What's the Cloth Diaper Deal?

Cub in his first cloth diaper

A lot of people use cloth diapers these days. A lot of people don't. You don't have to justify yourself in either case. Disposables can cause allergic reactions, if your baby is allergic to latex. The thought of washing poopy diapers can be disgusting. Cloth diapers cost a lot, up-front, but they're cheaper in the long run, especially since you can reuse them if you have another baby.

I wanted to cloth diaper the twins, but I was definitely at a financial low point in my life at the time. Most of their clothes, their crib and sheets, and a lot of their toys were hand-me-downs from other moms. At the time, I was determined to do the environment a favor. I was bringing two new diaper-users into the world, and I wanted to make the right choice.

It turns out that the "green" question is a complicated one. I can't find a solid answer. A study sponsored by Pampers suggests that cloth diapers aren't really better because of all of the washing and the manufacturing process. Thanks, Pampers, but don't be surprised if I don't take your word for that.

Here's why I chose cloth diapers:

You can buy them once and you're done. M had G Diapers when she was a toddler. The G Diaper pieces come in a couple of different sizes because the design doesn't allow for the same diaper to fit a newborn and a potty trainer. The outer layer comes in four sizes, the inserts only have two. That wasn't a problem because she didn't start using cloth until she was in the larger sizes anyway. The Cub uses Bum Genius diapers. He started wearing them when he was about six weeks old, and he still wears them now, at 11 months old. He even has room to grow.

Cub - 11 months

I'd rather throw poopy diapers in the wash than have to figure out how to get to the store if I'm running out of disposables. This was especially true when the Cub was small. I had three other kids to look after and I hate taking newborns out in public anyway. Besides, baby poop is really no big deal until they start eating solids. Even then, most of it will just fall out of the diaper if you shake it gently over the toilet... and the rest can seriously just go in the laundry.

I hate diaper trash. It's heavy and gross and attracts flies if you move it to the dumpster too long before trash day. I don't want to put diapers in the regular trash because then I have to smell poop in the kitchen whenever I have kitchen garbage to throw away.

There is one important note: We aren't strict about our diapering.

When the Cub needed diaper cream, we used disposables because store-bought diaper cream doesn't wash out of cloth diapers very well. You can make your own, cloth-friendly diaper cream. I just didn't want to order a lot of weird ingredients I would probably never use again. Apparently, if you're not shopping at Target, there are cloth-friendly creams you can buy. Check this chart.

We also had to abandon cloth diapers all together recently because the Cub was soaking through them, without warning, every night and sometimes during the day. We tried stripping the detergent from his diapers with bleach. We tried using multiple absorbent inserts in one diaper shell. Disposable diapers didn't even last through the night sometimes, but they were more likely to survive than his cloth ones.

In conjunction with the soaking troubles, Cub's diapers acquired a nasty smell. We stopped using them over-night and in public when the soaking started. As a result, we weren't going through our inventory as quickly, and I wasn't washing them as often. That was my mistake. They got moldy and I had a heck of a time getting the smell out.

If that happens to you:

Try sunning them. It gets stains out and it can help kill bacteria. I sun my diapers every couple of weeks just to get them looking new again. When it's nice out, I dry them on the clothes line.

Try turning up your water heater and washing them as hot as you can. This also helps kill the bacteria and clean out any build up. This is what wound up working for me. Remember to give your water heater time to heat up after you've changed the settings and before you start your diaper load.

If you have to, try bleaching. Again, it kills bacteria and works the build-up out. I did this before resorting to turning the water heater up, because I didn't want to risk scalding the other kids. It did help, but didn't get the smell out entirely.

The Cub is back in cloth-diaper-mode and doesn't seem to know the difference. He's too busy flushing the toilet, exploring the dog crate, and trying to climb in the dishwasher when my back is turned. I've started calling him Curiosity Rover.

to-do lists

Last week, I finally started a to-do list. Before anyone sends a well-deserved "I told you so"... I know. A huge number of people have suggested I use a to-do list over the years, and for good reason. I just never wanted to bother. It seemed like a hassle.

Unfortunately, I'd lay in bed every night and suddenly remember something I forgot to do, or start running through a list of things I needed to remember to do tomorrow. That actually kept me awake at night.

The day I decided to try it, my list looked like this:

Guitar Practice (twins)
Spanish (me)
Three workouts
Vacuum entire house
Clean off dog crate
Workbooks (girls)
Unload dishwasher
Clean craft closet
Make flu shot appointment (girls)
Pay student loans
Clean dining table
Swiffer kitchen 

And this list doesn't include the things I do every day. I had to work all of this in around my regularly scheduled household programming. Without the list, I'm not sure I would have accomplished even half of it, because I would have wasted a lot of time trying to remember what needed to be done, and figuring out when it would fit in.

With the list, I completed all but one of my chores. I didn't clean the craft closet. That place is a mess and is going to require a bit more motivation and time.

Once I made the list, I no longer had to waste time thinking about what needed to be done. And, when something got done, I got the satisfaction of crossing an item off of the list. The main drawback was knowing I'd have to make a new list every morning. So, it wasn't going to keep me from going to bed thinking about chores. Plus, sitting at the kitchen table and coming up with a list is a bit of a waste of time and a great crutch for procrastinating.

So I did a little research and found a free-to-use to-do list app called todoist.

Todoist in my browser

Todoist is on my iPad and I can access my list through their website. It allows me to create categories for my chores like "clean", "exercise", and "guitar". In those categories, I can create tasks. In my "clean" category, my tasks include, "vacuum", "unload dishwasher", and "clean dining table".

One very important feature of Todoist is the ability to repeat tasks as often as needed. "clean dining table" and "unload dishwasher" repeat every day. "Vacuum" repeats ever three days. I do laundry, and clean each bathroom and the kitchen once per week on different days. I could even schedule tasks to repeat once per month, once every few months, or once per year.

Every day, a new list is generated for me based on what needs to be done. If I missed a task today, I can postpone it and it will show up again tomorrow. If I finish all of my tasks for the day, I can look at what is on tomorrow's list and start working ahead. And I never have to waste time making a list for myself. I only have to add tasks when something new or unique comes up, like "make flue shot appointment".

I can do all of this with a free account. There are additional features you get with a paid account, like making notes for yourself and mobile and email reminders.

I've been using it for about a week. So far, I love it.

Discipline in Public

One of my friends (I used to hang out with her in high school) brought this topic up on facebook. What do you do when your kid is out of line in public? And, furthermore, what reactions do you get?

My friend has two boys and a girl, all in the wild and crazy, "hide in the clothes racks and throw fits over almost anything" age group. I assume those are things her kids do at the store. Those are things I did, and things my kids do now.

Obviously, Cub doesn't get time outs

Most of the time, I go to Target by myself or with just one of my kids. I wait to go until Papa is home, so I can get some time away from the house and the kids, or opt for some one-on-one time. That's what I prefer to do, but it doesn't always work out. Let's assume that, like me, you're not super privileged. You don't have a nanny, and you can't always leave your kids with your spouse or partner whenever you run out of milk. What would you be willing to do to keep your kid(s) under control while you're at the store?

Seriously, think about this one. A lot of us say we'd just do whatever we do at home... but we don't. Why? I have some theories.

We're embarrassed of how we discipline at home. We think other parents are going to judge us for whatever reaction we have. There are some people out there who will give you an evil look (or even report you to the store manager, apparently) for issuing a spanking. But there's nothing they can do about it. It's your right to choose to discipline your children as you see fit, as long as you're not using excessive force. Spanking is not considered abuse. If that's what works for your kids, do it. Besides, there are plenty of parents who look at me weird for giving my kids a time out in public. I'm sure it's because they don't think it's enough and they think I should have the guts to just smack them.

We're in a hurry to get out of the store. I give my kids time outs. They know that if a time out doesn't solve the problem, a swat is next. Rarely do we get that far. It can be extremely frustrating to sit one of my kids down for a six-minute time out in the middle of what should have been a quick errand. Maybe you're in a hurry to get home in time to make dinner. Maybe stopping to give one of your three or four kids a time out is daunting because it means you have to separate the pack and keep track of a time out and a couple of other wild things. Maybe you just figure the quicker you get of there, the less trouble they're able to get in. I get that. I'm guilty of this one sometimes.

We're too busy to really notice what our kids are doing. That might sound bad, but I don't mean that you aren't paying attention to your kids. What I'm suggesting is that when you call your child back to the cart after they've pulled something off of the shelf, they don't necessarily get the punishment they would have gotten for disobeying at home because you're also tracking how much you're about to spend and where to go to find the next item on the list. There's a lot going on. You saw what your kid did... you know what just happened... it just doesn't occur to you to be as offended as you would have been at home. I'm sure I'm guilty of this one, too.

Here's the one thing I think is almost never the culprit: poor discipline at home. This is not to say that there aren't kids who run wild and have no rules at home. I just don't think they are the rule and we are the exception. Kids who are well behaved at home can be crazy in new and exciting places. I've heard that fluorescent lighting was thought to exacerbate ADHD, but recent research has ruled this out. Considering how kids behave in the grocery store, is anyone surprised that this theory was taken seriously?

Some tips from my experience:

1. If you know you're going to be in a hurry, tell your kids what you expect of them before you enter the store. Give them specific rules and even more specific consequences for breaking them. This really does smooth out the flow.
2. If your child breaks those rules relentlessly just because he knows you're too busy to discipline him, take it one step further next time. Carve out time to take him to the store when you're not in a hurry. You don't even have to buy anything. Just set out the rules and consequences again and wander around the store, strictly enforcing each rule as he breaks them. If you need to, do this multiple times before your next real shopping trip. 
3. Let them feel the heat. Time outs in public work wonders for my girls because it's embarrassing. I've talked to them about it. One of my twins says she knows that everyone can tell she did something wrong when she's on time out and she doesn't like that people she doesn't even know can see that she's in trouble. Time outs in Target are actually even more useful than at home.