So, I'm the slacker of our trio and haven't done much in the world of cloth diapering. I had full intentions when pregnant with Chicken Little back in 2008... but hard laughter and "yeah rights" from my mom and uncertainty/lack of support from Rooster just made me turn to chlorine free disposable diapers. Sure, they're better than your average disposable... but still... creating waste.
Around 9 months of age with Chicken Little I got ahold of a handful of Bum Genius cloth diapers and began to use them part time. He was consistent with having a "morning constitutional" (i.e. taking a dump), so I would just wait for that to happen in a disposable and switch to cloth diapers after that. It actually worked pretty well! I was able to do the whole thing without Rooster even knowing about it! Tee hee!
I would rinse and wring them out at diaper time and leave them hanging in my shower. Usually I would wring them so dry that they wouldn't even drip. Come laundry time (usually every other day in this house) I would toss them in with the rest of the clothing. I have no idea if I was doing any of this "right" but they appeared to be clean and nothing ever got ruined... so good enough I suppose.
At some point I fell behind in my routine, birthdays happened, holidays happened, and then I broke my kneecap and was unable to go down the stairs for about three months to do laundry. Once I could go up and down the stairs, I was sometime in the second trimester of pregnancy with Chicklett, and because of risk/fear of falling down the stairs I limited it to "only when Rooster was around" so someone could help me if the worst were to happen. So... the cloth diapering officially ended.
Come now to end of 2010 with few week old baby Chicklett. I, once again, was surrounded by friends with children in adorable cloth diapers, but stuck with chlorine free disposables. I felt guilty, but obviously not guilty enough to just make our household be a cloth diapering one (which had I done Rooster would have supported me).
I observed pretty early on that Chicklett would have almost dry diapers after her 2-3 hour naps (I know, don't hate me... I make sleepy children). I made several joking comments about her being potty trained before her big brother. Sometime around the 2-month mark she started to have dry diapers overnight from about 8pm-5am. I was thinking it was just a boy/girl difference, but when asking around my baby seemed to be the only one doing this!
I had heard of Elimination Communication (EC) at a playdate about a year ago. As we were loading up to leave I noticed a mom hissing at her baby. Being confused and curious I asked her what on earth she was doing. She explained that they do elimination communication and that her baby had signaled that it was time to go, and since they were out in public without a potty she was just having her go in the diaper... but that she used the trigger noise of hissing to tell her daughter that it was okay to go.
Huh?? Are you crazy lady??
Well folks... now I'm the crazy lady. In January I sat my little rolly polly squishy 3-month old baby girl on the potty chair... and ... tada... she went potty. Not only did she just naturally go within seconds of sitting there... she laughed, smiled, and kicked her chunky little legs with glee the entire time. I was shocked. The girl loved it!!
Potty snap shot my daughter will hate me for later... sorry honey... it's too cute...
Online I was connected up with Emma Kwasnica who I was told is a EC guru. Her 15 month old daughter has been diaper free since BIRTH. She recommended I obtain a copy of Ingrid Bauer's Diaper Free book at the library and visit www.diaperfreebaby.org
I'm not sure how involved we are going to be in this whole journey, but for now we catch her after every nap time and have cut way down on our diaper usage. So long as she is happy and having fun, we'll continue. We ran into a snag a few days into it of her crying, and after asking around for advice we realized she wasn't liking the cold toilet touching her. Now we're careful about making sure she's covered and it's back to happy potty land!
