Flat Butt: Day One - The Small Print

Swaddlebees Flats. Highly coveted, apparently.

It's here! I announced last month that I planned to take part in The 2nd Annual Flats and Handwashing Challenge, headed by Kim of Dirty Diaper Laundry. Her goal is to show how easy and economical cloth diapering can be using the most basic cloth diapers out there - flats. Flats have been in use for God knows how long. In fact, Baby God probably wore a flat diaper, unless Mary practiced Elimination Communication. The point is, flat diapers have been the standard since long before your Grandmother was a twinkle in her daddy's eye. As I stated before, my mother used flats on my brothers and on my own funky butt. This was in the late 60's to the late 70's. Disposable diapers were available when I was born, but my mom thought they were crappy and too much fuss. Now, roles are reversed and many people would think cloth diapers of any kind, especially flats, are too much fuss. Part of this challenge is to show that using flats isn't really difficult at all. There are many ways to fold flat diapers in order to maximize absorbancy, fit and comfort. Most folks can find one or two or more folds that work great for them. The link I provided above not only gives details and rules for the challenge, but will also guide you on various folds (videos included!) as well as handwashing techniques.

I started this challenge because I thought it was interesting. I like challenges. As I mentioned last week, I kinda fell off the cloth diaper bandwagon for a little while and I knew that signing up for a challenge and publicly discussing it would help light a fire under my butt and get me rolling back toward cloth diapering full time. Plus, I have a small cloth diapering addiction and flats are something I've never used before. This provides an excuse to get some more fluffy mail as I ordered a few packs of flats just for this challenge.

I have been experimenting over the past couple of weeks. I've tried to use at least one flat diaper each day. I have only tried two folds - the pad fold and the diaper bag fold. The diaper bag fold is my favorite so far, but I'm trying the origami fold shortly after I sign off. Kim has a variety of easy to follow and clear videos on her Dirty Diaper Laundry site that demonstrate how to do the different folds. So far, I am really liking the flats. I almost think that if I had started out with these in the beginning - 5 years ago - I wouldn't have such a varied collection of other types of diapers. I probably would have stuck with flats, prefolds and my Mudshrimps. I have found that using flats is not hard at all. Trust me, if anyone is going to have difficulty with anything, no matter how simple, it's me. I can screw up folding a piece of paper in half. I'm that good.

The handwashing is the scary part for me. Seven days of handwashing these diapers - yikes! Truth be told, I'm going to wing it. I've been following posts in the Facebook group dedicated to this challenge and everyone seems to have their act together when it comes to how they are going to handwash their diapers. Some are going to make camp style washers. Others are just using the sink or the tub and maybe a bucket. Some have fun stuff like washing boards and those cool laundry pods where you turn a crank and it washes your diapers. Originally, I was going to make a camp style washer. I bought a new plunger and was going to buy a bucket as well. Despite already owning a plunger that we use for it' intended purpose, my husband decided to use the brand new plunger in the toilet. So, it has touched man poo and will not be used for the diaper challenge no matter how much hubby cleans it. Jerk. I think I will just use a bucket and soap and water...and my hands. That's it. We live in an apartment, so I have no option for drying things outside. I do have one of those folding racks and plan to use that.

Stayed tuned all this week to see how well I keep up with the challenge. I will be posting once a day with updates about my success and/or failure. You can also check my Facebook Page for any additional comments/musings about the challenge. And listed at the end of this post are all of the other bloggers participating. Give them some love!

How about you? Are you taking the challenge? Have you ever used flats?