Why Cloth Diapers?
Cloth diaper is not those classic cotton square cloth (lampin) secured with pins and snappi. It's those modern cloth diapers (CD) which works like disposable diapers, but you need to put in a little bit of effort in washing them. There are a lot of different CD available these days, pocket diapers, all in one, prefold, etc. We have used One Size Pocket Diapers all the while and they work well. We were initially skeptical when introduced to CD, but now we love using CD. Why?
Comfortable
The outer layer of the CD is made of PUL, so it is water proof and will not wet the bed. The layer contacting baby's bottom is made of microfleece, so baby will not feel the wetness. The inserts are used to absorb pee, they are normally made of microfiber or hemp (nowadays there are newer materials).
Baby doesn't really feel hot since the PUL is made of breathable material. The fleece used is ultra soft, although it feels thick, it is not warm for babies. Fleece has wicking abilities, therefore it can wick moisture through the insert but the fleece remains dry.
Health
Baby's possiblity of getting rashes from CD is very slim. Disposable diapers contain chemicals, plastic and paper that may cause rashes on the delicate bums. Some people said that disposable diapers contain dioxin which may not be good for baby's health in the long run. (Since we are not experts in this, we prefer not to comment on it).
Cost
Yes, the initial investment is big! However, CD can be used on new borns up to 2-3 years old. Averagingly, a baby uses 6-12 diapers a day (depending on age and weight). This is equivalent to 2190-4380 pieces of diapers per year. Multiply that by 3 years and by x number of kids, that's a whole lot of diapers. An average diapers cost around 50 sens (it gets more expensive as the size increase), therefore you can spend up to roughly RM5000 for 3 years/ child.
With CD, you can mix and match, better quality ones for night time use (ranging from RM80-RM100 with inserts) and cheaper ones like Coolababy for day time use where you can change the diaper every 2-3 hours (ranging from RM36-RM60).
Mommy uses CD on lil princess part time because babysitter prefers disposable diapers. We plan to convince baby sitter to fully use CD when the time is right. Perhaps we will need to bring home soiled diapers every evening and fresh ones every morning to baby sitter, but it's worth the trouble!
Baby has around 6 pcs of RM80++ range diapers and 5 pcs of Coolababy. That's around RM660 total. For full time use, you need at least 14 diapers, that's a max of RM2500. You can use the same set again and again for the 2nd, 3rd or 4th child provided you take good care of the CD.
Setting up your CD stock is a big investment but you will save money in the long run.
Environmental Friendly
Mommy is an environmental-consicious person. She'll keep all the aluminium cans, old newspapers and those recyclable items; go through all the hassle of sending them to the right place (since we live in an apartment) even though she may not get paid for it.
When baby was 1/2 months old, she was on full time disposable diapers and there was 1 big bag of soiled diapers going to the trash daily. According to Real Diaper Association, disposable diapers are the 3rd most common consumer product in landfills today, and they may take up to 500 years to decompose. 1 baby in disposable diapers will contribute to at least 1 tonne of waste in our landfill.
Parents are recommended to dump solid waste (like poo) into the toilet and flush it away before discarding the diapers, but most parents do not. The poo now goes into landfills, leach into the groundwater and eventually end up in human again. With CD, you have no choice but to flush the poo properly into the toilet bowl, and it goes to the sewage system which is treated correctly.
Everything parents do nowadays is for the baby's future. Can you imagine how the world will be like in the future with so much waste and lack of landfills?
Is it troublesome?
It takes a bit of getting used to, then you find that it's OK after all. What mommy does:
1. Rinse the inserts with pee through running water.
2. Dump the inserts and cover in a covered pail soaked with water. Some ppl recommend Dry pail method (dump everything into a dry pail), but mommy finds soaking them most effective
3. The next morning at 7am, dump everything into the washing machine with baby's clothes.
4. Hang them out at 8am. By the time we're home at 6pm, they are dry (provided there's no heavy down pour). If you stay in a landed property with direct sunlight, the diaper will dry within an hour or two and you can use them again.
5. When folding baby's clothes at night, put all the inserts into the diaper cover ready for use.
Talking about poops, since baby is potty trained, she has have only poo-ed twice in the CD. What daddy did was to use high pressure water to flush the poop into the toilet bowl, scrub the fleece and insert with water and the stain will come out. If it still stains, use a bit of Dynamo and it'll be gone.
Some last words
We're not saying that CD is 100% problem free. Leakages do happen, sometimes due to improper insert placement, sometimes due to CD not fitting properly on the baby. When baby is dehydrated, the urine will smell bad, so the CD will smell bad (this smell is normally absorbed by the chemicals in disposable diapers). All you need to do is just wash and sun them, or perform CD stripping.
By the way, now you don't need to join in the mad rush on buying disposable diapers on sale.
Cloth Diaper Care Instruction
Before you start using your Cloth Diaper for the first time:
1. Pre wash your cloth diaper and inserts at least 2 times before use.
2. Wash your diaper in washing machine using normal water and half of detergent recommended (cloth diaper does not need too much detergent)
3. Dry the cloth diaper outside with the best sunlight.
4. If you are hand washing it, please rinse with more water.
5. Ensure NO Bleach & NO Softeners
Note: Pre wash is very important to remove chemicals. This will also increase the absorbency of your cloth diapers
How to wash your Cloth Diaper?
1. Remove inserts from the pocket before washing.
2. Fold back your laundry tabs (Velcro – if available) on the diaper. This is to avoid the diaper to be tangled during the washing process.
3. Remove the inserts.
4. Throw everything into the washing machine (it is fine to mix with other clothes)
5. Ensure the water level covers diaper completely. Use only half of the soap powder or detergent recommended.
6. If you are washing with hands, please rinse again to ensure all of the detergent is rinsed out.
7. Dry your diaper outside with the best sunlight. The sun will bleach away your stains naturally
How to store your dirty Cloth Diaper?
1. Dump any solid poop into the toilet and flush away.
2. Squirt some soap power on the dirty poop area.
3. Rinse off the soap after a while.
4. Store dirty diaper in a wet pail filled with water.
5. You can accumulate your diapers, inserts and laundry; dump all into the washing machine
6. For breastfed baby, you do not need to brush the suede. It will come off after you wash it in the machine.
Wet Pail and Dry Pail Methods
You can use the dry pail or wet pail method (or both) to store the soiled cloth diapers.
1. Dry pail. All cloth diapers are placed in a covered pail.
2. Wet pail. All cloth diapers are placed in a pail half-filled with water. Make sure this pail is covered to prevent infant drowning.
Some Hints
1. Try not to wash more than 20 diapers at a go. It can cause too much friction and pilling.
2. Use less detergent than you normally would to prevent detergent build up.
3. Do not use fabric softener, it will make your diapers less absorbent and shorten cloth diaper life span.
4. Do not use chlorine bleach as it will cause degradation in diaper quality. You can use baking soda or oxygen bleach if needed.
5. Cloth diapers can be placed into dryer for drying.
6. Occasionally, you may need an extra rinse on your cloth diapers to remove odors caused by detergent build up.
7. If your Velcro cloth diaper comes with laundry tab, fold back your laundry tabs to avoid diaper being tangled up during washing machine. If no laundry tab available, please stick the Velcro to its mating surface.
8. Different parents have different opinions on what washing method works best. Go ahead and try out what works best for you!
How to use your Cloth Diaper?
