THINGS I LIKE: Cloth Diapers Edition

When I was pregnant with The Velociraptor, The Man and I (really I, and The Man acceded) decided we would give cloth diapers a try. Cue my reading every possible blog post about cloth diapers out there, from what were the best brands, to how to wash, to different types, etc. and so on.

Now that I am cloth diapering full-time at home, HAHAHAH NOW I GET TO MAKE ONE OF THOSE POSTS YESSSSSSSSSS

I'm not going to go in to the basics of types of diapers, etc. and so on. What I'm going to detail is what we use, what we like/dislike about them, details about fit, and how we wash the whole mess of them. Because this is the sort of thing I found immensely helpful when making my decisions. I will also note, if you're thinking about trying cloth diapers, SO MANY PEOPLE give them away ALL THE TIME. Here is a fabulous weekly giveaway round-up. That includes cloth diapers, cloth diaper accessories, and other baby products. People can also add their own "family-friendly" giveaways to the link-up at the bottom. Some of my stash came from giveaways, so hey.

Anyway so what we use are prefolds and flats with waterproof diaper covers (to date, all of them are made of PUL). We fold up the diaper, lay it in a cover, and apply that to The Kid. It seriously is no more complicated than using a disposable diaper. We chose this for a couple reasons. One, it's probably the cheapest way to cloth diaper. Two, it's fucking easy to wash. Everything I've read suggests that all of the human-made fibers used in some of the fancier options get a stink in them after a few months that is nigh impossible to remove. Plus, you can use pretty much any detergent on 100% cotton... the human-made fibers usually require special "cloth diaper" detergents.

I will now go through brand by brand what covers, prefolds, and flats we have. Links will be to the manufacturer's or retailer's website. These are NOT referral links, and I have received no compensation for any of this post - this literally is just my opinions and experiences. The Kid was approximately 8 lbs. at birth, and is built long and lean (seriously, their hips, SO NARROW). Their thighs are not what I'd call particularly chunky, either, although they aren't particularly bony or lean, either.

Covers

• Flip one-size covers
  The manufacturer, Cotton Babies, call these a "hybrid diaper system" and sells their own branded inserts for them. I have none of the Flip inserts, but I do have Flip covers in just about every color made, and at least one of the special edition patterns, and we have them in both hook-and-loop and snap closures. These are probably my overall favorite cover and the first ones I reach for (there's a reason I have so many... seriously, like EVERY COLOR THEY HAVE MADE TO DATE except like, Armadillo). These are designed as a "one-size" cover, and when The Kid was a newborn weighing around 8 lbs., fit hir the second best. They continue to fit very well, and it's just now that I had to adjust the rise. They're trim, they hold up well and contain messes, and I have no preference for hook-and-loop or snaps. They're really nice and widely available. I just wish they came in more patterns.


• Thirsties Duo Wrap sized covers
  These are probably The Man's favorite, and I like them quite a bit too. Unlike Flips and most other covers, these are sized - so, there's a smaller size for smaller babies, and a larger size for larger babies and toddlers. We have four or five of these in size one, and honestly, when The Kid was a newborn, these fit the best. They are very trim. I prefer the hook and loop of these - it's good, solid hook-and-loop, and provides a little bit better fit in the waist. I love that they have double leg gussets, but wish they had flaps to tuck your inserts in like the Flips (not that this has seemed to make a difference in effectiveness, I note). I adjusted the rise on these before the Flips, but they weren't the first that needed adjusting. They're also not all the way unsnapped for the rise yet, although the way The Kid is growing, they probably will be next week. The fabric is nice, although like the Flips, I wish they came in more patterns -  I don't like the colored cover with white trim they have going on. Buuuuut I will probably buy some size twos in a few months.


• Econobums one-size covers
  I actually won a trial kit of these, containing one cover and three prefolds. I'm prepping the prefolds right now, although they are nice and soft right out of the box. As for the cover, it's been in use a few weeks, and The Man's description of it I think is spot on: "It is 'econo'." It's the same cut as Flips (they are from the same manufacturer), but there's only one row of snaps to fasten the waist (Flips have a double-row) and the PUL used is definitely thinner, and a little see-through, and it doesn't have the nice flaps to tuck your insert in to like the Flips do. That being said, it does the job alright. 


• Bumkins one-size covers
  One of these in the turtle pattern was actually the first cover I bought (zulily was having a sale on them... although I think you can find them cheaper than what I paid. Oh well). They fit really well, and I like that they have the double leg gussets and flaps to tuck your inserts in to. But when they say "all snap", they are NOT KIDDING. SO MANY SNAPS. SOOOO MANY SNAPS. Honestly, I don't bother fastening all of the waist snaps when I use these. Also, these are the only covers we have that have the rise snaps totally unsnapped, and we did that pretty early on. Of our one-size covers, these are probably the smallest. The fabric is nice, and is softer and stretchier than any of the other covers, and almost silky. However, that turtle one I bought? Had a total leg elastic failure on one side a month in. It was an easy fix for me (I sew), but disappointing.


• Diaper Safari one-size covers
  Yeah a bunch of the diaper websites have their own in-house covers. WHAT. LET'S GIVE MORE VARIETY. Anyway, these have apparently been redesigned since I bought mine, but the old ones are definitely the biggest covers we have. They are BIG for one-size, and even now, at 2.5 months, the leg gussets are still loose on the kid. The rise is still as small as we can make it. We usually stuff these with prefolds. They also have many snaps, but not as many as the Bumkins. The fabric is nice, thick, and slightly stretchy, and my god, you can NOT beat the price. Diaper Safari also frequently runs sales and has a rewards program. However, these are probably our least favorite right now, simply because they are STILL too big, and the kid weighs close to 12 lbs. I would recommend them for very chunky-thighed babies.


• Blueberry Coveralls one-size covers
  I first got one of these in hook-and-loop because IT WAS A COW-SPOT PATTERN I HAD TO HAVE IT OKAY. These are the second-biggest covers we have in our stash, and they are accurate when they say that their sizing starts at 10 lbs. At 8 lbs., they were too big. By one month, they fit nicely. We haven't adjusted the rise on these yet, although I probably will this week. I like that they have double-leg gussets, but I definitely prefer the snaps in these. I don't like how they do the "laundry tabs" for the hook-and-loop, and prefer the one we have with snaps.  Also, the inside of the cow cover is slightly discolored, and the hook-and-loop band on the front has warped a bit, so it curls. Still works just fine, though. 


• Nicki's Diapers one-sized covers
  I got one of these because OMG HOUNDSTOOTH. This the third-biggest cover we have. We still haven't adjusted the rise. I like it fine, but it's not my favorite. But again, an excellent economy option for covers. I don't like how the laundry tabs are done on this one, either, for the hook-and-loop. but that's a personal preference - they work just fine.


• Imagine one-sized covers
  I bought one of these because OMG DINOSAURS... and we kind of hate it. Honestly, it's not even in use right now, and I'll probably sell it. In our experience, it does not fit from 8 lbs. up, and it still didn't fit quite right at 10 lbs. It might be better now, but since we have plenty of other options... it languishes in the back of the drawer. I have this in hook-and-loop.

Inserts

• Gerber birdseye cotton flats
  I wound up getting a package of these at my baby shower. I did have cloth diapers on my registry, and even Gerber cloth diapers, but I had prefolds to use as burp cloths. ANYWAY, I got them, and dutifully prepped them, and I am glad I did. Flats are the cheapest insert options, generally, and these are proooobably the cheapest flats out there. I will say "you get what you pay for", but also say that using these converted me to flats. They are thin, soft cotton, almost see-through. They will warp in the wash. The edges are finished just with some serging, and they will fray. And I still use them. They absorb well, wash easily, and it only takes me a few minutes to fold them all up via a pad fold for stuffing in to covers. Especially when The Kid was a newborn, these fit fantastically, and are still going strong now at 2.5 months. Plus, these are probably the most widely available flats - I know Babies R Us by me carries them, and I believe Target does too. Most other flats and prefolds are not sold in stores, although Babies R Us I think does carry OsoCozy.


• Diaper Rite birdseye cotton flats
  So as I mentioned, I got converted to flats. So then I wanted to buy more, because especially at first, prefolds were just too bulky on The Velociraptor. I priced out a bunch of places, and these wound up the least expensive. Y'all, these are NICE. The fabric is a good thickness - thicker than quilting cotton, less thick than denim, definitely not see-through. The diapers are cut selvedge to selvedge, and the cut ends are finished with a rolled hem (for those that do not sew and have no idea what I just said, just know that they are made very, very nicely and that the edges will not fray). They have stayed square through washing. The size small are still good-sized; they are slightly bigger than the Gerber prefolds. The Kid has slept through the night with just one of these in their diaper and has woken up with zero leaks. Definitely recommended. Diaper Junction, the retailer of these, also has coupons and a rewards program.


• Diaper Rite cotton doublers
  I got some of these for free with a couple of orders, and while I wasn't planning on getting doublers, I could not pass up free. These are awesome, trim, 100% cotton inserts you can fold in to the middle of a prefold or flat to add some extra absorbency. I have them bleached and unbleached, and both washed up soft and fluffy, and work great. Now that The Kid is a little older and can sleep 11 hours overnight, we usually fold one of these in to a prefold for the night.


• Diaper Rite cotton prefolds
  Huh I did not realize that we had pretty much all Diaper Rite inserts. Huh. ANYWAY so since nobody bought me the prefolds I had on my baby registry, I priced out prefolds and read reviews and bought half a dozen of the size small, and half a dozen of the size medium, in white. These are very nice. They are a good heavyweight twill, nice and thick, and hold up to anything we've thrown at them though. I will say, however, that the size small was still too bulky on The Kid at 8 lbs., so I'd recommend them for closer to 10 lbs. and up. We also use the mediums as a soaker pad on the changing pad, because The Kid really loves to pee all over in the middle of diaper changes. SIGH. Anyway, I have some Gerber "premium" prefolds for use as burp cloths, and while I'm sure those would work as diapers, you can tell the difference (not even Gerber promotes them primarily for diapers, they are all like OH LOOK BURP CLOTHS, CLEANING RAGS, YEAH). The Diaper Rites are thicker in the middle, thicker in the wings, quilt up nicer, and are softer. (But seriously, get you some cloth diapers for burp cloths.) These are bulkier than the flats when in use, but not OH GOD SO BULKY. Even with these, I have not had to size up any of The Kid's clothes to account for the diaper.

Washing

Y'all there are SO MANY WASHING INSTRUCTIONS FOR CLOTH DIAPERS OUT THERE I CAN'T EVEN.  It depends on what kind of washer you have, what diapers you have, what kind of water you have, etc. and so on. I will say that I found the instructions on washing from Green Mountain Diapers helpful, both on the website and in their booklet - although they can kind of ramble and repeat themselves.

Since we have all cotton with PUL covers, our wash routine is pretty simple. We throw the soiled diapers (and cloth wipes) in to a wet bag we have hanging off the changing table. (Some people say that you can wipe out a PUL insert if the baby has just peed and reuse it... we don't do this, because it kind of squicks us out.) We do not bother trying to get the inserts out of the covers; they come out just fine in the wash. When the wet bag gets pretty full, we take it to the washer and do the following:

• Run a prewash cycle on warm
• Run a "super-wash" long cycle on hot, with an extra rinse
• Dry the cotton in the dryer on medium for the max cycle length
• Hang the covers and wet bag to dry

We have a top-loading, non-HE washer. It has an automatic water level sensor, so in order to get enough water in the load, we not only put it on "bulky items" (which means it adds extra water), we override the water level sensor. We never fill it more than halfway with cloth diapers, since one consistent thing is that you need a lot of water for each diaper, and this way there's plenty. I definitely recommend reading your fucking washer manual to see all of the neat features you may like or need to counteract on yours.

As for detergent, since we are using cotton, we just use All free and clear, like we do for our regular clothes. We have had zero issues getting diapers clean with it, and have run in to zero issues with absorbency.  For each load, we use about half the amount recommended on the bottle for a "medium" load. We also live in a city with what is widely considered some of the best municipal water in the country - we do not have hard water. Oh, and definitely do NOT use fabric softener of any kind with cloth diapers, even dryer sheets.

For drying, we do have some wool dryer balls that I like to throw in with the cotton, to make sure it's fluffed up, but we did plenty of loads without them and it worked fine. The cycle length is long just to make sure the prefolds get dry - flats and wipes dry really fucking quickly. We hang the covers to dry to help the PUL last as long as possible. I have a drying rack similar to this one set up in the laundry area. I hang the covers and bags up and they dry pretty quickly.

We do a load of diapers every 24-36 hours. We've got... maybe 20 or so covers and flats, and when your baby can go through 14 diaper changes in a day some days, you need to. Plus, this cuts down on stink. The only time I have had a stink problem was right before vacation. I held off on doing a load of diapers because I wanted to get the last few from the next morning in. Fine, except that I left the loaded wet bag hanging in our laundry area, which is in our attic, so they basically roasted. I washed them with our regular routine, and they still smelled. So I went through the routine again, except I  added 1/4 C of bleach to the "super-wash" cycle, and that did the trick. Some manufacturers say to not use bleach; Cotton Babies recommends using a small amount of bleach once a month. A small amount of bleach once in a while is not going to ruin cotton or PUL, and sometimes you just need it.

Right now, we also don't rinse the poop out of the diapers. The Kid is partially breastfed, so the poop is pretty liquid. Sometimes if they have more formula, it's a little thicker, but even then, we don't bother rinsing it. We have found that with our diapers and wash routine, the poop comes right out. We haven't had any problems with staining, either. And no, neither the diapers nor the washer smell of poop. The diapers smell like either nothing, or grass - unbleached cotton has its own grassy smell, which I am amazed that it still hangs on to after so many washes.

Finally, in order to use cotton diapers, you have to prep them. Basically, you are stripping all of the natural oils from the cotton to make them as absorbent as possible. I prep mine by washing them five times on hot with detergent, drying in between.

And that's it. I am happy to answer questions in comments or via the Twittermachine.

Things The Velociraptor Is Doing: Week 11

• Not only has zie discovered those things on the end of hir arms can grab things, they have discovered that they can use them to put things in their mouth. Things that have ended up in said mouth include blankets, burp cloths, my fingers, their fingers, toys, and everybody's clothes.


• Hands can also be used to touch things, so they have spent a lot of time investigating my arm and elbow during diaper changes. The first time this happened, it was so weird - here I am, changing a diaper, when all of a sudden I feel this little hand gently stroking my arm. I look over. and The Velociraptor is ENRAPTURED. And stroking my arm, over and over. They have also spent some quality time investigating our hands and faces.


• Speaking of diaper changes, we still have at least a dozen of those a day, and oh, does The Velociraptor LOVE peeing during them. LOVES IT. THINKS IT IS HILARIOUS. HAS LAUGHED WHILE DOING IT. Has also managed to not only get pee all over themselves, including caught in their belly button (it's like a little pee reservoir, and always gets filled), they also once managed to get pee IN THEIR EAR. And thought it was hilarious, naturally.


• Also apparently this one romper that I REALLY LIKE okay? The Kid has apparently decided they hate it, because the last two times zie's worn it, zie has pooped on it.


• Between that, the peeing all over, and the spitting up pretty regularly still, I am still doing a lot of laundry.


• Zie fucking LOVES watching me fold laundry. And touching laundry. And knocking piles of folded laundry over.


• Zie also LOVES "talking" to us. Right now it's vowel-sound babbling, but swear to Maude zie's trying (and nearly succeeding) to say "hi" to us. ("Hi" is a word that happens a LOT in our house.) Like it's REALLY close. The Man was also reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? to hir the other day, and says that when they got to Red Bird, a sound remarkably like "red" emerged from hir mouth.The Kid is definitely watching our mouths and trying to imitate us, and loves having conversations, and will definitely let us know when they want to "talk".


• Zie HATES baths in the bathtub so far. Sponge baths they'll tolerate, but oh, the hate for the bathtub.


• The Kid is also REMARKABLY INTERESTED IN OUR FOOD. Oh my gods, if we eat in front of hir, the glares we get. It's like we are taking the food out of hir mouth. We keep telling hir zie can have some with zie grows teeth, and that they'll get a taste of it via breastmilk, but this is not doing much to placate them.


• Zie still hates "tummy time". We usually do pretty good if it involves laying on me, but on the floor? NOAP. They pick their head up and move it fine if they're upright or on my shoulder, but getting it up off the ground leads to frustration... probably because it's not crawling. Seriously, the legs are moving like whoa during tummy time. I keep telling hir that zie has to pick up their head before they can crawl. It's not gotten through yet.


• Zie has also grown out of 0-3 months sized clothes. I put a 6 mos. sized sleeper on hir this week and it fit PRETTY DAMN WELL. So I culled all the 0-3 mos. stuff. Straight 3 mos. still fits, but probably not for much longer. This child is LONG, y'all.

DO NOT LET ME READ SLEEP SITES

[Contents: mommy/parent-shaming]

SERIOUSLY.

So the other day I tweeted this:

Note to self: no seriously you are banned from reading any baby sleep sites or books. BANNED. #zomgbaby
— Wench (@kingdomofwench) July 17, 2014

[Text: Note to self: no seriously you are banned from reading any baby sleep sites or books. BANNED. #zomgbaby]

BECAUSE I NEED TO NOT READ THEM ANY MORE. ALL THEY LEAD TO IS TEARS AND FRUSTRATION.

We got here because I am a reader. And a researcher. I cannot even tell you how many hours I spent reading baby books and websites while pregnant, and that hasn't really stopped now that The Velociraptor has made an appearance (and been around for TWO AND A HALF MONTHS WHAT). So I was reading baby sleep sites!

And they pretty much all say things like DON'T DO THIS YOU WILL RUIN YOUR CHILD FOREVERRRRRRR (not always in those exact words, but it surprises me how close many of them are) and YOUR BABY SHOULD BE DOING THIS and HERE ARE THE WORST MISTAKES YOU CAN MAKE.

Oh my fucking god! So stressful!

Also, none of them agree with each other. They do not even agree on the basics of how many hours per day babies should sleep at various ages, much less on how many naps babies should take, the best way to get babies to nap, etc. and so on.

But I kept reading them, because y'all, The Kid's naps are a MESS.

Here's the thing. I am not complaining. I'm frustrated, but I'm not complaining, because The Velociraptor has slept through the night since they were about two weeks old. And not that crappy "oh five hours is TOTALLY sleeping through the night" that sleep sites and books try to sell you. Nah dude. At least seven hours. Right now, we're averaging nine hours straight a night.

But daytime sleep, since about a month ago, has been a mess. Developmentally, this makes a lot of sense, because right about that time zie discovered that they could talk to us! And hit things! And move their legs! And there was a baby in the mirror! And they could grab things! And they could maybe roll over! So there were ALL SORTS OF SUPER NEAT THINGS TO SEE AND DO AND TRY at once so FUCK SLEEPING AMIRITE CHECK THIS OUUUUUTTTTTT

So then we'd get to the point where The Kid would be up for five hours at a time (note: ALL sites agree that is WAY too long awake for a baby The Kid's age), and then suddenly crash and be screaming. And then only sleep 26 minutes (I am not kidding, you can set a fucking watch by this child). And wake up cranky, RINSE AND REPEAT.

But even in the midst of that, The Kid would sleep through the night. GETTING them to sleep was a challenge, but once they were out, they were out.

So I would read sites about how to get your baby to nap regularly and not be up for five hours. And then when things wouldn't work and we'd have one of Those Days again I would be in TEARS because WHAT AM I DOING WRONG WHYYYYYYYY and feel horrible about nursing The Kid to sleep or sometimes just giving up when they were tired and not going to sleep and just letting them quietly play in their crib and did I mention TEARS.

This is no good.

Because here's the thing. I even asked The Kid's pediatrician about it. She said "Do the best you can. It's great zie's sleeping through the night, and I often find that great night sleepers are crappy day sleepers and vice versa. It'll probably settle down after three months, so in the mean time, do what you can."

And that's just it. The Kid sleeps through the night. They are ahead of the curve developmentally. Even when super fucking tired, they are not super fussy and impossible to calm down. Does it suck when they are up three, four, five hours and I'm like GO TO SLEEP JUST GO TO SLEEP? YES. YES IT DOES. Because it feels like I am beating my head against a brick wall and I can't stop. But, zie does eventually go to sleep (and increasingly, they seem to want LESS intervention to go to sleep). And while most people would tell you that the unpredictability of the nap schedule right now means going out is hellacious, honestly, it isn't for us. We took a road trip to Chicago last week, then road-tripped to Michigan from Chicago, and zie did AMAZINGLY FINE. So it's not like this is keeping me tied home or anything.

But oh, the SHOULD and MUST and BLAH BLAH BLAH of sites. Oh my gods.

I have decided that pretty universally, people are just making most of that shit up (not the part about babies needing a lot of sleep; that is pretty easy to tell just by observation. The rest of it, though, is highly suspect). So FUCK THEM. They don't know MY kid. (They really don't; none of them I've found even remotely address a 2-month-old who sleeps through the night but is a terrible napper; at this age they're all like HERE IS HOW TO TEACH YOUR CHILD TO SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT... thanks player, lucked out on that one already). The Man and I know our kid. And so some days we have horrible no good nap days, and some are rock star days, and in the meantime, we make sure zie is clean and fed and we try to get them to sleep as regularly as possible.

AND THAT IS OKAY. 

Pooooooooop

[Contents: poop and ways of dealing with it; menstruation and related products]

Not my poop, although there is a whole lot we could talk about with being pregnant and what that does to one's digestive system. Baby poop.

So, babies poop. Kind of a lot. And pee. Kind of a lot. So you kind of need some way to deal with that business.

And oh my Maude, y'all, there are some STRONG. FUCKING. OPINIONS. out there about how to do that.

My opinion can be summed up as follows: look it holds bodily waste, so long as it does a good job containing that, whatever you choose is fine.

I do personally really like cloth diapers. Super cute! Supposed to be better for the environment! Soft and can cause fewer rashes! Did I mention cute! We are cloth diapering The Kid while at home (mostly - sometimes we use disposables, and we definitely use disposables while out of the house) and y'all, I really really do like cloth diapering The Kid. This post is mostly about why, what I like, and the concerns people have with cloth diapering.

There's a lot of bullshit that goes along with cloth diapers, including some of the OMG CHEMICALS ARE SO HORRIBLE WHY WOULD YOU LET ANY TOUCH YOUR BABY crowd (newsflash: everything, literally, on this earth is chemicals). Which, seriously, can we please stop trying to promote our positions by shaming the other position or position. (Unless the other position is something like "people don't need food" or p much anything else in the US Republican platform; then shame away.) So while I totally understand not wanting to do it because of that, there are a lot of nice things about cloth diapers, too.

One of the nicest things about cloth diapers is that if you are running out? It's a pretty easy fix - LOAD OF LAUNDRY. Admittedly, you can't just throw your diapers in with whatever other clothes need washing; they need to be a separate load. And it takes longer, because you have to pre-soak and then extra rinse and blah blah blah. And you can't throw all of them in the dryer. But hey! They ARE washable! If you have your own washer and dryer like us, you can be in your pjs! It can be midnight! Doesn't matter, you can have more diapers ready to go without having to get dressed, go to the store, deal with people, and come home.

For those who are now going OMG POOP IN YOUR WASHER, well, baby clothes and sheets and blankets frequently get poop, pee, spit-up, and drool all over them. And what do you do when that happens? You wash them. Same thing. Also, once the kid is eating solids and is pooping actual poop instead of the watery loose stool you get from formula or breastmilk, you shake the poop off in to the toilet and flush it. Our washer does not smell like poop, and we've been cloth diapering for like six weeks now. Our clothes do not smell like poop either (unless they have been freshly pooped on, which, for a while, The Kid liked to poop in that thirty seconds of not having a diaper on for a diaper change, and you would be amazed at how far a three-week old infant can launch poop. It is truly terrifying.).

The diapers also don't smell like poop or pee, they smell like clean cotton. One of the challenges of cloth diapering can be getting them clean. Depending on your water and washing machine, what detergent you use, what materials your diapers are made out of (we are only using cotton and waterproof PUL covers), this can be a challenge and require lots of trial and error. There's also about eight zillion recommendations online, making things even more confusing. I was lucky enough to hit on a good combination the first try, so that's what we do. Some people recommend special detergents; I have found that the all Free & Clear detergent we normally use works just fucking fine, thanks. It does take longer to wash and dry a load of diapers than normal laundry. It takes two wash cycles - a prewash, and then a super-long wash cycle with an extra rinse. They also take a longer dry cycle, because we have mostly flats but some prefolds, as well as some doublers, and since the prefolds and doublers are thicker, they take longer to dry.

But once the diapers are clean and dry, it takes maybe five minutes for me to fold and prep the entire load? Most of the time The Kid is laying on the bed next to me, watching in utter fascination. (Folding laundry is like a fucking AIR SHOW for infants.) Changing the diapers is no more complicated either. The covers are the same shape as disposables, and are applied the same way. They close with either hook-and-loop tabs or snaps. We do use cloth wipes with the cloth diapers, and that's easy too - there's a stack of clean wipes next to a bowl filled with water that has a touch of baby wash added to it. Dip the wipe, squeeze it out, apply to baby bottom. The wipes then get washed with the diapers. They're also super fucking absorbent, so like when The Velociraptor pees in the middle of a diaper change, hey, let's use a dry wipe to soak up the extra that landed on the changing pad, YEAH. And if it takes me a dozen wipes to clean up poop, WHO CARES, they just get washed.

Cloth diapers are bulkier than disposables. Some cloth is bulkier than others (this is why I have my favorite covers and usually use flats, but that's a subject for a whole other post). I have found that generally, I have not had to size up The Kid's clothes to account for this. If it fits them while wearing a disposable, it fits them while wearing cloth. Their butt looks bigger, but that's about it.

Also, we have not had any problems with leaks with the cloth diapers, even when The Kid went to sleep for the night way earlier than we expected and slept in a cloth diaper. We've had one poop leak in disposables, and one in cloth, so it's less the cloth and more OMG SO MUCH POOP. Because leaks happen, no matter what kind of diaper you use. The cloth diapers we are using - flats or prefolds in waterproof covers - work really, really well, y'all.

Finally, once we started cloth diapering The Kid, while the amount of laundry we did went up (and probably our gas bill, because we do use hot water), the amount of trash went WAY THE FUCK DOWN. Pre-baby, we generated one bag of trash per week. We are back to that now, from about 3 bags per week. This, I like, because I don't take out the trash, and trying to stuff yet another dirty diaper in the trash when it's already full is no fun. We also are not scrounging to find any sort of plastic bag to put dirty diapers in. It's way better for us.

Also did I mention cute? I mean, how can you argue with a cow-print diaper? Or dinosaurs? Or little birds? I mean seriously.

Things The Velociraptor is Doing: Week 7

The Kid will be eight weeks old on Friday. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN.

They have definitely started realizing that they can move their hands and feet. We've watched hir bat over and over at toys hanging from their play gym in the past week or so - like, it's clearly a deliberate, repeated movement. Same with the legs - we got this play gym, which has a toy piano at the foot that they can kick. And they do. Often. Repeatedly. Deliberately. We're going on vacation in a week or so, and I'm planning on adding a few small hanging toys to the packing list, to attach to the car seat for driving entertainment.

They have also discovered that cute baby in the mirror, and will gleefully talk and talk and talk and smile at them.

They will also talk and talk and talk at US. We have reached the "coos" stage, although that really doesn't describe the range of noises zie is making. There are all sorts of coos, squeals, grunts, groans, yelps, etc. that The Kid is making, in various patterns, pitches, and tones. We have "conversations", wherein The Kid will squeal, and I'll respond, and go back and forth for a few minutes. They also try to imitate us - I can usually get hir to "sing" 'ah-ah-ah' with descending pitch at me.

The Kid has also recognized our faces and voices.  This morning, when zie woke up, they were laying in their bassinet with their face away from me. I sat up in bed, said "Good morning" and zie quickly turned their head towards me, focused on my face, and gave me the BIGGEST grin. The turning the head to the voice in the morning is new, but for a week or two now, we have gotten facial recognition. We could pick hir up while they were fussing awake, and watch hir calm down, focus on us, and then grin. Soon after that, they started tracking movement - I could lay hir in the bassinet, then be walking around getting dressed or whatever, and zie would follow my movement.

The biggest grin upon recognition helps immensely when zie wakes up after only half an hour of napping. Or when we think we have hir down for the night, and zie wakes up forty-five minutes later. Even then, I can't complain, because zie's been sleeping 7-9 hours at night consistently for weeks now. Granted, that doesn't always start until really late (The Kid's bedtime is somewhere between midnight and 2 right now), but once they're asleep, they are ASLEEP. The other night they were napping and we went out to dinner with friends at a super-noisy restaurant, and they slept through the entire thing. As well as with moving from the car seat to bed when we got home. Today zie napped through construction next door.

Zie also has been picking up their head when up on our shoulder pretty much since birth, but now is getting better at doing it while laying on the floor. Today we got to about a 45-degree angle. When I'm reclined on the couch and zie's on my chest, zie can pick their head up and turn and look at me, which is awesome.

Finally, our current favorite song seems to be "The Fish of the Sea". What, you don't sing shantys that featured in Assassin's Creed: Black Flag to YOUR baby? Pffft.

SHIT HAPPENING TO MY NO-LONGER-PREGNANT ASS

[Content: tmi, medical]

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS I HAVE A BABY AND ZIE'S ALREADY A MONTH OLD AND WHAT THE FUUUUCCKKKKK

How has this month this month and a half and almost two months gone by so quickly? I am pretty sure I gave birth like, last weekend y'all, and somehow I have this gorgeous baby who quickly outgrew their newborn-sized clothes and who smiles and coos and giggles and grunts and farts and is just SO FREAKING ADORABLE ALL THE TIME and who smells so good and eats so well and is growing SO FAST.

Mostly this past month my time has been taken up sleeping, nursing The Kid (aka The Velociraptor), and for the first two weeks, mostly sitting on the couch exhausted, but for the last few weeks, doing laundry, reading books, doing the dishes, making bottles, folding clothes, cooking dinner, shit like that. Also feeding myself and peeing. So much peeing.

I've also been working on completely re-learning how to walk, for like the eight thousandth time in my life. My hips were SO loose and out of alignment by the time I gave birth. It was really bad. Giving birth actually pretty much immediately relieved the constant pain I was in - funny how not having OVER EIGHT POUNDS OF BABY sitting RIGHT ON A LOOSE FLOPPY JOINT eases that. But I'd gotten in to a lot of habits to compensate for that joint, which, now that it's not as floppy, it doesn't have all that extra pressure on it, and my actual hip joints are easing back in, are causing me pain. So I'm having to constantly remind myself that I need to stand up straight, and don't need to waddle any more, and can effectively use my abdominal muscles to stabilize my spine again, etc. and so on. It's a work in progress.

But, it is in progress. I don't parcel out my activity in terms of how many times I can do the stairs in a day anymore. I mean, I am doing so much laundry - since we're using cloth diapers at home - but going up and down the stairs three or four times a day is okay. I went out last weekend and ran errands and went to like five stores and I WAS OKAY. I've been cooking dinner nearly every night after the first two weeks - OMFG HAVE I MENTIONED I LIKE FOOD AGAIN. FOOD IS AMAZING. I WANT TO EAT IT. ALSO COOK IT. I HAD PORK CHOPS AND TORTILLA SOUP AND ALL SORTS OF THE THINGS MY PREGNANT ASS COULDN'T EAT AND THEY WERE DELICIOUS.

Also I can wear high heels again, which is fantastic. Flats don't make my back and feet hurt as much as they did pre-pregnancy, but they are definitely back to being way less comfortable. My feet have not changed size either, which is helpful.

I don't feel like my body has changed shape or size much either. Oh, let's be real, I have a whole bunch of brand new, angry purple stretch marks all over my belly. But... I'm back in my old clothes. Not that I ever wore "maternity" clothes anyway, or bought any bigger clothes for myself. But I'm back in the jeans and shirts that were a bit too small. My belly is still soft and floppy and jiggly, but it was BEFORE I got pregnant. My boobs are still definitely bigger, especially since I am breastfeeding at least most of the time, and I don't have a single bra that fits properly, but since most of my days I'm just at home with The Kid, fuck it, I just don't wear a bra.

The one thing that may have changed would be my bits, and honestly, it's not like I looked at them, uh, at all before I got pregnant, and I haven't looked at them since I gave birth. I do know that there were A LOT of stitches put in there, and there's a couple that seem to have not quite healed. But everything seems like it's more or less okay and where it belongs? I don't know. I get them checked out IN FULL in about a week, and The Man is definitely keeping count of how many days are left until I get cleared by my midwife. (I was informed by my mother that my father ALSO kept close track of how many days were left until OMG SEXYTIMES, which on the one hand, omg, not thinking about my parents having sex, and on the other, is hilarious).

I'm also in so much better health mentally. The last month of pregnancy was really fucking tough on me, and in ways that I'm still figuring out and didn't realize at the time. I am aware that I was cranky, angry, rude, had no patience, and was unpleasant to be around, and I'm sorry. I really am much better now though. Amazing what not being in pain does for one's mental health - which I also realize I don't need to explain to many people who read this blog or follow me on the twitter-machine. Yeah, I get tired, and for the first two weeks especially, I was a, weepy as hell, and b, super-frustrated that I couldn't be up and doing everything I wanted to yet.

The weepiness was hormonal - I would see my parents holding The Kid and be all like "That's my MOM" or "that's my DAD! HOLDING MY BABY!" and be so overwhelmed with joy and happiness and sadness that oh my god, they won't always be around and the baby is growing SO QUICKLY and a whole host of other emotions that they were too much to contain and they all leaked down my face. Or I'd be reading a book and something bad would happen to a baby or child and be all like "THAT IS SO TERRIBLE OH MY GOD I HOPE THAT NEVER HAPPENS TO MY CHILD I AM SO SAD", etc. and so on. It's eased up, a lot. I'm still feeling more of those kinds of emotions than I was, but they're not leaking down my face anymore, which, I am grateful for.

The frustration was definitely OKAY I DON'T FEEL LIKE CRAP ANYMORE I WANT TO DO LAUNDRY AND SHIT and it was really hard for me to have my mom doing it all for those first two weeks. Both my folks were over here pretty much every day the first week after The Kid was born, and my mom stayed with us another week. So she cooked, and did laundry, and spring cleaned the house, and I am immensely grateful for it... and struggled a lot with guilt and frustration around it. It was hard for me to realize that yeah, if I had REALLY needed to do all of those things that early on, I could have... but the first week especially, I really wasn't capable of it, and it was better for me to rest and build up strength, and it was PERFECTLY FINE for someone to help me and do them for me for a while.

And it really helped. Yeah, I was tired after she left... but I'd had two solid weeks where I could really rest and heal, and I think it made a huge difference.

So now my days are getting up with The Velociraptor, feeding The Velociraptor (always feeding... this child, y'all, swear to Maude zie has a hollow leg because I don't know where four hours of nursing and 20 oz. of formula goes SERIOUSLY), changing diapers, washing diapers, figuring out what to eat for dinner, thinking about leaving the house, sometimes ACTUALLY LEAVING THE HOUSE... and yeah, I'm pretty happy. Tired by late at night, but happy.

HOLY SHIT

UM

SO I HAVE A BABY NOW

ZIE IS SIX AND A HALF WEEKS OLD ALREADY

I DO NOT EVEN KNOW HOW THAT HAPPENED

Also turns out that while the baby sleeps pretty regularly? Turns out that somehow I don't have much time to blog? Because I'm doing things like dishes, and laundry (this child generates 1-2 loads of laundry per day, HOW), and sneeping myself, and prepping bottles, and folding laundry, and addressing birth announcements, and going to doctor's appointments (for The Kid AND me), and making dinner, and feeding myself, and staring in to space...

It's pretty awesome.

Baby and I are both doing really well. Zie sleeps through the night and has since about two weeks old - and not just that crappy "oh five hours straight", this kid sleeps on average six and a half hours, and up to nine hours at night. Kid is also growing SO FAST. We've already had to move up the straps in the car seat and swing. They grew out of newborn-sized clothes a few weeks ago already too. At their last doctor's appointment they weighed 9 lb. 15 oz. and were 23 inches long already.

The Kid also smiles and coos and almost-giggles and tries to mimic us and is just an absolute joy. So yeah, pretty happy. Just busy :)