Flats Challenge Day 5: What's Working (And What's Not)

Day Five of the Dirty Diaper Laundry Flats and Handwashing Challenge is wrapping up now. I feel like I have settled in to the routine of handwashing, hang drying, and folding pretty well. I got the hand wash done today in 30 minutes and was excited that I have gotten so much faster at it! The first day I think it took me 50 minutes, but I've gotten more efficient each day, so getting down to a 30 minute time is awesome. Today the blog topic is all about what is working and what isn't. 

Flats

To be honest, I love all of the flats I have been using. I was most skeptical about the Flour Sack Towels before the challenge started, but they have actually worked surprisingly well. I have several brands of birdseye cotton flats and they have all been working great too. The bamboo fleece flats from Sweet Bobbins have been great for overnight paired with a Geffen Baby hemp/cotton jersey flat. The bamboo terry squares from Orange Diaper Co have also been really great at night. I used the toddler sized one last night with the ODC bamboo fleece doublers and that combo worked great. 

Folds

I'm getting better at the Origami Fold, but I have learned not to use it if poop is imminent. 

 

I think my favorite fold is the Jo fold: it is easy to fold, goes on baby well, and has absorbency where I need it. The only issue I have had with the Jo fold is that it is trickier to use my diaper sprayer to get the poop off. All the edges of the flat end up in the middle so it takes longer to get it all off. I love using a pad folded flat in a GroVia or Flip cover. Actually the pad folded flat in a Flip cover is seriously making me reconsider my old style Bum Genius Elemental stash. Most of the other folds I have tried have been working really well. The only one that did not work was the Origami Fold for containing poop. This might be just because I didn't have it folded onto Ava snugly enough, but we had an unpleasant poop in crib experience yesterday due to an origami folded flat.

Pad Fold in a Flip - loving this combo!

Washing

Smaller loads are the key to successful hand washing in a bucket washer. The first day I washed seven flats and four covers and I really felt like that was too many for my bucket. Maybe if I had tried just washing those in the tub it would have worked better, but since then I have tried to make sure that I do no more than five flats in one bucket load. I have given up on my cracked bucket lid and have just been plunging the bucket without it. It's a little more splashy than I would like but it's been working ok. 

Overall

The Flats Challenge has been largely successful for us so far. It does take time each day to hand wash, hand dry, and fold, so some things around the house have slipped through the cracks. Sometimes hand washing your kid's diapers comes at the cost of knowing what dinner will be! I'm looking forward to the last two days of the challenge though and I am so glad I decided to take this on this year!