Flats and Handwashing Challenge Day 1 and Day 2 combined!

Wow it's been awhile since I've blogged anything...craaazzyy! life kind of got in the way. But I'm kicking off a new goal to actually keep up with blogging! To start off we have joined into the 3rd Annual Flats and Hand washing Challenge this year.

I missed posting yesterday (sorry it was the long weekend up here in Canada and we were off hanging out with family with little internet access :D) So today is a catch up of yesterday and today.

We started off smoothly yesterday, Little Bug (surprise to those of you who followed me before, we have baby #3 but I digress!) cooperated and didn't poop. He went easy on mommy to start with...not so much today haha! Anyways yesterday's topic was why did I take the challenge?

Little Bug in his first ever flat, and the first I've used in almost 6 years!

Well... because I'm crazy...at least that's what Lemur Daddy says ;) To put this in perspective I have been cloth diapering for almost 6 years straight now. When I started cloth diapering we didn't have a lot of money and my mom started me out with flats and plastic pants. Oh I hated flats and plastic pants with a passion and eventually found my way to easier options. But thinking back on it, flats were the easiest available and cheapest option for our situation. I am very passionate about all things birth and baby so I wanted to show people that you don't need to spend tons of money or necessarily have laundry facilities etc to do cloth. I have my diaper stash that I love, and will always love but a week of flats and hand washing I think will do me a world of good. I get to go back to basics, and all the while maybe make a difference and change someone's perspective of how "hard" cloth is. Also I'm hoping that I learn a thing or two along the way!


So Day 2 is all about Preparation and Supplies:

Like I said I have an amazing stash ;) seriously some day I will post pics of our stash but today is about my flats stash. I had absolutely NO flats at all when I decided to do this challenge. So instead of going online and ordering a bunch (shipping to Canada can sometimes be crazy!) I decided to try to show how you can do it in a pinch or if you don't have access to actual flats.


My stash consists of:

2 flannel receiving blankets
6 ikea burp cloths
6 tea towels
2 snappis (already in my stash)
2 wool wrap covers (already in my stash)
A few wool longies/soakers (already in my stash)
1 night time fitted from our stash as we can't part with our night time system that works so well for us!


I started by putting out a call on my local free cycle group for towels and old receiving blankets. I got a couple receiving blankets and a stack of kitchen towels- cost to me: price of gas to pick them up! essentially free in some cases as friends dropped them off.

Then I discovered the Ikea burp cloths and they were cute...I'm a sucker for cute diapers even if they aren't going to be seen much. So I HAD to have some. Now we don't have an Ikea here which is a bit Lame but that's ok. I got a wonderful friend in a city a couple hours from me to pick some up on her way down. Ikea "flats" come in packs of 2 for $4.99. I have 3 packs so cost was- approx $15.

The snappis were already in my stash but they are relatively inexpensive to order online. I think they probably cost me $2-$3 for the 2 of them from a really sweet Mama. Now I did also find pins at the dollar store (I don't get along with pins so no pins for me!)

Covers were a doozy for me...they are probably the most expensive but that's because I love wool and we only use wool. I didn't buy any specifically for this challenge I have tons already in my stash. You don't need to use wool, PUL or fleece covers work well too. If you do choose to use wool, and can knit you can pick up just a cheap ball of 100% wool at any craft store, grab some knittng needles and a free pattern off of ravelry and make your own. Technically for this challenge the cost to me was $0 on my covers but for the tally of things I'll say we use 2 covers that cost $30 each as you really only need 2-3 covers to make it work. So total cost: $60

In total for the challenge I spent $15.00 since my stash already had lots of what I needed. If I had to buy everything my total cost would still be less then $100 ($78) not including soap and a clothes line that you could pick up at the dollar store.

Our Ikea "flats" and one of our Snappi's cute huh? 

Woolies Galore!

I haven't been very inspired lately to blog about anything but yesterday I was washing most of our wool stash and decided that I would blog about our woolies :)

For those of you who aren't sure what I'm talking about, woolies are all of our wool cloth diaper covers (skirties, longies, shorties etc). Now I have to say this...I LOVE WOOL! Right now the Koala (Miss A) is adventuring around our house in a goodmama (I also love my goodmamas!) with the cutest little black and multi-coloured knit wool skirtie on. I'm going to preach a little bit about the benefits of wool before I get into my stash lol!

Why Do We Choose Wool?

Wool is a natural fiber, which of course we love, its also a greener alternative to synthetic fibers. Wool also is very good at absorbing and drawing moisture away from the skin (if you do alot of camping or hiking thats why you get wool socks to wear :D) and is commonly used in soakers/diaper covers for fitted diapers. It has antibacterial properites which make it great as a diaper cover! I love my wool, some people wonder if it soaks through the wool, well yes sometimes a diaper will soak through, but most wool covers absorb alot before they are completely soaked. I'm so addicted to wool covers, I find that sometimes the Lemur gets a fairly nasty rash from his night time diapers with a PUL cover on, but after a day of frequent bum changes, a little earth mama angel baby bottom balm and a wool cover to allow for breathability the rash has dissipated. Which I love! and plus they look sooooo darn cute! We have soakers, shorties, skirties and longies galore! Right now I have enlsited my mom into making me a felted wool soaker for night times for the Lemur and if it works I'll get her to make me one for the Koala too! Anyways now onto my stash :D :D (This is TOTALLY the best part!!!)

Most of our wool stash drying

close up of some of our stash

The skirtie of the day on the Koala

another of the Koala's skirties (yes it is Invader Zim sheets you see :D they are on the Lemur's bed)

the very first skirtie I ever crocheted for the Koala

Cloth Diapering Tuesdays

Well its tuesday...Good Morning everyone! (anyone?) I've come to the conclusion that not many people might read my blog but I'm still going to plug away at it :) Today is Cloth Diapering Tuesday! wella ctually is cloth diaper laundry day at our house lol! But I thought I would do a post about cloth diapers and laundry. What the heck do we do with all that poop? Well in our house we scrape or shake the poop into the toilet before tossing the diaper in the wetbag for laundry...if its a bad poop diaper then we rinse it (oh how I would LOVE a diaper sprayer...seriously its on my wishlist!)

We don't do a wet pail method for our diapers, I found it too much of a pain in the butt to carry a heavy pail full of diapers and water to the laundry so we use a dry pail method. We run our diapers through on a cold wash/cold rinse cycle with no soap to rinse out most of the excess stuff. The more water you use on the rinse cycle the better!! Then we toss them back in on a hot wash/cold rinse cycle with some soap (we have been using Castille soap but we just discovered Rockin' Green Cloth Diaper Detergent!!! AMAZING STUFF) then in the winter they go in the dryer and in the summer I hang them up outside (winter line drying isn't an option here when 98% of winter days are -40 with a windchill and/or snowing) I can't wait for spring so I can sun some of the stains outta my dipes!

Soooo what about woolies? Well we have a huge collection of woolies and I don't put those through the laundry! I fill my tub with hot water and wool wash (Eucalan) and then I gently squish my woolies into the water and let them soak for awhile. Then I gently agitate (very very gently!) then squish the water out of them, do a clean water rinse at approx the same temperature and then squish out the water again and I lay them all flat to dry. Simple as that!