Well… we are officially members of the CD club (that’s ‘Cloth Diapering’ for those of you “not in the know”). And so far, we L.O.V.E. it!

The brand we first went with were the bumGenius Flips. While we liked them, we didn’t love them. There is a liner, and several “inserts.” They worked great at containing everything, but inserting something several times a day, for 2 babies, was just not cutting it for us.

Enter: our savior. bumGenius Elemental One Size All In Ones. These are exactly like a disposable diaper, but you don’t throw them away! No stuffing necessary. Just grab a diaper, and voila! Baby is covered. With twins, we found that if we can make our life even 1/8 easier….we will do it. We have a total of 24, and so far, find that that is enough for us.

Onto the cleaning:

• Wet diapers–just toss into your diaper pail (or use what we do– Planet Wise Wet Bags).
• Dirty diapers–a toilet sprayer is a must, in my opinion. For most of Jack’s poops, because they’re more solid, we can just bring the diaper to the toilet, grab a handful of toilet paper, and scrape the poo into the toilet. Sam’s poops are still all liquidy, and disgusting. For those, we spray the crap (pun intended) out of them. Then, we just squeeze out excess water, and throw into the wet bag. No pre-treating.

The washing:

• Throw the diapers and the wet bag into the washer. Run a cold rinse-only cycle with just a little detergent to get the excess gunk out. Note–some people don’t find this necessary. With Sam’s gross poops, I find it absolutely necessary. Maybe once he’s eating solid foods we won’t, but for now, 100% necessary.
• After the rinse cycle, run a ‘normal’ or ‘heavy’ wash on HOT water. The amount of detergent you use depends on the type of detergent you use. We use Green Works detergent–only ¼ of what is typically recommended for regular laundry, per bumGenius directions. If you have a cloth diaper specific detergent, use whatever it says to use!

The drying:

• We try to line-dry the diapers as much as possible.
• If we’re in a pinch, we machine dry on medium. Since the diapers are so absorbent (a good thing!), it does take a while to even machine dry them…like an hour. We wash/dry 12 at a time.

Tricks of the trade (per blogosphere, and my limited experience so far):

• To help get out stains naturally AND disinfect, without bleach, use ½ cup of hydrogen peroxide per load in addition to detergent. Use in the regular wash cycle, not the pre-rinse.
• The sun helps bleach out stains too! I can attest–one of Sam’s diapers was, well, disgusting. And after the wash, it was still gross looking. After drying in the sun, it faded the stain amazingly well!
• Tea tree oil is supposed to help with disinfecting and the stench (if it happens, which it shouldn’t very often). Just 2-3 drops per load.

There you have it folks! If you have questions, you can ask me. And I will probably tell you to Google it 😉  Just kidding, I will try to answer whatever I can.

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Here are their 8-month pictures (the big day was on 7-4-11).
Something seems to be missing from your shirt Jack…

What? I thought it was more fun to play with the sticker!

Oh, and if I need an hour of quiet time from Jack, I put him in his new highchair. He stares out our big bay windows, and plays, and is super content for at least an hour. It’s wonderful 😉

And Sam continues to be as sweet as ever…just watching TV with the fam.