Saturday, May 25, 2013

Flats Challenge Day 6: Babysitters and Outings

Day 6: Flats and Handwashing Challenge hosted by Dirty Diaper Laundry

This challenge could have brought some interesting issues for babysitters and outings, so I wanted to share my experience planning for and adapting to them.

Babysitters

I'm blessed to have some great flexible babysitters and to only need a sitter once or twice a week.  During this challenge, I had to be away from my girls for a prenatal visit with a client.  This sitter is great.  My kids adore her and her kids.  They always have a great time.  Plus, she's cloth diapered her kids in the past and has been following me on this challenge and knew to expect this.  Even still, I wanted things set up and easy, so I stuffed pad-folded flats in my pocket diapers and was ready to go. My little lady woke up wet from a nap just before my friend was expected to arrive, so I changed her to a clean diaper and gave a tour of the bathroom and a quick overview of my diapering routine.  I showed her where the diapers were kept and where to put the wet/dirty diapers. No problem.  Then I found I wasn't actually gone long enough for a diaper change to be needed, so that was even better.  :) The kids had a great time and knowing everyone was safe and happy meant I could focus my attention on my client.

Outings

Normally, I reserve my AIOs for outings and babysitters because they're so simple and require no skill except the ability to snap the snaps.  For this challenge, I packed two diaper bag-folded flats and a cover and one pocket diaper with pad-folded flat insert into my diaper bag/wet bag.  This arrangement was fine, except that I didn't do a good enough job stacking the flats so they would keep their shape and ended up having to refold at a diaper change. Not a huge deal for me, but the Boy Scout (my husband) probably wouldn't have loved it if he were the one doing the change and dealing with the tangled flats. In the future I'll either clothespin the flats in place or only bring pad-folds. Also, I was warned that using flats in a pocket diaper might mean leaks, but this was not my experience.  I would think a heavier wetter would have a problem and we never did pockets overnight, so maybe that's the difference?

I still have two days to go (counting today), and it's important to realize we all learn as we go. So far I haven't had any poo diapers while on the go, but I do have a homemade double pocket wet bag for my clean and dirty diapers that works nicely.  I usually keep a disposable shopping bag in it, too, in case of extra smelly diapers that may have to wait a bit for a wash pail.
Some day I may give a tutorial on how I made this, but for now you'll have to be satisfied with inspiration to make your own and probably make it better. I've learned a few things since putting this one together. The white side is the PUL layer of this material I got from Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coupon.  That made it about $6.50 a yard and I used a bit less than that to make this bag!  The white-lined pocket is for the wet/dirty diapers and the white/flower-lined pocket is for the clean.  I despise sewing in zippers, so this just closes with hook and loop, but it works nicely for a usual day outing.  It has been used for an entire day out but that's when I augment with shopping bags for the poo diapers to keep a handle on the stink.  Since it's PUL, I wash it with my diapers as needed.

What about you?  Did you expect any special challenges you had to plan for?  Or did you come upon a challenge that you WISH you'd planned for?

Tomorrow is the last day of the challenge! I'll certainly keep flats in rotation with my diapers, but I won't be hand washing except in emergencies and while camping.

Day 1: Why I took the Challenge
Day 2: How did I prepare?
Day 3: Dealing with Overnights
Day 4: How am I doing with hand washing?
Day 5: What's working? What's not?

Day 7: What did I learn?

1 comment:

  1. I had to leave my son with my mom and sister twice - for several hours, and cringed and packed fitteds. Turned out both times he slept the whole time I was gone and I was able to hold off changing him until we got home.

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