Hi, everybody. It's Katie. Today, I want to talk to you about cloth diapering.
Does it sound scary? Is it overwhelming? Do you think, "Am I going to have enough
time for this? Isn't that expensive? I don't know about all that?"
Well, I want to talk to you today about cloth diapering and my experience with it,
and to tell you that you can do it and that it's not overwhelming,
and that it's not too expensive once you kind of get past that initial investment.
So, today, like I said, we'll talk about that,
and my experiences with what I've done. So, I think the first thing is
at least for me, is I got on YouTube...imagine that!
I got on YouTube, and Google, and just did as much research as I possibly could about
what kind of cloth diapering options there are, and there's quite a few.
To save time, you can do your own research, I'm just going to let you know
my top two that I...after I did all my research, there were two types
that I was thinking, "Okay, I want to do this."
So, the first kind was an all-in-one diaper. So, as you can see there's one,
two layers here, and then of course, there's this bottom layer,
as well. So, this is as it sounds, an all-in-one. You just drape this on the
baby, and you see from all these little snaps that it can accommodate a small baby
to a bigger baby, and I forget what the sizing is, but you know,
you just order the sizes that you need.So, this is all-in-one.
So, this was option number one, and then, option number two is prefold.
So, here's one size prefold, here's another size prefold. This a medium,
this is a large. So, the prefolds, along with a diaper cover that's got the shiny
on the inside so you won't leak. These are called Thirsties, they're diaper covers.
There's a bunch of different diaper covers out there, and then,
you don't have to use these, but I did. They're Snappis, and
so they've got the little grips, and I'll show you kind of
how this all works here in a little bit, but they're little Snappis.
I ended up going with the prefold diapers, and here's why. This is totally a personal
preference. The bumGenius, the all-in-one, it's a great diaper,
but for me, there are a couple of things. Number one, financial reasons.
I had a budget. I had to convince my husband that this was going to be a good
investment, and it actually has been, we'll show you the numbers here in a
little bit, but I...so, financial reasons were one. I needed to be able to have
enough diapers that I wasn't washing diapers every single day,
because that's time consuming. Ain't nobody got time for that.
Not me,anyway. So, I didn't want to be doing
diapers every single day, and so, I needed to have enough diapers to last me for,
you know, maybe four days, or five days, or three days, or something,
before I started having to do them. So, financial reasons was one,
but the other reason is it felt like such a waste that you know how when you change
your baby, and you have this nice, fresh diaper and they go...they poop.
And you're like, "Ugh, you had to wait for a freshie," right? So,
I felt like I have this beautiful, all-in-one diaper, and one little squirt
of poop and it's ruined, and you got to throw it in the wash.
The whole thing, and it... To me, and maybe it's silly, I don't know,
it just felt like it's kind of a waste, and so, with the prefolds,
that's not really the case. At least, I didn't feel like it was.
So, you take your prefold, you put it on the baby, they poo, and you're like,
"Oh, man," but you take the prefold off, you can still use the cover as long as
there was no leakage or whatever, and so I guess it just felt a little bit...made a
little more sense to me. And the other thing is, these things work as great as,
like, burp cloths in cleaning up spit-up messes, or whatever.
Pee messes that didn't quite make it into the diaper. I don't know.
So, I like the prefolds quite a bit actually, so we decided to go with the
prefolds. As I mentioned earlier, "Do I have the money? Am I going to be able to
afford this?" I do have to tell you that there is an initial investment,
and it's kind of like, you got to get over this little hump first,
and the hump involves time. "Do I have the time? Money?
Do I have the money? Can I do this?
It seems really complicated." So, once you make it over that hump,
it's like, totally sailing smooth, downward the entire way after that,
but there is that little initial hump that you got to get over.
So, finances. I think that I... I have quite a few. I don't have all of them,
but I do have a pretty big pile here. This is probably only about a quarter of the
size that I have. My budget was about $300 for everything, so I knew that I needed to
be able to get everything for that price, so that was the money thing.
That was part of the hump, was the money, and the other part of it was,
"Am I going to have time? Am I going to know how to do this?" Well,
the people that I ordered from, I think it was Blue Mountain, if that's...we'll put
the link in the description below. "Am I going to have the time?"
They sent me this amazing pamphlet and they explained exactly how it was all
going to go, what you need to do when you get your diapers, because as another part
of this little hump you've got to get over when the prefolds show up....you see
how this is kind of nice and crinkly? They won't look like that when
they come in the mail. When they come in the mail, they're probably almost double
this size. They're nice, and flat, and smooth, and you're like,
"Wow. That's like a towel. I could get my kid out of the bath with this." So,
you actually have to kind of prep them before,
and that is a little bit of a time commitment.
So, I just picked a day that I was going to be home and was going to have time to
go back and forth to the washing machine, because you actually...to prep them,
you need to wash them and dry them. I don't remember exactly how much,
but it's like, four or five times, you got to run them through a cycle because you've
got to get them ready, and the more you wash them, the more absorbent they become,
which is crazy to me. But anyway, so that's part of your investment
is time to get them ready. But again, once you
kind of get over that little hump, then you're good to go
because I've got these all ready and washed, and it doesn't take any time at
all now. So, okay. Back to the prefolds. The next step when you have the prefolds
is cleaning. "Well, what happens when my kid goes pee in them?" When your kid goes
pee, no big deal. You just put them in the garage. We have a trash can with
a lid, or wherever it is that you want to put your diapers, you just throw them in
there, because pee, you know, it's no big deal.
Now, poop, that is a little bit different of a story. You don't want to put a giant
poopy diaper in your washing machine because A, that's gross, and B,
you'll probably find little floaties later on with your clothes when you wash your
underwear, and that's gross. So, you want to make sure you wash the poop off,
and what I did is I got on... actually, I went to Amazon,
and found a few products that were going to help me with that.
One is...it's like a plastic, and we'll have a little video or a description of
what we've got...but it's a plastic, comes in a triangle. It's like a little trifold,
and it folds up, or you can leave it in the shape of a triangle,
and it has, like, a clipboard clip. So, you take your diaper, and you put it under
the clipboard, and you've got the... the plastic is around it so,
you know, you're not going to be spraying poo everywhere,
because if you didn't have this, you would. And that's also gross.
And then, I also found...it's a bidet sprayer, and I found that if you put
"Cloth diaper sprayer" or cloth diaper anything, the price is a little bit more
because cloth diapering is a thing, apparently. So, I found a bidet sprayer
that does the exact same thing. It's a little handheld spray nozzle
that you attach to your toilet. And if you're handy,
you could probably do it yourself or get your husband to do it.
It's a quick install. It literally just attaches onto down by where you turn the
water off and on. It's really fast. So, with your little bidet sprayer and your
plastic trifold, you turn the water on to the bidet sprayer. You spray the poop off,
it goes straight into the toilet. You flush. I use gloves, because then I would
reach in, I wring out the cloth diaper, get all the excess water out.
I put my sprayer and everything down on the floor.
I have a towel that just, it kind of lives right by the toilet.
And then I take my wet cloth diaper, take it out to the garage,
and we're done. We're good to go. So, it's pretty easy. I mean,
the first few times, when you're spraying poo off, it's kind of like,
"Ergh," but it's pretty quick. It's pretty easy. You get a system and it goes really
fast, and then, as far as washing goes, washing is... I pick a day that I know I'm
going to have a little bit of time because washing is...it takes a couple cycles,
because they want...at first you want to rinse, and then you want to do a hot wash.
You can do a secondary hot wash, which I always do, just to make sure everything's
off, and then, a final rinse. And if you live in a warm climate,
which I do, in the summertime, you can hang dry your diapers which is amazing
because it will also kind of bleach them out. But if you live in a colder climate,
which I used to, then you would just dry them. Now, you might be kind of wondering,
Okay, what's the difference between...you know,
is it actually really better for the environment?"
Or maybe you're not thinking that, I don't know. I kind of wondered like
"Maybe these will be a little bit better for the environment," but I still
use cloth diapers. Not cloth. I still use disposable diapers. We'll get to that in
just a second. We've actually done the numbers as far as, "Is it actually
economical to do the cloth diapering?" So, is it better for the environment?
You're using water versus the landfill, so I guess that's kind of up to you.
That's your decision, whether or not it's better.
I like the idea of being able to put a load of cloth diapers in the wash,
in the dryer, pull them out and fold them, and I didn't throw anything away.
Yes, I used water. So, I mean, it's a little give and take. Whatever you think,
it's fine, but I have a feeling of satisfaction when I do that,
and as I mentioned just a minute ago, we also did the numbers,
and it's... I think we figured out that it was, like, 0.06 cents per load or
something like that. So, once you get past that hump
that initial investment, it's actually quite a bit more economical.
But as I said, I do use disposable diapers because I am definitely not that militant
Because I... with my first daughter, we did cloth diapering,
and I remember I went to the store the first time with her cloth diaper on,
and of course, she had a blowout. It was crazy, and I was like,
"I'm not... I don't have time. I don't want to deal with this," and so,
we found a really good disposable diaper that I like.
It's Earth's Best. You know, pick whatever. Whatever flavor you like.
There's a bunch of the disposables out there. Just pick the one you like,
and then, we use those for when we're going out and doing errands,
or we're traveling. I don't do cloth diapers when we travel. I just don't,
because I never know if I'm going to have access to a good washing machine.
It's just too much. So, we do that when we're traveling, when we're out running
errands, but during the day when we're home, I put her in a cloth diaper and I
let her hang out in that because that's easy enough for me to wash a little bit
later. So, anyway, that's kind of the quick and easy on the cloth diapering.
I know it might seem a little bit overwhelming. It was for me,
especially, even when I just had the one, because I was thinking,
"Can I actually really do this?" and like any new thing, it's going to take...
you know, it will take a couple of weeks to kind of
get a system going, but it's worth it, I think.
In my opinion. I got a huge stack of the cloth diapers, the covers,
the Snappis, and I think I spent a grand total... And this,
I use the Biokleen Laundry Liquid. You do need to use a laundry detergent
that works with cloth diapers because you don't want to use Tide.
Because Tide has different chemicals, and there's things
in there that you don't want on your baby's bottom.
So you definitely do want to pick out a laundry liquid, but that thing right there
has lasted me... I don't know, gosh. Probably six months or more,
because you don't need a whole lot, because again, you're washing the poo off,
and then pee is just rinsing that out, So, anyways, you do need to have
a special liquid, but I think for everything that I got, I think I spent
maybe between $300 and $350, and I did that in 2012, and here it is 2017,
and I'm working on baby number 2, and I've got all this great stuff.
So it's a good investment, I feel like. And the other thing is you can sell them
when you're done with them, because cloth diapers don't really lose...
I mean, unless they're just horribly torn up, cloth diapers don't lose their value.
So, that's what I got, guys. Yeah, if you have any questions, feel free to leave
them below in the comments. I'd love for you to kind of join
into the discussion if you want to say anything about cloth diapering,
and also, I'd like to invite you to check out our channel.
We've got a bunch of different videos. I think we have, like, over 35 videos now
about mommyhood, and baby stuff, and cloth diapering now. So, yeah.
We'd love to have you check out the rest of our videos. We also have a Facebook
page, it's THEKTFiles, and you're welcome to join us on there,
as well, but thanks for your time. If you liked our video, click Like and maybe
think about subscribing and joining us along our journey. I hope you have a good
rest of your day, and happy cloth diapering. Bye, guys!
Okay, everybody. I'm going to do a demonstration of the jelly roll fold,
and this is the one that I like the best. So, we'll start off with
our prefold and our baby. This is Baby Periwinkle.
Snappi, and diaper cover. So,I've got all of this.
The first thing you're going to do is start with, folded over like that.
That's super helpful for when baby has a big poop. Hopefully, the poop will be
caught in there, versus shoot out and get all over everything.
So, obviously, Baby Peri is not to size here, but...so, you'll have your fold.
Now, the reason it's called a jelly roll fold is right here.
So, you take and roll, roll, roll, and up between the legs,
and then, you fan it out a little bit.Take your sides here,
pull them up, keeping that fold in the back.
Yeah, not to size. So then, we get our Snappi, and you attach here.
Pull it over, this part goes down here. Be careful, these are really sharp,
and then, you get your prefold cover.
And... You can get snaps or elastic. [inaudible] elastic, velcro.
Yeah. There we go. Okay, Baby Peri is diapered, and so, you could just make sure
that that gets tucked up over the side, and then, you also want to make sure that
there is no...you don't want any of this poking out of the diaper,
because if baby pees, then whatever this is touching will get wet,
so you want to make sure you've goteverything
all nice and tucked in. There you go.
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