Friday. Day 5 of the flats challenge. At times, it hasn’t been as difficult as I anticipated. At other times, it’s been every bit as bad as I expected! I’ve learned a lot, including that while flats dry nicely on the line, you have to be ready to rescue them from a thunderstorm!
If you’re just “tuning in;” I’m participating in the Second Annual Flats and Handwashing Challenge hosted by Dirty Diaper Laundry. All this week I’ll be using flats and handwashing them. Learn more about the challenge.
The first day wasn’t so bad. Since my older son has daytime potty trained, washing diapers for 1 has practically felt like a vacation. Hand washing is definitely more difficult with a little one that doesn’t want to be put down, but I was able to hand him off to my hubby in time to rinse & wring.
I quickly learned that wringing is very important. If your hands & arms don’t hurt, you probably didn’t wring enough! If you wring well & make sure everything is flat & not bunched, flats don’t take that long to dry. A sunny day outside is even better.
I learned that my son’s skin is sensitive to wetness, but I also learned that I can order fleece liners from Abby’s Lane and receive them the next day, LOL.
I almost feel like a cheater since I am only hand washing for one, breastfed baby, instead of him and a turning-3-year-old. My older son is still in a diaper at night and I’m using a flat (and handwashing it) but not double the diapers, complete with toddler grossness!
Overall, it hasn’t been awful to get them clean. I’m using Eco Nuts liquid and it rinses out well. As I was hanging diapers on the line, I ran out of hands and put a wipe in my mouth before I realized what I was doing, oops. Good thing I got it clean!
I think it’s definitely worth having more flats & covers than you think you need, so you’re not sunk if they take longer to dry. I also found that with my son, a pad fold and a poop meant a cover change. If your baby has a predictable poop schedule, you could use a snappi’ed flat just during that time of day to try to keep the cover clean.
It seemed like it was actually easier to constantly wash instead of waiting until I had a full day’s worth. In the interest of keeping this post short & focused, on Saturday I’m going to post about how I washed and on Sunday I’ll reflect on the experience as a whole.
Are you participating? Link up your post! If you’re not participating, read the other bloggers’ posts.
Maria wants to live in a world where cloth diapers are the norm and moms can make parenting choices without judgement. When she’s not chasing her 18, 14 and 11-year old kids around, you might find her checking out the latest gadgets, organizing something (again) or exercising in the fresh air. 
