Monday, May 24, 2010

Do You Fold Your Diaper Laundry?

This is such an interesting question if you're a cloth-diaper obsessed mommy.

My answer is yes, I do.
In fact, I not only "fold" the diaper laundry ...  I sort out the pockets and the inserts so the "right" insert goes in the "right" pocket.

That makes sense for the Duo's, right?  They came with a particular insert.  But I have pockets that I bought without inserts, and inserts that I bought without pockets.  Somehow I have "assigned" (in my brain) a particular insert to a particular diaper.  So after they are washed, they have to be stuffed the same way.

Right?  (Just nod.)

With regular laundry, I live out of clean laundry baskets quite a bit.  If the dang clothes wouldn't get so wrinkled, I'd never fold and/or put away clothes again.  I've tried this approach with diapers.  After all, it totally doesn't matter if diapers get wrinkled.  And they rarely do (how unfair is that, BTW?)

But when you just live out of the basket, that means every time you need a diaper, you are digging through tons of pockets and inserts, and sometimes a few prefolds, and all the cloth wipes, and ... you tend to put the wrong insert with the wrong pocket.  And then that just screws EVERYTHING up.

OCD much?

Ok, so to fold diaper laundry ...  first pull out all the prefolds, and make a stack of them.  As you come across covers, just throw those in a pile next to the prefolds (see, I'm not totally OCD here.)
Only one prefold in this load - been doing alot of pockets lately

Then pull out the pockets, and sort by type.  Knickernappies go in one pile, Thirsties go in another pile.  (I have relieved the Swaddlebees of their duties unless I run out or otherwise need them, since they tear up diapers in the wash and I have beautiful new diapers I want to take care of.)

Duo sleeves on the left, Knickernappies sleeves on the right, Duo inserts on my knee, and a small child's toy in the center.

Oh, the small child came to retrieve the toy, that's good.
A better photo, sans toy and child

Then pull out the inserts and sort.  The nighttime diapers get a Cotton Babies OS insert and the Mandi's Menagerie insert in a Fuzzi Bunz pocket.  Altho, since I only have two working FB pockets left, we may be readdressing our nighttime system.  But for now, these get stuffed and put in a pile.

Other Cotton Babies OS inserts, Nicki's diapers inserts, Knickernappies inserts, are used to stuff the Knickernappies sized and OS pockets.  Thirsties Duo inserts go in the Duo Diapers.  As wipes come up in this process, a pile is made of them.
More help from the small child.  And the toy.

And there you have it, diaper laundry is "folded".
I don't always arrange them by color, that was just for the big photo.

If I had a stash of all one kind of diaper and insert, maybe I could live out of a laundry basket.

But I'll tell you, there's something very fulfilling, and almost even relaxing, about stuffing pocket diapers and feeling like you did accomplish SOMETHING today.  Even if it is diaper laundry.

Apparently this is a very serious question - even the Knickernappies people want to know the answer!

Tomorrow, another very serious question: how do you store your diaper stash?

3 comments:

Betsy said...

We only have one kind of diaper, and after some trial and error one type of insert; flat fold diapers that I fold in a particular way and stick inside.

I MUST fold it all and stuff the diapers ahead of time. Since the pants get used again and again, I keep the stacks and stacks of folded inserts on his dresser so when we change him and toss the wet insert into the bag, I can grab a new insert stuff it in the diaper and stick the diaper back in the pile for his next change. If I did not do this three things would happen:

MY OCD would kick in and Something Bad Would Happen
My husband would probably diaper the baby without an insert
I would have to stuff a diaper while a half-naked child tried to crawl away

So I totally understand your sorting and folding routine, for whatever the reasons!

Sara said...

It might be too late to comment, but here's something I've wondered about often. Why are cloth mommies so...enthusiastic? You never see sposie mommies posting pictures of their Pampers online. And women I know who cloth-diapered because it was their only option are utterly mystified and disgusted by the concept of anyone doing it by choice. Where does the love come from?

MommieV said...

Never too late to comment!

Part of it is that they are so cute. Part of it is that I know I'm doing something good for Caitlin, especially since the few times we have put a sposie on her at my mom's she breaks out almost immediately.

But honestly, when I really think about why, it's like the one thing I can CONTROL in all of this being a new mom mess. I screwed up her sleep. I screwed up her eating. But by god, she's got great diapers on her butt. And I'm going to enjoy that feeling.

It's like the one thing I can go to and say "it works, I did that and it was a good thing", and it makes me feel good.

And they ARE really cute too.