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Some more transition questions...
Hi ladies,
Now that my daughter is out of newborn diapers, I am thinking I would like to try cloth diapers. I am curious about your "routines"
1: Non-solid eating poops: just rinse in a sink before washing? Do you have to rinse before storing in a "wet" pail in between washes?
2: Pees: just sore in "wet" pail or rinse as well?
3: How often do they leak onto covers? Or how often are you washing covers, too?
4: DH thinks using cloth vs compostable diapers will be a waste of water with the extra washings.. your opinion?
Thanks for your info/opinions ladies...just trying to get all my info before plunging in! 
)
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Some more transition questions...
1: Non-solid eating poops: just rinse in a sink before washing? Do you have to rinse before storing in a "wet" pail in between washes? I did not do anything. Just tossed it in the wet bag as is, waited until wash day, then dumped them into the washer without doing anything.
2: Pees: just sore in "wet" pail or rinse as well? Also tossed as is into wetbag and waited until wash day.
3: How often do they leak onto covers? Or how often are you washing covers, too? I only used covers with fitteds. I never had it leak onto a cover. I used 2 covers a day and put them in the pail at the end of the day.
4: DH thinks using cloth vs compostable diapers will be a waste of water with the extra washings.. your opinion? Not an authority on this, but I believe there have been studies done that come down on both sides. We don't see a water bill (HOA fees pay our water), but it is really only 2-3 extra loads a week. A few months ago to make my routine easier for me, I began skipping the pre-rinse you often see recommended. I went straight to hot wash with detergent, cold rinse, extra cold rinse. I have clean diapers without any issues so far. I believe the most wasteful period of water use is when you first start as there is a learning curve. For example, you put in too much detergent and you have to do a ton of rinses. Or you use too little and realize you don't have clean diapers at the end of the cycle and have to wash them all again. Good luck.
1) Some would say it depends if you FF or BF. I have heard that FF poop should be rinsed, I don't bother and have not had any problems. I use Bummi's disposable liners, they are septic tank safe and biodegradable. The liner contains most of the poop and I will use it to scrape as much as I can off the diaper if some does get on it. I then just toss it in the dry pail, I don't use a wet one.
2) Pees I just toss in my pail, no rinsing. I think if you are washing enough ( like every 2 days or so) you should be ok for stink and stains. The sun also works wonders at taking out any stains the wash does not.
3) I use fitted's probably 85% of teh time. I have 3 covers in my rotation. I wash my diapers every 1 1/2 to 2 days ( If I wash diapers Wed evening, I'll usually end up doing a load Fri morning ). I put one cover in the wash every time I do a wash and just alternate which one gets washed. That leaves me with 2 to use. I have yet to have poop leak onto a cover, usually it is dry, sometimes a little damp from the pee. When I take off the dirty diaper I will wipe the cover with the wipe, then hang up and use another cover. Next diaper change I will do the same, using the cover I previouslly hung up.
4) For the water question I am sure you could find evidence on the internet to support both opinions. I would think the compostable ones use water at some point in their manufacturing process, not sure if it is comparable. I don't think I use that much water, I am on a well so I don't get a bill to tell me for sure. I do a cold rinse no spin (12min on my washer) then a hot wash with extra rinse ( 66min on my washer). I have an HE washer too. I think compostable are more for people who do not want to deal with the dirty diapers, and costwise I could see it being real expensive. There are some hybrid type diapers out there, Gdiapers, Grovia, that may be a good compromise between you and hubby. They have inserts that are washable and ones that are compostable.
2. Pee diapers get thrown into the pail w/ liner - no treatment
3. Only if it is a really big poop and we don't put the PF on perfectly do we ever have a leak onto covers. This happened more when DS was born and we were learning. We rarely leak now.
4. We currently live in a place where we are metered strictly. I noticed that my bill was $1 higher than normal. We will be moving to a more rural area where they charge you for X gallons of water usage month, whether you use it or not. So we will have no difference in billing then. I also line dry to get rid of smell, stains, and save $$
1. We don't use a wet pail. I don't know anyone irl or online that does. I have heard some people who have had some serious wash routine issues (really hard water, etc) have tried out a wet pail with success but most people use a dry pail these days. With non solid poops we throw them as is into the dry pail. The poop is water soluble. If you do an initial cold rinse it will wash the majority of the poop away before your hot water wash cycle. I don't even rinse solid food poops. If it's not plopable it goes into the pail as is and everything has come out perfectly clean so far.
2. Pees - straight in.
3. Depends on what you're using. Prefolds and non solid poop will have a lot more leaks onto the covers than fitteds and covers since fitteds have elastic around the legs. With fitteds I hardly ever have a leak issue, with prefolds I'd say maybe a couple times a wash cycle (every 2.5 days) so make sure you have a few more covers on hand.
4. What everyone else said about water usage. It's debatable but I think most non biased (not paid for by diaper company) discussions of the subject come down that it's a 50/50 split. With cloth you use more water but with disposables you're filling landfills for hundreds if not thousands of years. Also keep in mind that disposable or compostable diapers have water waste and waste biproducts in their production plus oil usage from the gas needed to constantly transport them to and from the grocery store. If you're thinking of doing compostable keep this in mind - the average person will not be able to compost all those pee diapers in a home compost bin. Just think of the sheer volume you'd build up in a week, month etc and you'll see that you could never balance it out with enough green waste (nor do most people have a compost bin big enough) to compost at home. And if you throw them away they WILL NOT compost. You might as well go disposable. Nothing composts in landfill. You need moisture, sun and air to properly compost and those conditions don't exist in an over packed landfill. Even an apple will take years and years and years to decompose in a landfill.