Flats and Handwashing: Day 2

Well, today would have been a perfect example of how easy using flats is.  In fact it could have been the perfect example of how easy it is to diaper your baby for free.  It could have been.  It SHOULD have been.  But it wasn't.

First, I had errands to run.  That wasn't so bad.  Since I had an appointment that I could not bring my kids in with me, I chose to have  a friend sit with them in the waiting room for the 20 minute appointment.  What a blessing my friend is to me:)  I love her so much, like sisters should.  She uses pocket diapers on the various children she has had living in her home off and on.  She is a firm believer in pockets and will  use nothing less than Fuzzi Bunz or Rumparoos.  Don't get me wrong, those are awesome diapers. . . if you like pockets (which I don't) and you don't mind shelling out some dough (and I wont!).  So I was a tad nervous about her needing to change Little Gee.  Well, thankfully he didn't need changed.  Like I said the appointment was a lot shorter than normal.  Here is how I did the 'cover fold'.  I thought this would be the easiest way for a pocket user to user to use flats.

You can see that the flat is basically folded into a rectangle, then the rectangle is folded up to fit.  I placed it inside this flap on the Thirsties Duo pictured.  I don't know if I like that idea or not.  Could be easy for a little boy to pee right out the front of his diaper.  This fold doesn't work for me.  It gets bundled, bunched, twisted and doesn't stay in place.  Poop is not kept off of the cover, requiring a new cover.  Also you can only do this with a cover that will snap or velcro. Supposedly so it stays in place.  In my experience, it does not.


After that we went for coffee and back to the donation center to make some more junk leave my house.  Then off to the mall.  After going home, I discovered that Little Gee had. . . . diarrhea.  Thank you very much Gee.  Just the week to decide to do this.  I guess the good news is that since technically I'm on vacation, I don't have to call in sick.

Well, other than having to do the dreaded washing of stuffed animals the tummy bug did not stop us any.  He's as happy as normal, and the only reason I had to wash stuffies was bcs I did my normal routine of letting him be naked since we were home.  When I don't have the other kids here to care for, I let Gee have full reign of the house naked.  I think it helps bring awareness to his bodily functions and keeps him dry and rash free.  Of course, had I realized he was going to have tummy problems. . . .  ugh! He's normally very regular so this kind of mess isn't usually a problem.

As far as washing diapers goes. . . I've decided to wash diapers in the mornings.  This way the night time diaper does not sit for long.  The diapers will also have all day on the line if it's nice.  I followed my same routine as yesterday, but I"d like to share a link to making and using a camp style washer.  If I choose to always or mostly hand wash my diapers than I think we'll be making one of these!  For this week though, I'm sticking to the sink. 

Fold of the day:  Kite Fold! (be sure to check the video!  such a better example than mine!)

 Left:  Lay out and fold to make square if necessary.  Right:  Place thumb at bottom right corner.  Fold top right corner to diagonal center, fold bottom left to diagonal center.

Left:  Fold bottom up and top down.  Depending on the size of baby and square, top and bottom may meet.  Right:  I then folded the bottom in again and rolled in sides to fit legs nicely.  Then place on baby like a prefold.  Use snappy or pin to fasten.

This fold has by far been the best fitting and most well placed on Little Gee.  All the absorbency seems to be in the right spot for him, and is great for his freakishly long rise, where the Origami fold was too short.

Diaper Pic of the day:

Summary:
At this point, I plan on continuing to use flats at home.  It is a bit hard to make Little Gee be still to fold a complicated fold, like kite or origami, when we're out in public.  Having them prefolded and put away is much easier.  So when we're out and about I do plan on using fitteds still.  They will also be available for my husband and sitters.  As far as night time diapers go. . . it's a toss up.  I may continue using the flats.  For some reason there is much less of an ammonia smell to the t-shirt flats.  I am thinking of re-purposing my prefolds by making them into mama cloth or fitteds or whatever the heck I need them for!

How to get the most of your t-shirt when making flats:

• Only use Men's XXL or larger shirt.  I"m not sure of the difference between Mens' and Womens sizes.  
• Lay the 100% cotton shirt out flat.  Iron if you feel like wasting some time!
• Cut through both layers of shirt at the same time.
• Start at the neck and cut a straight line that barely grazes bottom neck of shirt.
• Cut down the sleeves removing ONLY the side seam of body if there is one.   Please only waste a small fraction of an inch on the edges.  that may mean you get part of the sleeve on your flat.  It wont bother baby at all.
• Don't waste the bottom of the hem.  You need all the surface area you can get!  
• Serge or hem if you feel it's necessary.  I chose not to this time bcs my serger is in the shop and I"m too stuck up to play with my regular sewing machine today!  Plus, I wanted to test out a 'no sew' option for people who can't/wont etc.

I rate my experience so far:  4 stars out of 5 (but only bcs I had to deal with so much poop today!)  Happy Flat Diapering!