Day 7, 8, & 9 - gDiapers

We left the house Friday at about 4:45PM for Millinocket. We stopped on the way and got some groceries  for the weekend and Pizza Hut cheese breadsticks for dinner...yum! We arrived at the cabin a little before 8:00PM, and Dom had slept the whole way! I put a disposable diaper on him before I put him in the car because I knew it would be a long ride. When we got to the cabin, I put a cloth diaper on Dom for the hour before he went back to sleep, then changed into a disposable diaper before bedtime.

Saturday morning we got up early to go ice fishing. Dominic had four nasty dirty diapers during the day, so four of the snap-in liners were too soiled to be reused. I could have washed them in a basin, but the lake was covered in 19 inches of ice, melting snow is very time consuming and the water is so dirty! We brought some water for drinking, but I wanted to try to save as much as possible, incase we got trapped at the cabin. 

I brought 6 little gPants, 6 snap-in liners, 12 cloth inserts, 12 cloth liners and 8 disposable diapers. I was hoping that I would be able to reuse the snap-in liners and gPants on Sunday, but I was down to 2 snap-in liners, so I was a little nervous. Dom got another snap-in liner too dirty to reuse, but luckily we decided to head home early on Sunday morning. I put a disposable diaper on Dom before we got in the truck. When we drove into the cabin, there was about 6 inches of snow on the "driveway." It snowed while we were there, so it was more like a foot when we left. The truck made it in great...getting out was not so great. Six men, a jeep, a truck, a snowmobile, and 2 1/2 hours later we were on the road again. 

We got home around 2:00PM on Sunday and there was a box from diapers.com waiting for me! Six more little gPants (3 blue and 3 taupe), each with a snap-in liner were in the box and I was pretty excited. I did a load of diaper laundry right away, but with the extra snap-in liners, I should now be able to do diaper laundry every other day. Hooray! 

Day 5 & 6 - gDiapers

Over the past couple of days I've really gotten used to using gDiapers and other people around the house have tried them out too. My mother-in-law says that she doesn't love the fit, which I get because they fit very different from disposable diapers. I think that the fit takes some getting used to, but I think it has something to do with preventing leaks. I haven't experienced a single leak, and I'm starting to think that gDiapers are more leak proof than disposable diapers!

My husband has tried them out a few times, and one of the times he pulled one of the tabs off! I've read about this happening on reviews of gDiapers, so I expect that it will happen from time to time, but it was very easy to sew back on, so it didn't deter me from using them. I overheard my husband talking to a friend on the phone about the gDiapers, and he said something like they are cool underwear type things. That's positive so I'll take it for now :)

(Here is a close up of a tab like the one that got ripped off of the gDiaper.)

I've been doing a load of diaper laundry every day so far, mostly because I need some more snap-in liners. I don't wash them every time they are used, but I only have six, so I really only have enough for one day. Luckily for me, my mom ordered 6 more little gPants and they each come with a snap-in liner, so I should be able to change the frequency of diaper laundry to every other day.

I wash the gCloth inserts and snap-in liners in warm water with perfume and dye free detergent. The inserts are very absorbent so they take a while to dry, sometimes I have to dry them twice. The snap-in liners are air-dry only and they air dry quickly. I have only had to wash the little gPants when they got dirty on the outside, from food or whatever else Dom gets all over himself if he isn't wearing pants. I have washed the little gPants with regular clothes or in the diaper laundry and both have worked fine. I plan on washing the little gPants weekly since they each only get used about once a day.

My little family is going to be up north for the weekend without any running water. I've washed all of the soiled cloth diaper parts to bring with us, and I'm bringing some disposable diapers...just in case. Check back on Monday to see how it went!

Day 4 - gDiapers

We keep diapers for daycare in this frog downstairs in the playroom. We write the child's first initial with permanent marker on a few of their diapers and bring them downstairs. I put a few of Dom's cloth diapers (all put together) and a ziploc bag with his name on it in the frog. When I change Dom's diaper in the playroom, I put the soiled diaper parts into the ziploc bag to wash, and I keep the other parts in a pile to bring upstairs and refill. This is really easy to do and not much more time consuming than changing a disposable diaper.

This is only day 4 of the cloth diapers, but so far I'm wondering why I didn't try this sooner. Diapers are expensive for one and two, they don't break down very easily. I've read some articles that state that the first disposable diapers ever made are still sitting in a landfill. I hope that's not the case, but either way I feel much better about reducing the amount of disposable diapers that are going into landfills.

Day 3 - gDiapers

After day 3 using gDiapers, I've decided that I need more than six gSnap-in liners. I have to wash almost all of them daily at this point, so I think another six of the snap-ins would be good.

Dom had three dirty diapers today, so I really got to see the gCloth liners in action. They bunched up a little bit in two of the dirty diapers, so those got a little bit of poop on the gCloth inserts and gSnap-in liners. The other dirty diaper worked just like it is supposed to, and the poop was all able to be peeled off with the gCloth liner. If I can find a way to stop the gCloth liners from bunching, it will work great!

Dirty gDiaper 

Dirty gDiaper after removing the gCloth liner. The gCloth insert is still in place and poop free. This is the one that worked perfectly. 

Day 2 - gDiapers

When Dom woke up at about 8AM, I started out the day pretty much the same as yesterday, by putting some cloth diapers together and getting Dom into one. He went through 4 wet cloth diapers and 1 dirty cloth diaper. My husband doesn't love changing dirty diapers to begin with, so he is not so sure about changing a dirty cloth diaper. It just so happened that Dom got his one dirty diaper for the day while I was taking a nap, so Daddy had to change his diaper! He took the cloth diaper off, and set the whole thing aside, and put a disposable diaper on him. I still have to show him the ropes once I figure it out myself :)

When I got up from my nap, I tackled the dirty cloth diaper. The gCloth liner worked surprisingly well. Most of the gCloth insert was protected by the gCloth liner. I just peeled it off and flushed it. The liner bunched a little while Dom was wearing it, so a little bit of poop got on the cloth diaper. I just wet wiped it off and put it into the ziploc bag, and I sprayed some spray-n-wash on the poop spot before washing the cloth insert.

Day 2 was another successful day with cloth diapers! Tomorrow the daycare kids will be here, so that should add a new dynamic to cloth diapering. Wish me luck!

Day 1 - gDiapers

The first day using gDiapers went very well. They were actually pretty easy to use and there were no leaks! I started out the day by putting six diapers together. 

There are four separate pieces: gCloth liner, gCloth insert, gSnap-in liner and Little gPants (left to right). These are directions for how I put the diapers together. 

Step 1 - Lay the gCloth liner on top of the gCloth insert, so that they match up. 

Step 2 - Take the gSnap-in liner and stretch it out a little to make it flatter. Put the gCloth liner/gCloth insert inside of the gSnap-in liner. Press the corners and sides down so that all of the gCloth insert is inside of the gSnap-in liner. Press down on the gCloth insert as you let the gSnap-in liner scrunch back up. Make sure that the gCloth liner/gCloth insert are still evenly placed inside the gSnap-in liner. 

Step 3 - Snap the gSnap-in liner into the Little gPants and they are ready to go! 

Put them on your baby like you would a disposable diaper, except the sticky tabs in disposable diapers go to the front and the velcro tabs in gDiapers go to the back. The "g" should be on the back of the diaper. 

How cute is that? 

After I put the six diapers together, I had one of them on my baby, five diapers ready to go, six extra gCloth inserts and a box of gCloth liners. 

Dom got up at about 7AM and went through three wet diapers by 1PM, which is pretty typical for him. I flushed the gCloth liners and put the gCloth inserts in a gallon sized ziploc bag. The gPants and gSnap-in liners weren't wet at all, so I just filled them each back up with a new gCloth liner and gCloth insert. 

At about 1PM I left to do some errands with my mother-in-law. I put a disposable diaper on Dom because I didn't want to have my first difficult experience with gDiapers in public. Dom had one dirty diaper and one wet diaper while we were out, and I changed him back into a gDiaper when we got home. He had two more wet gDiapers and then I changed him into a disposable diaper at about 7:15PM for bedtime. 

 I put all of the wet diaper parts into the laundry, so they will be clean for tomorrow. I'm a little anxious/nervous to see how the gDiapers handle poop...I'm sure I'll find out tomorrow! 

The gDiapers are here!

I just got a big package of gDiaper stuff from diapers.com. Thanks Mom! I'm so excited that is is almost comical, but how can you not get excited about cute baby stuff?

I've thought about using cloth diapers or diaper hybrids (cloth with disposable inserts) since I was pregnant. I've gone back and forth because I love the idea of cloth diapers, but I don't know if I will love having to clean them. My diaper changing experience is extensive, since I work in a daycare, but all of my experience is with disposable diapers. I have had to clean some really horrible accidents when children were potty training and wearing underwear. Getting poop out of cloth just isn't a good time!

I really like the idea of the gDiapers biodegradable gRefills, but I don't like the price. It is currently $55 for a case of 4 packages of gRefills, which contains 128 refills in size medium/large. This comes out to about 43 cents per gRefill. I usually get Up & Up disposable diapers at Target, which are $20.99 for 108 size 5 diapers. This comes out to about 19 cents per diaper. So it costs more than twice as much just to get the gRefills as it does to get the Up & Up diapers. You would still have to buy the cloth diaper covers or gPants, which are $17.99 each or $79.99 for a 6 pack. If I had a ton of money to throw around I may have given these a try, but maybe not, just on principle.

So then I looked at the gDiapers gCloth inserts. I just couldn't get past the idea of cleaning poop off of those cloth inserts! This is what has kept me from trying these for so long. If only they made something that went over the cloth insert that would trap the poop and was disposable...oh they do?! They make gCloth liners, which are $8.99 for a box of 105. The liners trap the solids and liquids go into the cloth insert. When you change the diaper, you just dump the poopy liner into the toilet and flush it away. The cloth insert goes into the laundry. Easy? Not really, but I think I can handle this.

You have to wash the gCloth inserts 3 times before using them, so they are currently in the laundry. I plan on using the gDiapers all day, but disposable diapers at night. My son's diaper is always quite full in the morning, and I'm not sure if the cloth diapers would be able to handle it. I'm going to try the gDiapers tomorrow morning.  I've read that they can be difficult to learn how to use at first, so wish me luck!

My Inspiration

I first read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle while I was in college, and it planted a seed in my mind that has since taken root and grown into my dream. 

Like many of the young women that attended UMF, I wanted to be a teacher. I also wanted to marry my high school sweetheart, and I did during student teaching (crazy I know). I got degree in Elementary Education and became a certified teacher. I taught 7th grade science for one year and decided that it was not what I wanted to do. 

I loved working with kids, but I didn't see how I could be a good wife, mother, and teacher. So I picked the two most important things to me, wife and mother. I became a mother in February 2011, and I have to say that it is even better than I could have imagined! But now what was I going to do? I would love to be able to just be a wife and mother, but unfortunately I need to make money :) So for now I'm running a home daycare with my mother-in-law. I get to stay home with my son, work with kids, and make money. 

I like what I'm doing now, but my dream is to have a small self-sustaining family farm. Just think...fresh eggs, milk, vegetables, fruit and meat, and homemade cheese! My husband is on board with this dream, thank goodness, and we are working toward making it a reality. 

I would love to just flip a switch and do it all, but it isn't practical for me, so here I go one step at a time.