So we’ve had a crazy busy week. Let me just start telling y’all about it first, so you can understand why I “Lost”..
We packed up on Friday the 26th to go to the Kalahari. Got everything organized and ready to go – and then headed on our way.
Being that we’re new to this whole cloth diapering thing, two days seemed like a long time to carry around ‘dirties’. So we went to the store and picked up a small pack of LUV’s. We bought luv’s because I couldn’t find any coupons, and I couldn’t handle paying full price for a pack of pampers or huggies (see here about why we used both of those brands – one on each boy)
Ethan happened to have a rash before we switched over to the sposies. I think he may be allergic to some liners that we’re trying out – and was having a reaction from them. Not sure. Andrew got a little bit of a rash as well when we were using the liners, so we stopped the liners a few days before we left.
I’m getting ahead of myself.
So anyway, it was a good thing that we bought LUV’s because we don’t like them as much – and so it was comforting for me to get back to cloth diapers when we arrived back home.
But then, due to an odd set of circumstances, we ended up deciding to go back to the Kalahari on Wednesday. Thing is though, that we were going straight from here (Minneapolis) to Wisconsin Dells (4hr drive) and then staying overnight, and going from there to Northern MN (7 1/2 hr drive) and then back home. Leaving Wednesday, coming home Monday….
Far too long for cloth, and far too long for a small pack of LUV’s.
Since we had rash issues going on with Ethan, I decided it’d probably be best to stick with what his bottom knows – and go with Pampers. So we bought a giant box of pampers (With a sale and a coupon) and headed on our merry way.
Now that we’re home – and we’re getting back into regular life again… it’s been SO hard again to go back to cloth.
We got SO comfortable with our pampers again.. it’s like the beginning. all over again.
I’ve got all of my diapers in a big pile, unfolded in the middle of my living room. I was REALLY hoping to go through them today and get them organized again so it’d be easy to start – but it didn’t happen.
I’ve got tons of laundry from the last almost 2 weeks, and the last thing I want to add is the extra diaper laundry loads!
But I started again today using Cloth again. And I’m going to keep doing it. I’m keeping strong.
- What things to you guys do for travel? Do you ever find that you start to LIKE the convenience of disposables?? What’s the longest you’ve traveled for with your babies that you’ve actually kept them in cloth for the duration?
Ethans Rash:
On another note: Ethan’s butt is so red and raw even after using Desitin like crazy in his disposable diapers, and then trying some cream that we got from GroVia – nothing seems to be curing his rash – he’s even got open blisters now. I thought maybe the cloth would help, but it’s getting worse.
I didn’t realize how bad it was getting until after his bath tonight, where I decided to bring him to the Dr. (which was open for walk-ins until 8pm).. Of course I show up at 8:01 and find locked doors – the front desk people just stared at me like I was an idiot for not coming 2 minutes earlier. So I have to wait until tomorrow to bring him back, we shall see what they say.
My poor baby 
- Has your baby ever had a reaction to liners? What’s the worst rash that your babies bum has gotten? what did it end up getting ‘cured’ with??
maybe it is ammonia build up… have u given the diapers a good sniff lately? Sometimes we get that and I just rinse, rinse, rinse in hot water after washing… that usually does the trick. And change his diaper very often to keep it dry 🙂 ours usually clears up in a day or so
Could be yeast rash. It’s tricky to get out of cloth and can keep coming back, but a few drops of Tea Tree Oil (TTO) in your hot water wash should knock it right out of the diapers. Try having hime run about in just a fitted diaper sans cover or use more breathable cover like wool or fleece during the day till it heals. I love Angel Baby products or Grandma El’s (both cloth safe).
I have no clue on the rash – but poor baby! Hopefully you can get it figured out soon.
I’ve actually never like disposables for traveling – to me all the leaks and blowouts and stink make them LESS convenient in my mind. The longest trip we’ve taken with cloth diapers was 3 days. We just took enough to last the whole time, since we wouldn’t have access to a washer. I took all of our pockets/AIos, but a lot of people like using a hybric system – like Flip or GroVia, because you just need a bunch of inserts and a fwe shells. It takes up less space that way, and you still have the option of using a disposable insert in the fabric shell, if you choose that option.
As for the “getting comfy” part, I will admit to similar feelings in the past. I find that I have to do diaper wash every other night. I just CAN’T skip. Getting off the routine makes it so hard to go back. When we have trips, etc. I take cloth and mentally prepare myself for the pile of laundry I will return to and when I get home I do the diapers FIRST! On long trips where I won’t have enough cloth to get me thru I take disposables too and use them first, saving the cloth for the end of the trip so it doesn’t sit dirty for too long.
As for the rash we had bad rashes with our twin girls…came across the BEST cloth diaper safe creams in my search for answers…Better Butt(er) Cream and All Natural Diaper Rash Salve for Sensitive Skin by Northern Essence. Expensive but worth the $$. The salve works better than Desitin, Vaseline, A+D…all of them. And you can stay in your cloth.
I am also now very loyal to Rockin’ Green’s Funk Rock. Totally stops the ammonia problems that led to the rashes in my diapers in the first place. I would be lost without Funk Rock. If I have learned anything in my nearly 9 months of cloth diapering it is that the wash routine is VERY important. Find the products and wash routine that work for you and stick with them.
If it’s getting worse even with cream and ‘sposies, I’d think it’s probably a yeast rash, but I’m no expert. Definitely sounds like you need to see the doc. 🙁
If it IS yeast and you want to put him in cloth, a few drops of tea tree oil in your wash should kill the yeast on the diapers. Boiling inserts (never boil PUL covers) can also help to kill yeast. Rockin’ Green Detergent stalls the growth of yeast, but if I recall correctly, it doesn’t get rid of it alone. Motherlove makes a cloth-safe Diaper Rash and Thrush cream that works wonders on yeast rashes.
If you’ve got any wool covers, I’d suggest trying to use those so you can keep up the most airflow when you just can’t do bare-bottom time. If you’ve got fitteds, prefolds, or flats (or something like receiving blankets or flour sack towels that can double as flats), putting him in something like that will keep the mess off your floor but give his booty lots of breathing room (and without a cover you’ll know the second he’s wet or dirty and be able to change him promptly so he doesn’t irritate the rash more). Good luck, mama!
Oh! And as far as travel. We’ve always traveled in cloth. I don’t think we’ve ever stayed anywhere longer than about a week. Usually, we’re staying with family and they let me use their washer/dryer to wash my diapers. This summer we went on vacation for a week and stayed at a cabin that had coin laundry, but I didn’t want to spend that much washing diapers so I just hand washed my diapers while we stayed there.
Luckily for me (kind of?), my son blows up disposables on a regular basis with his heavy wetting. So even when I go back to disposables for awhile, I always get annoyed with their inability to function for me and end up back in cloth. 😛
i went away for a whole week with cloth! the hotel we were at had coin washer and dryer! the only time my son did not wear cloth was in the car (10 hour ride each way) I did not want dirties stinking up the long car ride, especially because it was hot out and i thought it would have been nasty if we stopped somewhere to eat and the dirty diapers just “baked” in the car!
If we are going somewhere for more than 3 days I use disposable diapers. But I have to get the organic Huggies or seventh generation because my son is allergic to all the other’s I’ve tried. That’s why we went ot cloth diapers in the first place. Although I wish I would have tried them with my first child and I would have never looked back. I maybe would have stuck with disposables for the first couple of months, but I actually love the cloth diapers. We went on a camping trip for 4 days this past summer (plus another 4 days in a motel) and I used disposables. It was definitely convenient for that but I had no problem going back to cloth once I got home.
As for the rash, the best thing I’ve used is corn starch. My son had a horrible rash (which I finally figured out 2 weeks later was due to a new laundry detergent that I decided to try because it was highly recommended) that was blistering and bleeding. Nothing I tried worked. I even put him in disposables and used the creams I used on my daughters that worked wonders and it didn’t help. A friend suggested corn starch. I tried it and the rash cleared up greatly in 24 hours and was gone by 48 hours. It’s safe on cloth diapers and the only thing I will used from now on. Plus, it’s super cheap. You can get a box of it for about $2, can’t beat that.
We just got over a nasty rash that I am quite sure was caused by switching detergents (we went from BioKleen to Charlie’s) we went back to disposables for almost a month to get rid of it and i stripped my dipes too many time to count and no we’re back to cloth. Charlie’s can take a hike.
We always travel with disposables. Mostly because I hate using other people’s machines to wash my dipes. I know it weirds some people out so I just either use flushable/ compostable inserts and covers I can wash in the sink (Flips or gDiapers) or I just get disposables. It depends on how long we’ll be gone.