The year I became best friends with my washing machine

Or, our experience with cloth diapering, one whole year in.

I'm not sure if I've posted about this before and don't want to waste my valuable blogging time (naps end very unexpectedly around here) looking for an old post. So, now you know. We cloth diaper. We started in early October last year, when L was about six weeks old.

I knew that I wanted to cloth diaper before I got pregnant with L and fortunately my adventurous yet pragmatic husband was along for the ride. People had a wide range of reactions when I told them what we were planning:
"That's disgusting. Why would you do that?"
"Just wait 'til your kid arrives. You'll never have time for that."
"...neat...."
"Wow, that sounds awesome! Tell me more!"
etc.

We were undeterred by the naysayers. In fact, it was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. "Oh, you don't think I can do this? WATCH ME." Knowing that there were advantages to cloth in terms of money, health and the environment, I really wanted to make it work. This does not mean that I think disposable diapers are bad, or that people who use them are bad. I have used them myself. We have by no means been free of  leaks, diaper rash or smell issues. We are not better parents because we cloth diaper. We are better parents because we evaluated a given set of circumstances and made the choice that worked best for our family. There are too many crazy, broken things in the world to get upset over than disposable vs. cloth, formula vs. breast, or working vs. staying at home. Phew.
Okay, back to the diapers.

(If you want to know the nuts and bolts of cloth diapering in our house, read the next few paragraphs. If you think cleaning toliets would be more entertaining than reading about cloth diapering, then skip the next section and come on over! )

We knew we weren't up for trying a ton of different diapers. The cloth world is surprisingly huge with many different options but I wasn't looking to become a frequenter of message boards--people with names like Willow and River who write things like "I just made my own wool diaper cover out of wool gathered from the sheep in our backyard and lined with organic hemp."
Instead, we chose a well-known brand, Bumgenius, and have 3 different types--elementals, freetimes and one-sizes. Elementals are by far and away our favorites, though they take the longest to dry. We have become snap experts this year--you can buy them with velcro, but everyone says the snaps last longer--which is saying something considering that L regards diaper changes as something just shy of torture.

I wash diapers every 2-3 days with my patented 3 rinse cycle (1 cold rinse, 1 heavy duty wash on hot with detergent, 1 hot rinse with a little detergent and some essential oils). Every 6 weeks or so I add some bleach to the 3rd rinse cycle. I hang them on a drying rack outside and after a few hours, VOILA, clean, fresh diapers ready for our sweet girl.Occasionally I'll run some of them through the dryer if it's particularly humid or rainy.

Keeping it real:
As I mentioned before, it hasn't been a perfect system. There have been frustrating moments where the diapers weren't in the right place, or weren't dry yet, or there was a leak, etc. We have dealt with some diaper rash (though coconut oil has gone a long way to helping this). Things are definitely "grosser" since the start of solids, though I can handle 30 seconds of grossness every day. If you've ever picked up dog poop, it's really not any grosser than that. We have a diaper sprayer hooked up to our toilet for those special diapers that need rinsing.

On the whole, we are very happy with our cloth diapers and love color-coordinating L with her diapers and outfits (just a minor perk of cloth!). Feel free to leave questions in the comments if you have any.

Cloth in action--yes, we let L romp in public in her diaper because we are classy like that.