Diaper Duty: At Home

After my first admission that we were planning to cloth, then my post about being a full-time CDer,  I've had a few questions (on and off the blog) about the general day-to-day use of cloth diapers. 

Here's a basic rundown of our daily diaper use. 

When it's time for a diaper change, we:

• take off the used diaper
• use disposable wipes to get the "gunk off" (we haven't moved to reusable wipes yet)
• put either the whole diaper (bumGenius) or the insert (Flip) into our "wet bag" (ours is a large PlanetWise wet bag from Kelly's Closet) which is hanging on a 3M hook on the side of our changing table (shown below)
• stuff an insert into a clean diaper cover (BG) or set a clean insert into a cover (Flip)
• put it on baby boy like a regular diaper and either snap or velcro it closed

Now, when the wet bag gets to be too full or we're close to running out of clean diapers (usually every other day):

• take the full wet bag to the laundry room
• dump all the diapers into the wash along with the wet bag and run a cold rinse with no detergent (this gets all the yucky stuff off first)
• after the cold rinse, I add 2 TBS of cloth-diaper-approved detergent and run a hot wash with an extra rinse cycle (which cleans and sanitizes the diapers) - usually on this wash, I will add any of Jack's regular laundry (outfits, burp cloths, blankets, etc) so that I'm not really doing any extra laundry (one of people's biggest potential drawbacks!) 
• when that is done, I pull out all the covers (shiny, colorful part) and put them on a drying rack we have in the laundry room, then all the inserts (and any other laundry) go into the dryer without a dryer sheet
• depending on how quickly I need the diapers, I will put the covers in the dryer for 10-20 minutes once the inserts are dry to get the last little bit of water out of them (since they will have been air drying for an hour or so)

(my instructions on our washer, in case anyone feels like doing the laundry)

I hope that doesn't sound too crazy! Put the dirty diaper in the bag, put the diapers and the bag in a cold rinse, hot wash, then the dryer! It has really been so much easier than I thought. Now, I know I haven't gotten to the "we're eating solid foods now" poop, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. :)

Next time I'll let you know how easy it is to use cloth on the go!