the cardiologist until she is 2.5 years old!!  No more echos and appointments for her heart until then!!  We are SO happy about that.  She has to go back then because of a small hole between the left and right atrium that she has.  It already seems to be smaller based on all the echos she has had.

We are just a little happy family!

Cloth Diapering a Newborn

I will fully admit, I don't have ANY experience with cloth diapering a newborn.  I had wonderful friends and family that took care of over a months worth of disposables when Marsi was born. Although number 2 is not on the way, I am nothing but a planner. I am glad I started research early because I had an idea of what I wanted, but it took me a month of research to figure out what I am going to invest in.

My first idea was that I knew I wanted prefold diapers and wipe out diaper covers.  I love the prefold/cover idea with Marsi, so why not do what I know with a newborn?

I have such good reviews of the Chinese prefold cloth diapers from Cottonbabies so of course we are going with them again in the unbleached infant size.  I am thinking about getting 3 dozen so I can wash diapers every 3 days or so.  Since I already knew the prefolds that I wanted, I just needed 4-6 good covers to go over them.

I had the idea to make my own diaper covers.  I did lots of research, got free patterns, did pricing and decided to scrap that idea.  Even with 50% off coupons because of the start up costs with snaps and the pliers that put the snaps on, it would be better to just buy covers...bummer.

Then I researched covers.  I looked at all the sizing charts for so many brands of covers. Newborn covers just seemed SO small.  Marsi would have never been able to fit in a newborn cover, but she would have been too small to fit into the one size covers we had for her.  So, what to do, what to do?  I found this size chart for diaper covers and none of them made me happy.  First off, there were really no snap covers.  I have only used snap for Marsi, so I have wanted to get snap covers for a newborn as well.  Also, I knew I wanted leg gussets.  I don't have any diapers with gussets, but I think that it is a great idea with newborn breast milk poop.  None of those would work...bummer.  More research.

Finally today, I found and settled on a lower middle priced cover with excellent reviews and all the specs that I wanted!! Snaps, gussets, priced under $15, good reviews.  Thirsties Duo.  First off, I have to say I love the Green Mountain Diapers website!  They have pictures of all the diapers on newborns, toddlers and everything in between!  It really helped me visualize how the diapers work and look on a baby.  I could honestly spend hours on that website, but I digress.

The first thing I liked about this cover is that it is a psedo-one size diaper cover.  Let me explain...different sized babies need different lengths in the rise of the diaper.  On one sized diapers you can change the length of the rise by snapping them up or down in size.  With Thirsties Duo, you have a cover that isn't just a newborn sized diaper.  It is either a newborn or a small size in one cover.  There is also a size 2 diaper for older children up to potty training.  Since Marsi was big when she was born, I didn't want to invest in newborn diapers just to have a baby in them for 2 weeks or less.  But, I also have the possibility of having a smaller than Marsi baby needing a newborn diaper longer.  This diaper cover solves this conundrum!  The size one diaper will last as long as it is needed in order to have a baby fit in the rest of the one sized diapers we already got for Marsi.

So, far in advance, I know what I will be putting on the butt of my next child.  At least that is decided!