Two steps away from crunchy granola hippie

Disclaimer: This post is entirely cloth-diaper related.  And while it is hilarious and awesome and really, really thought-provoking,* I know that not everyone shares my obsessions.  Feel free to skip.

So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about cloth diapers.  I’d say that I was probably the only one ever in the history of ever to put those words together, but I know what type of mania this subject can generate.

We’ve been cloth diapering, mostly satisfactorily, for a year now.  Well, Sebastian was off and on from about 3 months, mainly on the weekends, and Adele is exclusively cloth diapered unless she’s staying with grandparents or we're going to be out all day. 

Most of what we use are the bumgenius one-size diapers, but I have branched out a little bit. Sebastian had no problem with the diapers, other than lots of leaking that I didn’t realize was caused by me not following the directions on the damn diapers.  (Detergent!  It’s an important subject!  Who knew?)

Adele, however, has had mucho rash problems.  That little girl is just so sensitive.  I have to be very vigilant with changing her diaper and usually have to keep Aquaphor on her at night.  The problem with this is that it isn’t good for the diapers and can cause build up and staining and leaking.  Awesome stuff all around. 

So I recently bought these liners for the diapers, which are supposed to keep the cream off the diaper.  But they don’t seem to be working.  They bunch up and twist around and basically leave the whole diaper un-lined, thus defeating the whole purpose for the damn things.

So we’re back to where we were. 

And so I’ve been thinking.  And pondering.  And wondering.

And then these three posts came along, in all their cloth-diapering glory.  And I got it.  I realized what would solve my problems.

I’m gonna have to go old school.

Plain prefolds, snappies, and wool soakers.

That’s right.  Wool soakers.

You see, I’ve kind of been afraid of using soakers because I didn’t understand them, haven’t done the research and for the most part didn’t understand how they worked.

But then amalah came along and worked everything out for me, making it all seem like so much NOT A BIG DEAL that I took the next step and did a little more research.

And here I am.  I’ve got some yarn I can use, a couple of free patterns and as soon as I’m done with Sebastian’s latest sweater (almost!  You’ll probably see it on Friday!) I think I’m going to start knitting soakers.

Now I’ve just got to buy a few prefolds to get me started.  I actually have a pattern for prefolds in this book, but I don’t think I’m going to go that far.  I don’t think I’ve got the right material and thought I’d maximize my hippie-skills in the best way I can (i.e. knitting).

It will be better for Adele since these diapers let more air in and hopefully will stop her from having the rash all together.  And I think it might make laundry easier, since our washer isn’t really made for these type of diapers and I have to wash over and over to get them clean. 

I still have about 20-25 other diapers that I will keep on rotation.  But I think I may have been converted. 

Though maybe I should save extolling the virtues of this until I actually try it myself …

*That’s a lie.