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Hawaii Babies
SanHawaii08
member
i'm back! and f/u CD's - yay & one more question
SanHawaii08
member
this week was horrible - i was traveling for work, busy all day and in the evenings, exhausted, not enough sleep, and completely behind so now i have to work over the weekend to catch up 
sigh. but first, i had to catch up on all these posts! haha. work later
i spent probably 4 hours reading about CD's last week, and just placed an order from mom's milk boutique for 4 thirsties duo wraps - no shipping, no tax, and got the discounts (thanks to lori!) - yay! i'm so excited...i hope they fit 
so, my question - MH and one of my IRL friends is advocating for going with a cloth diaper service for the first month or two, just so we don't have to worry about washing. I don't think it will be a big deal, but wanted to hear it from you ladies, especially the ones who had c-sections and/or a tough recovery from birthing - was it really that much harder? i know many of you started using cloth right away...if money wasn't an object, would you have preferred to have a service in the beginning? (we also will have a front-loader in the new house - is it that much harder to wash CD's in a front loader?)
cloth diaper service here will run $82/month. I'd rather not spend the money, but MH thinks it could be worth the expense. he doesn't want to underestimate how hard the first few weeks (months?) may be...
This discussion has been closed.
Re: i'm back! and f/u CD's - yay & one more question
i don't know if you remember, but i had a very very rough recovery from my c-section. that said, i found it to be no problem at all to deal w/the diaper laundry. i mean really...how long does it take to bring the diaper bag to the laundry room, toss them in and hit start? the longest part of diaper laundry IMO is taking them out of the dryer and putting them away, depending on your storage setup. if you have visitors/family around, they can help w/that if you are totally busy....but honestly if i was ever too busy/tired to do it? i'd grab the diapers out of the dryer and take the basket upstairs and leave the diapers in the laundry basket in the nursery and i'd pull them out as i needed them!!!
sometimes i'd throw a load in the wash and go to sleep and then when she woke up i'd go toss them in the dryer. as long as you have a big enough stash, you don't have rush through getting them washed/dried and it's ok if they sit in the washer for a little while before getting dried
there has been a lot of talk about CDs lately on the babysteals FB page too and if you find those conversations you'll see that the majority of CD mamas out there will say that CD laundry isn't too time consuming at all! HTH!
Jaime & Brent
Oahu, Hawaii | Sept. 9, 2005
My Food Blog - Good Eats 'n Sweet Treats
Glad to see you, Sandra!
I know a couple of mamas who had diaper service gifted to them for the first couple of months. I think the diaper service only came weekly, though. Not sure if that would make a difference to you and Wally as far as odors and storage space is concerned.
We're not planning on doing this just because of the added cost. We're already spending money on the prefolds and covers. We may as well make use of them asap.
We didn't switch to cloth until about 5 weeks because we'd gotten so many disposable diapers as gifts. I was thankful that I didn't have to worry about CDing right away because I was a little nervous about it. That said, when we DID switch, it was a lot easier than I expected and we really could have done it sooner. We hang dry our diapers, so that's the most time consuming part.
If you can afford it and don't want to worry, indulge yourself and get the service for a month. Or, use disposables for a couple weeks. If not, it's probably no biggie to dive right in. In my mind, though, if you're worried or stressed about CDing so soon, the little bit of money saved is not worth it when you've got so many other things to focus your energies on -- like adapting to your newborn and caring for your recovering body.
TTC/PG Blog | Mommy Blog
glad to have you back -
to answer your question, I didn't find it difficult at all - like jaime the most time consuming part was putting the diaps away. often I just let them sit in the basket and grab them as I need (still do this sometimes on the weekend!!).
I guess it might be nice to have clean ones delivered weekly, but I wouldn't want to worry about storage for the dirties for a week (we don't have a garage) or storing 70+ clean ones. Also one of the many reasons we cloth diaper is in an effort to cut down on the chemicals we bring into our household and I was not really comfortable with the industrial cleaning methods the diaper services use.
(Jaime, you were the first person I thought of when I was thinking difficult recoveries! "if jaime could do it, surely we can too!"
)
alrighty, I will do some research on washing with a front-loader. the instructions i've come across all seem to differ - some people put them through multiple cycles, different temps, etc. if it's as simple as throwing them in and pressing a button, i can't see that being a problem!
i'm definitely still leaning towards washing them at home...
we have soft water so that requires and extra rinse(s) - things get really sudsy, even with the lowest amt. of detergent. Almost everything can be done with one "cycle" combo of buttons as long as your washer allows you to select quite a few extras.
Everyone's machine is different but I could accomplish it with a prewash, long cycle (ours is called super wash or"sanitary" I can't tell if there is really a difference between the 2 once we are done so I go with the shorter one), and then an extra rinse - all of this can be added on to my normal cycle so it's just once round of button pushing.
If I know I will be paying attention and around: instead of a prewash I do a cold rinse and spin cycle and deactivate the spin part - this works as my "prewash" (rinse) and since it isn't spinning out the rinse water it makes the load really heavy so that the wash will get the most amt. of water which helps since a FL bases the amt. of water it adds to wash by the load weight. The extra water helps decrease the rinses needed. It takes 12 mins. and then I just button push for the main cycle (wash, extra rinse).
thanks so much for the details! I've never used a FL, so i'll save this and wait until we move in and familiarize myself with the new machine. it's so much fancier looking than our current machine, haha.
oh, and we got our first "why CD? sposies are better" comment yesterday - one of MH's coworkers said they tried CD's for 1.5 days before switching to sposies, b/c they kept having blowouts. MH tells me this after work, and i retorted that their CD's must not have fit right
eh, whatever. you're free to use whatever you want - i'm not judging (we'll use sposies for a few days/weeks if the CD's we have are too big - i don't want to buy preemie sizes just in case. and i'm sure we'll use them for vacations where we don't have access to laundry), and we'll do the same!
We also got our first comments on CD. It was from my mom. I would hope that, by now, my mom would trust my decisions, especially knowing that these decisions have been made based on a ridiculous amount of research.
She was horrified when we told her we were going to CD. She kept saying, "Yeah, that's fine, but you're going to use disposable when you fill in the blank with scenario, right???" Um, no.
Ask anyone who knows us and they'll tell you that we would probably be the last people on earth who would choose to CD. Maybe that's why she was so unenthused?
I'm just waiting to hear it from the ILs, too. Oh, and co-workers. It's not as if we're going to ask these people to wash our poopy diaper laundry for us! It's our choice and we're going to give it a shot.
sandra - you will figure it out
There is a website that even has suggested combos based upon the machine you have. I think it's on the rocking green detergent website but I can dig it up from my home computer when you need the info.
I didn't get too many comments - most people (mom, grandma) are confused about why you don't wet pail anymore. haha. People at my shower - after Jack was born - all passed around a pocket diaper and were amazed.
Hanging out with my grandma a lot after Jack was born was really neat - I learned a lot of new stuff about her life. When my mom was born they lived in a shack on the reservation that didn't have electricity or running water!! Can you imagine cloth diapering then?
DH's family wasn't unsupportive (at least to my face), but they definitely don't get it and wouldn't even consider it themselves.
I know my mom thinks CD is weird, dirty and completely unnecessary. Of course, she's imagining how it would have been if she tried to CD 30 years ago! I could see the thoughts running through her mind. I think she's most concerned about how CD will impact her in the event that she needs to watch LO. When LO is here, I plan to show my mom how the PFs and covers work and that I would only ask her to velcro a new diaper on LO and toss the dirty stuff into a wetbag. Done.
ooh, yeah - found it - that's the one. thanks!!
it's great that you were able to spend so much time with your grandma after Jack was born. I would love for my grandma to be able to come visit and stay for a bit (she's almost 90, i think, and while she's doing okay, my grandfather isn't and doesn't really travel anymore - it was a big deal for him to make it to our wedding, and that was 2 years ago). we'll be visiting as soon as we're comfortable taking the baby on a plane.
i haven't told my family yet about our plans to CD - i'm not sure how they would react. i actually think my parents CD'd with me for a bit, probably to save money? it was sposies all the way for my sister though.
...whenever my mom comes to visit, she's still impressed that we recycle
(they don't have recycling pick-up - no wonder no one recycles!) so i say, yes, the recycling goes here, ...and the compost goes here. 