Flat Butt: Day 7 - The End

I was not home for most of the day on Day 7 of the 2nd Annual Flats and Handwashing Challenge hosted by Dirty Diaper Laundry. , so I didn't get to write my final entry.

I completed the challenge - 7 days of using nothing but flat diapers and covers and handwashing them. Was it terribly hard? For me, no. I don't think it is something I would ever do everyday unless I really had to. It's handy knowledge to have. I did learn that I really enjoy flat diapers and that they are an extremely economical choice when it comes to cloth diapering. Cloth diapering is already loads cheaper than using disposable diapers, but using only flats in the most economical choice - even more so if you fashion your flat diapers out of found fabric such as receiving blankets or t-shirts. I spent about $40.00 for flats for this challenge. I could have spent way less than that if I wanted to, but I wanted to try a variety of different diapers.

I'm going to leave you to read the other blogs listed at the bottom of this post in order to get a good feel for the variety of ways other families dealt with the challenge. I feel the challenge was a good way to show people that you can definitely get by, if needed, using just flats and handwashing them. I'm also happy that $200.00 will be donated to Giving Diapers, Giving Hope -  which is a program that assists needy family in obtaining cloth diapers so they can save money - in the name of those who participated in this challenge.

Will I do it again next year? Probably. Will I blog about it next year? Probably not. I honestly hated feeling like I NEEDED to come online to blog about how I was folding or washing that day. There are other bloggers who did so much better at writing about it, so please check them out as they have written some wonderful posts.

Check out my previous posts:
The introductory post - Flat Butt
Flat Butt - Day 1 - The Small Print
Flat Butt - Day 2 - The Stash
Flat Butt - Day 3 - Laundry Day
Flat Butt - Day 4 - Folding, Folding, Folding
Flat Butt - Day 5 - Musings 
Flat Butt: Day 6 - The Husband

Flat Butt: Day 6 - The Husband

Doing the origami fold

Day 6 of the 2nd Annual Flats and Handwashing Challenge hosted by Dirty Diaper Laundry is underway! Today, I am discussing my husband.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know I have a distaste for treating dads and men like they are bumbling idiots who would fail at everything if it wasn't for women. I hated the Huggies commercial than implied that fathers suck at diapering and taking care of babies. Yesterday, I wrote a short paragraph at the end of my blog post regarding the implication that men are morons. My husband is not a moron. He is really on board with the idea of the flats challenge. I could be dismissive of him and say he is obviously too stupid to learn how to do flats, so I'll just pad fold some diapers into covers for him and he can apologize for being a man later. However, he isn't too stupid to learn and I actually hate the pad fold because it's useless against poop. The Jo fold can be done in advance and stuffed into a cover for later and it does a better job of containing poo.

Instead of assuming that my husband's Y chromosome left him with an inability to fold diapers, I decided to actually take 5 minutes to teach him a couple of folds - the diaper bag fold and the origami fold. Just like I had to sit and watch videos a few times, my husband sat while I demonstrated the folds and then he took a moment to try it himself and did a mighty fine job. He prefers the origami fold because he likes the way it's folded in the middle. I gave him Boingos and a Snappi. He chose the Boingos because "they look cool," but eventually took them off because he, too, doesn't think they secure the diaper enough. We keep trying those Boingos because we want to like them.

My husband also helped with the handwashing. He normally lifts heavy loads for work and his hands can take the beating involved in wringing diapers out. He benches over 300lbs, so I figured it would be a lot quicker for him to squeeze the water out of my diapers. I was right. What took me quite a few minutes per diaper, only took my husband about a minute - plus, I think he got more water out than I did. The diapers that he squeezed are currently hanging on my drying rack. I am curious to see if they dry quicker than mine since it seems that he was able to express more water from them.

Again - let's hear it for the man.

P.S. Pictured at the top is my sweaty (back from a jog) husband doing the origami fold with an Ikea "burp cloth." Below that is a picture of his lovely arms squeezing the hell out of a Swaddlebees.

Please check out my previous blog posts for this challenge:

The introductory post - Flat Butt
Flat Butt - Day 1 - The Small Print
Flat Butt - Day 2 - The Stash
Flat Butt - Day 3 - Laundry Day
Flat Butt - Day 4 - Folding, Folding, Folding
Flat Butt - Day 5 - Musings 

Also, please check out what other bloggers have written about the challenge:

 

Flat Butt - Day 5 - Musings

Jo Fold

Day 5 of the Dirty Diaper Laundry 2nd Annual Flats and Handwashing Challenge is winding down in our household. What hasn't wound down is my complete "meh" about writing on it.

What have I learned? I've learned that I can most certainly handle washing diapers by hand if I need to. I learned that I can most certainly get by using nothing but flat diapers and covers if needed. I have learned that I will start using flats a lot more, but I will still be using my favorite pockets, fitteds and prefolds. I'm a cloth diaper addict. I like all kinds. I have learned that I still hate Boingo fasteners. I keep trying to make them work for me, but they just do not provide me with enough of a tight diaper install. It makes my already sloppy folds (baby girl does the alligator death roll for diaper changes) even sloppier and quite loose. They are large, so when they shift around they end up rubbing her thigh. Not cool. I'll stick with my snappis and maybe learn how to use pins.

I've done more handwashing loads. I try to wash a little more often so I don't end up with a giant load. We do not pay for the water usage for the apartment washing machines, so I can't compare washing in a machine versus washing by hand. I sometimes feel as if washing  by hand uses more water. I'll have to check our water usage bill next month. We have had a lot of thunderstorms rolling through in the past few days which lends a certain dampness to the air at certain times. Since we live in an apartment, outdoor drying is out of the question and we're using a drying rack in the bedroom. Our first load took nearly twelve hours to dry. Subsequent loads have been put on the rack during the day. I've had drying times between 2 hours and 6 hours. I had originally thought of hanging my covers on dress hangers in the bathroom. I don't recommend it. Our bathroom does not have a window, so the air circulation sucks. It took nearly 24 hours for those covers (Thirsties and Bummis) to dry compared to about 6 to 8 hours of drying time for covers that were placed on the rack. Covers like Thirsties, which are all PUL, dried quicker than Mudshrimps, which have a suede cloth lining. However, the lined Mudshrimps on the rack dried way faster than anything hanging in the bathroom. A lot of parents recommend rolling your covers in a dry towel to help get excess fluid out and facilitate faster drying. That's not happening here. If I use a towel, it's to dry my fabulously naked body after shower. I would probably sing a different tune if I had less covers and truly needed them dry quicker. For now, meh. It's an excellent tip, though, and it will work well if you decide to try it.

I discovered a new fold yesterday. It's known as the Jo fold (who names these things?) and I really love it. If you click on that link, you'll see a video tutorial showing you how to do it. Kim of Dirty Diaper Laundry makes fantastic tutorials. The Jo fold will essentially leave you with some like a prefold. It almost looks like a pad fold in it's final stage, but it allows you room to fan out the back and do an angel wing fold to create poop catching leg gussets. I can do this one without a snappi and just throw a cover over it and it works well.

I do have to make a nit-picky comment. I wasn't pleased to see Kim commenting that, "When a job has to get done leave it to a woman." Sigh. She probably was not coming from a malicious place with that comment and I understand that we women are spectacular and that it's mostly, if not all, women in this little challenge. Still - really? My husband could handle this challenge just fine. In fact, I'll get some pictures of him folding diapers, handwashing and hanging diapers tomorrow. It's funny - I was in the bathroom sloshing away in a bucket full of diapers and while I did that, my husband washed dishes, vacuumed while holding the baby, got my son ready for bed, changed a diaper, rocked the baby to sleep and then came in to help wring out a few wet diapers and hang them. Let's hear it for the boy! 

P.S. Pictured above is a Swaddlebees flat in a Jo fold, fastened with a Snappi and soon to be covered in a custom Mudshrimps David Bowie cover. Bowie is all like, "ooh, I fancy a flat diaper." Maybe. 


Tune in tomorrow for more musings on flat diapers. 


Please visit my other links on this challenge:
The introductory post - Flat Butt
Flat Butt - Day 1 - The Small Print
Flat Butt - Day 2 - The Stash
Flat Butt - Day 3 - Laundry Day
Flat Butt - Day 4 - Folding, Folding, Folding


And please check out these links from other parents in the challenge.

Flat Butt Day 4 - Folding, Folding and Folding.

Origami fold

We are winding down towards the end of Day 4 of the Dirty Diaper Laundry 2nd Annual Flats and Handwashing Challenge. I have to be honest - I'm over it. I love the flats. I am not giving up on using flats. We've really fallen in love. I don't mind handwashing, especially when my husband is the one to wring out the diapers before we hang them. I have my folds that I like. I'm just...meh. I really just don't feel like writing about it. I don't know that I have 7 days worth of stuff to say about flat diapers. There are already a lot of great videos on how to handwash, how to make a camp style washer and how to do every fold imaginable. I don't know what I have to add to the discussion. Hey guys, I wet the diapers, I put soap on them, I rinsed them, I squeezed them and I hung them. See? Meh. At the same time, I really enjoy reading other blogs about it. I'm loving the fact that so many are discovering a very viable option for diapering that is very frugal, simple and great for the health of our babies and our planet.

With that bit of Debbie Downer whining out of the way, let's talk about folding. There are many folds when it comes to flat diapers. No seriously, there are a lot. You can fold them in varying ways to adjust the trimness and the absorbancy of the diaper. It seems intimidating at first, but you do get the hang of it after a few tries. I'd probably be crying in a heap of unused diapers if it wasn't for YouTube. My pack of Osocozy flats came with an illustration of how to fold the diapers. I have learned that I am not smart enough to learn folding techniques from illustrations. No sir. I need to see it done in front of me either in person or on the screen. There are hundreds of videos dedicated to all sorts of folding techniques for flats.

Ugh. I really just don't feel like writing about this. It's not my style.  If you have read me on a regular basis, you know that these past few blogs have been lacking in my usual flavor. I honestly can't talk to you about folds. I like a few of them - diaper bag, pad, origami and maybe gaynor. To be honest, it's been a real pain in the ass because Squishy doesn't want to be still for more than a minute and I have to let her play with a Snappi just to keep her occupied.


I am sorry for such a bum update. I am doing fabulous with the challenge and loving the flats. I'm just not doing so fabulous with the writing. Maybe it will be better tomorrow.

Diaper shown is a Swaddlebees flat diaper, with a Mudshrimps custom diaper cover. 

My previous entries for the challenge:
Introductory Post
Day 1 - The Small Print
Day 2 - The Stash
Day 3 - Laundry Day

And, please, check out some of the other fabulous bloggers who are writing about their experience with this challenge.

Flat Butt - Day 3 - Laundry Day

Here we are on Day 3 of the 2nd Annual Flats and Handwashing Challenge. So far, so good. I haven't made any big changes. I'm still primarily using the diaper bag fold. I actually like the idea of the origami fold, but I feel that it leaves a lot of excess fabric and bulk in the front. I still hate boingos.

The topic suggested for day three is "how" you're using your flats, but I will write about that tomorrow. Today is about laundry. 

Last night was my first time handwashing for this challenge. Let me rephrase - I did handwash two in the sink early yesterday morning. They were barely wet from pee and were very easy to clean. Last night, I washed everything that had collected in my diaper pail. I filled the pail with water and swished the diapers around. I drained most of that water, added my detergent - VERY LITTLE, not even a teaspoon - and added more water. I decided to agitate the mix of diapers and friends with my hands. Holy shit. That takes some serious muscle. I drained the soapy water and smooshed all the dipes in the pail to get excess water out before filling it again with cold water for a rinse. More swishing around with my hands and they were fabulously rinsed. I dumped the bucket and then compressed the load of diapers in the pail several times, squeezing a lot of the excess water out. Then came the real work - wringing everything out. One by one, I twisted and squeezed until every last little drop of water was forced off of the diapers, covers, wipes and liners. That is one hell of a workout. A lot of people recommend using those yellow dish gloves for the handwashing portion of the challenge. I hate those things. I have a latex sensitivity and they irritate the crap out of my hands. They make them in nitrile, but those smell funny. I decided to go barehanded just for the experience. Let me tell you, you will develop callouses if you do this on a daily basis. To preserve my delicate little faery hands, I'll ask my husband to do the wringing next time. He works with his hands everyday and he lifts weights often so his hands are tough enough for this. Before hanging, I give everything one last good shake. I was always told that shaking the crap out of something before you hang it to dry will help it from getting stiff. The diapers, wipes and a few of the covers hung on my drying rack overnight. I also hung a few covers from a skirt hanger - the kind that comes with the clips - on the shower rod.

It's currently 11:30 am and my diapers are still damp. I hung them at midnight. Flats supposedly dry very quickly, but that is not the case on humid nights I guess. I have a very busy day full of belly dance (demonstration and classes) and kid stuff, so I won't have time to try out the iron like I had hoped. tomorrow is another day.

Speaking of tomorrow, I'll be discussing my favorite way to use my flats and whether or not I have actually had success with folds other than the diaper bag fold and the pad fold. Stay tuned!

My previous posts on this challenge:

Flat Butt - Introductory post
Flat Butt - Day One - Small Print
Flat Butt - Day Two - The Stash

Be sure to check out my fellow bloggers who are also participating in this challenge!

Flat Butt: Day Two - The Stash

Some of my goodies

We are on day number two of the 2nd Annual Flats and Handwashing Challenge. All is good so far, but I have a confession to make. I was going to start handwashing last night, but it didn't happen. I'll be handwashing lots of diapers today.  I haven't been too adventurous with folds. I'm mainly stickign to the pad fold or the diaper bag fold. I have used the origami fold a couple of times, but it leaves so much material and isn't a nice tight fit for my taste. I'll have to keep working on it.

Today, I'm discussing everything I am using for this challenge - the diapers, the accessories and the wash gear. Using flats can be pure and simple - just a flat diaper and a cover. Fasteners such as pins, snappis and boingos are optional depending on your fold and your cover. Some parents are opting to make flat diapers out of found things such as t-shirts, flour sack towels, old sheets and receiving blankets. Others are buying new or they're using items they already have. I only owned two flats when I first read about this challenge. They are the craptastic Gerber flats, which aren't even good enough to poop on - ironic since that's their original purpose. I only have 4  flannel receiving blankets and they are rather pretty and we actually use them as blankets. Any t-shirts or sheets in this house are used as actual t-shirts and sheets. That means that any flat diapers were going to be bought. Part of this has to do with the fact that a little fluffy mail makes my heart sing.

Diapers:

IKEA burp cloths - these are sold in packs of two for $2.99. They are marketed as burp cloths, but are actually fantabulous gauzy flat diapers. Each pack contains one plain white diaper and one white diaper with an embroidered animal design. They are cute, soft and function very well. I have 4 of these.

IKEA "burp cloth" - diaper bag fold and fastened with a Snappi.

Swaddlebees - I believe I bought one of the last packs of these flats in the country. They are on back order at every store in America. I bought mine very late one night at one of the last stores to sell them. By the next morning they were all sold out. I've only used them once so far, but I like them. I have 6 of  these.

Gerber Craptastic Flat - I have two of these leftover from when my son was a baby. I am only using these pad folded in conjunction with another flat. These majorly suck by themselves and they are tiny compared to the other diapers.

OsoCozy - I have one dozen of their unbleached flats. I have used these the most so far and I really love them.

Covers:

I have a ton of covers. I actually have so many that I could go through all of them without washing them. That would defeat the purpose of the challenge, though. Last year, participants were limited to the number of covers they could use. There isn't a limit this year, but I plan on imposing one on myself and I'll wash my covers each night to be fair.  For whatever reason, both my small Proraps and my Bummis Super Whisper Wraps don't work well for me with flats. I use them just fine with prefolds and fitteds, but there seems to be a small gap at the thigh when I'm using flats. Weird. I'll be using Thirsties covers - both the Duo and the regular - as well as my Mudshrimps covers and a few from Econobum. I also have two gorgeous wool covers that were given to me by a generous fan on my Facebook page. They fit her perfectly and I can't wait to try them out at night for this challenge.

Liners:

I have homemade fleece liners to help deal with poo clean up.

Wipes:

I have some homemade flannel/terry wipes as well as cheapie and super soft baby washcloths. No 'sposie wipes here!  I just wet them with water. If I make a wipes solution it's merely water and baby mild Dr. Bronner's soap.

Fasteners:

I am jealous of those who can use pins simply because they are adorable. I haven't been able to use them successfully yet. I have a bunch of Snappis and one set of Boingos. I really dislike the Boingos. I don't feel like I can get a tight enough fit and it seems like they could rub her thigh depending on how she moves around. They also come right off if she does the alligator death roll during a diaper change, which she does quite often.

Wet Bag:

I have three wet bags from PlanetWise - small, medium and large. I only plan to use these for travel and not for storage of diapers at home.

Diaper Pail:

I keep a dry diaper pail most of the time, but it's going to double as my wash bucket. I've been throwing soiled dipes in there and when I'm brave later today, I'll be filling it with water and soap to start beating  my diapers clean. As I mentioned in my previous post, I will not be making a camp style washer. The husband used the brand new plunger that I bought for it and defiled it with his cooties. I'm going to be handwashing bare bones - just my hands.

Laundry detergent:

I had really wanted to make my own detergent before the challenge, but I have not gotten around to it. I have one bottle of Seventh Generation Free and Clear in the new compostable bottle. Seventh Generation is not one of my favorite companies, but I scored this detergent for free so I will probably use it. Or....I may just use Dr.Bronner's with a boost from the Biokleen Oxygen Bleach if things get nasty.

Drying Rack:

I live in an apartment so my dream of freshly laundered diapers billowing in the gentle breeze  will not be realized. It's probably a good thing because the Pine trees are going insane with their pollen this year and there is a fine coating of powdery lime green tree semen all over everything outside. I have a large drying rack that will live next to a window this week.

Iron:

You can iron damp flat diapers in order to both dry them quicker and sterilize them. I have only ironed once in my life and I was actually wearing a gorgeous dress, high heels and pearls. I kid you not. We were on our way to a wedding and my sweet husband discovered that he had balled his dress pants up when he stored them in the closet. My mom wasn't home to answer my panicked phone call, so I ended up looking at "how to iron" videos online. Isn't that sad? I'm going to give the iron another go for this challenge.

Muscles:

I'm going to be packing these one with all that handwashing, baby!  Damn, I should have done a before picture of my biceps...

Coconut oil:

To soothe my hands after all that hand washing.

There we have it - my Flats Challenge supply list. We're only two days in and things are going well. My first round of handwashing will commence after I am done writing this. I'll update you on that experience tomorrow!

P.S. The picture above of the IKEA diaper is not a perfect diaper bag fold. I hadn't rolled in at the legs to make my little gussetts.

Here are some extra links for this challenge:

My original post about joining the challenge - Flat Butt
Yesterday's Post - Day One: The Small Print
The Original challenge post by Dirty Diaper Laundry that explains this challenge and the rules - The 2nd Annual Flats and Handwashing Challenge
Today's post by Dirty Diaper Laundry - Day 2.

Below, you will find the linky grouping of all the blogs that are part of this challenge.

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?