Welcome to the June 2013 Natural Living Blog Carnival: A Natural Challenge.
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Natural Living Blog Carnival hosted by Happy Mothering and The Pistachio Project through the Green Moms Network. This month, our members took 1-2 weeks to explore a natural practice that they had yet to try. Today, they’re going to tell you about their experience! Hopefully, you’ll find some inspiration to try something new on one or more of the posts.
I know I can’t be the only cloth diapering mama out there that has had to work to convince my significant other that cloth is the way to go. One thing I did in the beginning to make things easy for both my hubby and myself was to get a diaper sprayer. There are some really nice name brands out there but when we were first starting out with cloth we were barely scraping by financially and a DIY version was more suitable.
At first I used it every chance I got. Of course, I also ended up wiping the bathroom up afterward because I would spray water everywhere. Once I got the hang of it, I felt for a while that there was no way I could have stuck to cloth diapering without it. As our toddler has gotten older there’s been less of a need for the sprayer since the solids are able to just be plopped into the toilet.
Recently, my hubby was spraying a diaper and got irritated, saying it was making matters worse and spraying poop all over. I know that there’s plenty of people out there that don’t use a sprayer at all and I took on the challenge of rinsing and swishing. I’ll tell you, I don’t think it is for me. For diapers that did need more work than just plopping into the toilet I noticed more staining because I couldn’t fully get all the poop off with swishing. Plus, I have noticed that since having my second baby my sense of smell is still on high alert. I can get almost instantly nauseous over a poop explosion, getting snotty kisses or even throwing up. That being said, I’m sure I could’ve been a little more diligent but the point was to take on something a little different and in doing so, I was able to find what doesn’t work for us.
Have you ever challenged yourself to try something you wouldn’t normally do?
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Visit Happy Mothering and The Pistachio Project to learn more about participating in next month’s Natural Living Blog Carnival!
Please take some time to enjoy the posts our other carnival participants have contributed:
miranda leigh says
i thought our diaper sprayer was the best thing ever, until one day it broke. think indoor water park in the bathroom. i was forced to do dunk and swish, and now i prefer it! so much simpler and faster. the only downside is it guarentees babe will not clean the dirty diapers haha.
Brittany Brines says
We don’t have a sprayer and are pregnant with our second and I am definitely wanting to get one. I soak my diapers that don’t just “plop” off into the toilet and while that works okay, I really wish I had a sprayer….plus, I just recently flushed a diaper down the toilet. Oopsie! It didn’t clog anything, thank goodness, but I did loose a diaper! 🙁 So, I am thrilled to hopefully be getting a sprayer soon. lol
GreenGrizls says
How did you flush a diaper? Don’t worry, check out the mommy mishaps posts if you need a laugh about my fails. 😉
Jessica Cali says
I have!! When my brothers (now 17 & 16) were babies, my mother cloth diapered them. Prefolds with the plastic pants over them. I thought that was disgusting & hated it when she had me go take the diapers to the bathroom to rinse! But now, I am a cloth diapering mama with my youngest & last child. I wish I would have done it with my boys (now 6 & 5) but I was still pretty grossed out.
Amanda says
I’ve been cloth diapering for going on 4 years (had 2 in cloth at one point) but never had a sprayer. You are SO RIGHT – dunking & swishing pretty much guarantees that if I’m not the one doing the changing, all poopy diapers are left somewhere in the house for me to deal with. Honestly it’s not that bad – just get a pair of really good rubber gloves! – but you’re right the smell can put you over the edge when your pregnant, hormonal or just have the flu. After my very first overnight trip out of town – left the baby with hubs – I arrived home to a STACK of poopy diapers on top of the diaper pail in his room. Thank goodness it wasn’t summer. 🙂 Thanks for posting about your experience, love reading all the comments too – it’s wonderful to have “support” when cloth diapering because I don’t know many who do it!
Jessica says
We’ve only had our diaper sprayer for about a month. I will never go back to dunk and swish.
Brittany @ The Pistachio Project says
When I first started cloth diapering, I thought I was going to want/need a diaper sprayer…but when it came time to need one I just didn’t have the money so I had to dunk and swish…oddly I’m fine with it. It can definitely be gross at times but after potty training, it’s not that big of a deal! lol
Amber says
My baby boy is only 2 months so no major solids that need sparyer or dunk and swish yet. But my sister who also uses cloth diapers swears by her sprayer!
Chrystal @ Happy Mothering says
We didn’t cloth diaper, so I have no experience with this. But I love trying new things. I try to incorporate new things into our lives a couple times a month.
Erin M says
I’m actually glad that we didn’t end up getting a diaper sprayer because now the poops are so easy to just shake out. Although there are days when they aren’t so easy and I do wish for a sprayer 😉