This is now officially the last year I can think of myself as "young," which is perfect timing really-with the kid on the way and all. We started the day with an appointment at the hematologist, to check the wife's iron and discuss possible treatment options during pregnancy. I'm really hoping there is something that can be done cause the falling asleep before dinner thing is getting old. We are in our second trimester. This should be done with very soon, but if her iron is low, maybe not.
Then, I dropped the wife back off at work and went home to read my new book, "baby bargains." I love this book. I am the quintessential do-it-yourselfer. If I can save $20 bucks, I will spend four hours of labor on something. This is how my household survived during grad school when money was non-existent. Related to baby, I updated the highchair that's been in the wife's family for 60 years with safety straps and easily cleanable cushions, made 57 bibs from spare fabric scraps lying around my house, have made probably 100 items of clothing (including sun dresses, onesies, fleece jackets, sleepers, booties, crocheted hats, a baby blanket, shorts, shirts, etc.), crocheted a zoo of stuffed animals (that were stuffed with fabric scraps)...you get the point. So I'm pretty excited to also research good deals for not-so-easily-made baby stuff.
It's a good thing I got this book when we did. I had mostly been looking at online reviews when looking at baby furniture and products, taking comments with a grain of salt since they are self-report-which only really happy people and really pissed off people take the time to do (according to psychometrics research). I thought the crib we picked out (which was on the lower-end price-wise because we are on a budget) was fine and met our needs. The authors of my new book gave it an F!!!!!! So, we reevaluated how long we expect the crib to last and realized, we really would like to keep using it for all of our children (as many as four we think) over the next decade. That said, I'm not dropping a grand on a crib. I don't need it to be fancy, just safe and durable. So we changed to a new crib today. I think we are going with ba.bi ita.lia. The one we chose can also become a toddler bed and day bed. When the kid is ready for a bigger bed we will probably be having another (we hope), so that's All we really need it for anyway.
After the crib debacle we also changed our mind about having a seperate dresser and changing table. Now we are going to get an extra wide and shorter dresser that will offer more storage and double as the changing table. We may get the dresser that matches the crib. But, for $100 less, I can get an even nicer unfinished oak or maple dresser and stain it myself! So I'm entertaining this option as well.
We also are reconsidering the glider in favor of a more old-fashioned rocker (which I can also buy unfinished and stain to match the other furniture).
SO MANY DECISIONS!!!!
Which brings me to a place where I am going to ask for some advice (I told you I could do it when needed):
for those of you with cloth diaper experience I have many questions.
Do you hose off the diapers right away or put them in a pail to be washed every other day (or every night)?
If you put them in a pail, is there a recommended type?
What are these wet pails I keep hearing about?
If you use cloth wipes as well, do you dampen them before using them?
Is the hose attachment actually helpful as a way to get rid of solids before putting them in the wash machine?
Is there any sort of special wipe warmer for cloth wipes?
Really, I need the most help with the logistics involved. I've got a good idea about cloth diapering system options and brands, but I have no clue about the peripherals.
23 hours ago
3 comments:
Okay, I'll give you the knowledge I have, which is not extensive. We went to a cloth diaper class and the lady there freaked out when someone mentioned a wet pail! She pretty much reacted as if someone had asked for the best way to drown puppies! She would only, only, only talk about dry pails, so we'll probably go with that.
As for wipes, we're going to get the prince lionheart wipes warmer that is made just for cloth wipes. I'm imagining that then you add some moisture to it, but I'm actually not entirely sure. I'll have to check that out!
I'll be watching to see what other suggest! Great questions!
Check with twohotmamas, Familystylelove on this subject. They both blogged about it and have babies.
I did discover on one of my parenting boards that there is a mesh type sheet which resembles a dryer sheet that you place in cloth diapers now that catches the solids and makes soaking unnecessary.
You're reminding me of many fond memories of overzealous crafting when my wife was pregnant with our first...
You'll probably get many different answers to your diaper questions, as a lot of things can vary with diaper type, washer, and personal preference, but here's what we do (this will be long):
We use a dry pail, and the pail itself is a fairly tight sealing trash can with a pedal opening and a liner pail that pulls out. You don't need something that fancy, but it's nice that it seals fairly tightly (especially since our house is tiny).
Pre-solids, we didn't do any rinsing, just chucked diapers and any soiled covers in the pail and washed about every 2nd or 3rd day. Post-solids, we use a diaper sprayer (we have the bumgenius sprayer and like it). We dunked and rinsed (with a diaper duck) with our first kid and this is far superior. We love our diaper
sprayer. There are directions around for a homemade version that you might like since you're crafty.
We've only ever used water on wipes, and never bothered with any kind of wipe warmer. Our wipes are washcloths from the dollar store, and we either wet one under the tap pre-change or moisten from a peri-bottle (the spray bottle you'll likely get after the birth).
As far as this mysterious "wet pail," we did use one with our first. The idea is that you keep the diapers soaked in water, and maybe a pre-soak like borax or bac out (though only do that with pre-folds, not any kind of fancy pockets or AIOs). This is kind of old fashioned, but we found it helped keep the diapers clean when we had a bad washer that didn't really have a hot wash. Whenever we switched to a dry pail, we inevitably had an ammonia smell build up the diapers, but soaking helped keep that down. Now that we have a good washer, a dry pail is totally sufficient (and easier).
Hope that helps.
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