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Friday Twinny Question - Cloth Diapering Twins

Kat asked:
Don’t know if this has already been asked, but how many diapers do you go through a day? And what’s your diapering routine like?

I have 21 Kissaluvs and 2 Swaddlebees, and I usually still have about 6 clean diapers when the laundry is done. I have 8 Imse Vimse covers, and I am usually on the last clean one when the laundry is ready.

At night each baby goes into a Swaddlebee “one size” with an extra terry cloth insert. After much experimentation I discovered that that was the magic combination that prevented night leaks.

In the morning I change them out of the Swaddlebees and into a Kissavluv. I always use a new cover in the morning to start the day out. I put a flushable liner in the diapers so that poop can be lifted out and flushed; I cannot sing the praises of the flushable liner highly enough. Oh, glorious liner, you keep me from having to manhandle excrement. Oh, wonderous liner, you can be tossed in the wash if the baby has only peed. Oh, fabulous liner, you can be reused after your run through the wash. Oh, liner, how I love you, beautiful rice paper, flushable, biodegradable, reusable liner. Moving on.

I usually wait to start a load of laundry until after the morning poop, since at least one baby will generally poop into the first diaper of the day. Wet diapers I just toss into a lined waste basket that serves as a diaper pail (and yes, I do reuse the plastic bags). For dirty diapers I flush the liner then rinse the diaper in the utility sink and let it soak until the next load of laundry. I do one load per day, hot water, soak cycle, Ecover detergent, no bleach, no fabric softener. I could get more diapers and do less laundry, but laundry is one of the few chores I don’t mind. I hate to wash dishes, but laundry is no big deal.

When I put the diapers away I pre-line them with the liners because that makes it easier when it is time to change the little ones.

We used a service for the first 7 months, and I think we went through betweem 60 and 120 prefolds per week, more when they were younger and less when they were older. If you have a diaper service in your area, it would probably be worth it to use them during the early months; babies will grow out of the newborn size of fitted diapers so quickly that it might not be worth it to buy them.

If you can get diapers at a cloth diaper exchange, it is probably worth it. I got 2 for free because the eleastic was streched out, and 6 more at 50% of the original price, and they had hardly been used because their original owner had grown out of them very quickly. Ebay isn’t a good deal; people end up paying as much for used diapers as they cost new, which puzzles me.

Oh, yes. One more thing. Rather than disposable wipes I’ve started using some of the many wash cloths people gave us as reusable wipes. I spray the baby with water from a spray bottle, wipe, and toss the wash cloth into the same pail as the diapers. If you are already doing diaper laundry, you can save money this way; wipes are expensive.

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Have a question? Put it in the comments or email me at stacie at bastetweb dot com.

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(Kat’s got some GORGEOUS photos of her little one up. I have serious photography envy going on, but rather than whine (too much) I’ll just encourage you to go to her site and admire Maddie. While you are at her site, click her ads. Every penny helps…)

This entry was posted on Friday, March 2nd, 2007 at 7:11 am and is filed under Twin Questions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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