Day 5 of the Flats & Handwashing Challenge

I'm participating in the Flats & Handwashing Challenge with Dirty Diaper Laundry. You can see a full listing of the rules and requirements of the challenge here. 

It's day 5 and today I came up with a new fold. I was expecting Jaxon to poop and I was trying to preserve my cover. So I took my favorite parts of the diaper bag fold and the alternative kite fold (also known as the neat fold) and then added a little something else of my own. I put it on him and waited. And he pooped. And…it didn’t get on the cover at all! It stayed right on the flat! I will post pics/instructions tomorrow of the fold. It really is great for that runny breastfed baby poop.

I washed today, without issues, since there were no messy diapers yet. My least favorite part of the washing is the wringing out of the diapers. I feel like my hands aren’t really strong enough to get the diapers wrung out as much as they could be. I try to always start the drying outside so they can drip on the deck instead of my floors. There are usually some small puddles on the deck when I check them later! I think they would dry much faster if I could wring them out better.

I am enjoying using flats. It’s been fun trying to figure out different folds. I would be willing to use flats full time.

I am not enjoying handwashing. I'm not grossed out by it. But it’s so much easier to just throw the diapers in the wash and then come back an hour later and hang them out to dry. Right now, since I’m using our downstairs sink to wash, I’m down to put the diapers in one side of the sink in cold water. Then I’m back later to rinse them and put them in hot water with soap. Then I scrub them and “agitate” them for a few minutes and leave them to soak for a little while. Then I come back to rinse and wring them out and then it’s back upstairs to hang them out to dry. If I did this full time I’d have to wash upstairs because going up and down the stairs several times a day is not easy for me. To be honest, if I didn't have a washing machine, I'm not sure I would cloth diaper full time unless my baby had a reaction to disposables or something like that.

What about you? Would you handwash full time so your baby could wear cloth?

****Thanks to Cotton Babies for providing me with Ozocozy flats 

and Econobum covers so I could participate in the challenge!****