Oh...one more thing

Okay, well several more things actually. My sister in law asked some questions I forgot to address in my diaper post below.

Q. So you don't bleach the diapers at all, and there is no smell problem?

A. They will stain if you don't bleach them. I've heard that you can bleach them if you want and it won't even fade the outside material because it's like a plastic almost. But I line dry so I just place them in the sun for 15 minutes or so and the stains disappear...like magic! Sun is a natural bleach. Who knew? There is no smell problem yet but when he starts solids we may invest in some tea tree or lavender oil to help with that. You simply put a few drops in the wash and on a wipe in the bottom of the diaper pail and it should help the smell disappear also. I'll let you know if it works out. All my friends that do cloth diapers say that they don't have a smell issue though so maybe we won't need it.

Q. Do you use the cloth diapers even when going places?

A. Yes, yes we do. They are a bit more bulky but lets face it...I have to carry the entire world with me every time I leave the house anyway, a couple cloth diapers don't make all that much of a difference. ;) I have a little wet bag which is made out of the same fabric as the outside layer of the diapers, thus it's waterproof. When I change him I simply through the wet\soiled diaper in the wet bag, zip it up, and put it in the diaper bag. When I get home I throw it in the diaper pail. I can wash the wet bag as often as it needs it.
We don't however use the cloth ones at night. This is mostly because he can go all night right now without needing to be changed and I am not going to argue with him. I like to think of it as my little contribution to our marriage to do the majority of nighttime parenting but as soon as the sun comes up I'm nudging Ty and asking him to change Mr. O. while I greedily try to get a few more minutes of shut eye. We may be able to make it all night now that we've gotten some pre-fold diapers to put inside these ones. Again, I'll try it and let y'all know how it works out.

Q. Do you have to change him more often?

A. So I change him probably every 2-3 hours. I admit we have a few more "pee throughs" than we used to but I see this as more of a result of me leaving him much longer than I should have anyway than a fault of the diaper. We just got some pre-fold diapers that we fold and lay inside our cloth diapers and that should make them last longer and be more absorbent. I will do a little experiment to see how long he can generally go between changings.

Q. Do you rinse the poopies out in the toilet before washing either?

A. Not yet. When they get chunky I will use this sprayer to spray them directly into the toilet before pailing them. I guess it's supposed to have a pretty high pressure spray that will dis-lodge the poopies from the fabric. I assume that this would work well with training pants and underwear as well as the occasional water fight. But I don't know...never tried it. Let me know if it works! ;)