Canceled diaper service
Just after Peter turned 6 months, I hesitantly canceled the diaper washing service. We went from the huge stack of prefold diapers on the left to the tiny stack of organic prefold diapers on the right. Typically, the 30 diapers last us a week before I have to wash them. They hang dry very quickly, or dry at the laundromat with just two quarters. A huge cost savings over the diaper service!
Improved diet, decreased frequency
As I mentioned last time, we have had problems with foods in my diet effecting Peter. By 6 months he improved significantly but was still pooping 4 or 5 times a day. (One of the books I read said because there is little waste in breastmilk, babies can poop as little as every other day.) As we improved our diet, he has been down to once a day many times.
He still has bouts of diarrhea but currently we are doing the Whole30, and eliminating all inflammatory and allergenic foods from our diet. I’ve been excited by how much easier EC is when Peter isn’t having food reactions. Since starting the Whole30, he pees as little as every 5 hours instead of every hour and we can go out with only one extra diaper “just in case.” Today I even went out with Peter in underpants and no diaper backup.
Communicating
Peter has become much more direct in his need to use the bathroom. First he started trying to take his diaper cover off by pulling on the tabs when we were using the Thirsties covers. Then he started raising his arms as if he wanted to be picked up and squeezing both fists. Now that he’s crawling he will stop playing, crawl up to me and pull on my pant leg. In the last couple days he started pulling on his pants between his legs when he has to go. Now that’s direct!
Dressing for EC
Last month we switched from covering the thin diapers with plastic covers to wool underwear. I love the Little Beetle wool underpants from Better for Babies. The space below our apartment is unheated so the wool keeps his bottom warmer on our cold floors.
In the last couple days I started keeping Peter in regular underpants during the day. We got these really cute XXS boys underpants and these printed 2T underpants that I shrunk by washing in very hot water. We still use the wool belt with a prefold at nighttime and when I get up in the morning I put the Thirsties cover on Peter in case he wakes up and has to pee before I get to him.
On top of the diaper we used leg warmers from Etsy for a while (my sewing machine, among many other things, broke this winter). They were great until our floors got too cold. Now we use fleece pants that are warm but aren’t very absorbent so we can rinse them out if needed and they hang dry very quickly.
When my oldest was born, we had a diaper service. Then we switched to doing cloth diapers at home. We live out in the country & I hung the diapers out to dry on the line. There was nothing so satisfying to me than seeing those clean, fresh diapers snap in the wind!
Having wool allergies here prevented us from using the wool underpants. I did look into them for our youngest though.
That does sound satisfying! I included living somewhere that I could hang clothes outside to dry on my “next 30 years” list too.
Wow– great communicating skills, Peter! I never got those kind of signals from my kids — they just mostly held it until i put them on the potty, so as long as I put them on frequently, they did fine. Love reading about what clothes you are using. We liked the leg warmers with undies too.