Eco-Friendly Family

2 in cloth diapers?

If you have two in cloth, or will have two in cloth I have a few questions and am looking for opinions.

I'm not sure how the laundry situation will work out with two babies in cloth, so I'm curious what you would/will do. Right now we do a load of diapers every 3 days (-ish). When the new baby is here our changing station will be in the loft and will be shared for both babies, with both sizes of diapers stored separately in the same drawer/cabinet unit.

Do you think it would be best to keep the diapers separate and have 2 pails, to wash newborn diapers in one load and then toddler diapers in another load? Do you think it would be best to throw all diapers in one pail and wash more often? I'm torn on this. Our diaper loads take at least 2.5 hours to complete the wash and get into the dryer. On one hand, if they are all washed together they will be washed more often, but they are all folded and put away to the same place. On the other hand, washing the separate might mean I do diaper laundry on fewer days per week, but I'd be waiting on two loads instead of one.

Any opinions, advice, insight, etc. is very much appreciated. Even from moms who only have one in cloth.

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Re: 2 in cloth diapers?

  • reenireeni member
    i can't give any advice regarding 2 full-time cd, but ds still uses them at night. I wash twice or 3x a week, everything together. If neccessary, I'll separate them into heavy wash (poop-stained, and both their night dipes) and light wash (dd's daytime dipes) so I can save time by not doing the full routine on the ones that don't need it. Efficiency is huge for me because lately I have had to use an outside laundromat for cd wash.
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  • I haven't been there yet, but will be in a few months. I plan on just mixing the loads together and washing when I get a full load, or need to wash and I'll wash a couple loads. I think it's going to be a trial and error.  My concern with ds1 and ds2 diapers is that ds1 will have way less and his diapers will be sitting there a while before I have to wash.

    One thing I hadn't thought of was moving the changing table out into a common area- I was thinking it had to go in baby's room but I guess it doesn't.  Now to figure out where to put it where it won't be an eye sore to the rest of the house... Although, ds1 is too tall for it already, so maybe I just won't use it for him. Hmmm... things to figure out.

    Good luck!

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  • I'll be doing mine all together. I figure that DD will just have clean diapers more often and readily available since I'll have newborn diapers going all the time. I have enough in my stash to only do laundry every other day. Maybe a bit less.
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  • I have 3 in CD and I work. I put a load of diapers in first thing every morning. Everyone's gets mixed together. If I have time I start the second cycle before I leave. Otherwise the babysitter does it for me. Actually she's been great and has been putting them in the dryer for me too. But I don't make her handle the dirties other than diaper changes. Even with the chaos of the weekend, if that first load is at least started first thing, I can usually get the load done by bedtime, even if somedays they don't get put together until the following morning. Becuase yeah like you said it takes quite a while to run 2 wash cycles and a heavy dry cycle. This way at least I have a prayer of getting some other laundry done in the evenings.  Doing it first thing is part of my routine. I think it's easier than trying ot remember to do it every 3rd day like I did with DD.

    God Bless my FIL for moving my washer & dryer upstairs to the ground floor. Otherwise I'd never get my diapers washed.

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  • When it was just Lily I could go 3-4 days, sometimes 5 was even okay if I had just gotten behind a little.

    With two, I had to go every other day.   If I made it to 3 it was iffy.  Sometimes 3 would be a bit much, other times 3 was just too much to do in a single load.  So I tried not to do that :)

    As for washing sep. or apart.  I found it to be a giant PITB to try to separate the wash.  If I was in a hurry (which is most of the time) I just needed the dirty diaper in a pail, any pail.  I have better luck getting one diaper load done in a day than two, so that was that.

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  • I also don't see a point to keeping the dipes separate and plan to throw them all in one pail (which I'm considering putting in the hall as there is a changing station in each of their rooms) and wash when the pail is full or when I start running low on (presumably) newborn dipes.  At some point, I plan on using the same pockets for each anyway so separating laundry doesn't make too much sense to me.  I assume that I'll have to wash every 2nd day instead of every 3rd like I do now.
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