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Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Cloth diapering advice needed!

I apologize for the silence on this blog. I've been having an internal struggle with whether or not I should continue blogging. My life is decidedly less glamourous since moving back to the US. Throw a baby into the mix and all glamour goes out the window. Hence this post about cloth diapering. God I wish it was a post about a trip to (insert awesome place here).

I'm hoping the title on this post will generate some traffic of some folks in the know about cloth diapering. We have been using BumGenius 4.0s and Fuzzibunz (both OS and sized) since A was 8 weeks old. I thought it would be difficult to get my husband on the bandwagon, but we both really like cloth diapering (as much as one can like dealing with their child's poo). He's always been prone to diaper rash, but we've typically been able to nip them in the bud after a few days. However, it feels like once we came back from our trip to Ireland in June (where he was exclusively in disposables) we just can't kick it. He had what was probably the worst diaper rash of his life on the flight back to the US. That was in disposables with Burt's Bees ointment.

I try to change him every 2-3 hours. We use Angel Baby Bottom Balm and while it has always worked a treat, even that doesn't work well any longer. In his wipes water, I just add some calendula oil and lavender oil. I switched to Ecover laundry detergent from Tide Free. That change showed some benefit, but now it's back to the same old rash. We give him occasional baths in baking soda. The doctor gave us some anti-fungal ointment, so we used that along with Boudreaux's Buttpaste and disposables for about a week. That worked okay, but it never went away altogether. My wash routine is: cold rinse with Bac-Out; long, hot wash with Ecover; short, cold wash with no detergent; 2 cold rinses. I typically dry the inserts/wipes in the dryer and hang the covers on the rack. I've stripped the diapers using Blue Dawn. I've added Grapefruit Seed Extract to kill yeast. I've dried everything in the sun. He's in disposables at night with the buttpaste. The diapers will start to smell like ammonia in the wet bag, but once they're washed (which is about every 3 days) they're fine. Even when he pees in them, they don't smell. If they do, I strip them with Dawn. What's left? Any ideas??

Does anyone know if it's possible for a baby to be allergic to the white material in BumGenius diapers? I know they can be allergic to the colored PUL on the outside, but that doesn't seem to bother him. The rash isn't around his legs where the diaper touches. He's actually starting to protest when I go to put the BG diapers on him. I bought him some size large Fuzzibunz and just started him in those. He's fine when I put those on him. But, I don't know if that's just because they're new and aren't 'tainted' in the way the BG are or if they're genuinely better. I'm thinking about selling my BG stash and just replacing it with Fuzzibunz (not OS, but the Perfectly Sized-style). But, as you know, these things aren't cheap, so if there's anyway I can salvage the BGs (which we've always loved), I'd rather do that as they're in excellent shape. I considered replacing the inserts, but I'm not even sure if that would be worth it.I think I'd rather spend my money on new Fuzzibunz.

So, Internets, what do you think?? We don't really want to switch to disposables, especially as it doesn't seem to make anything much better, but I'm just about at my wit's end here.