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What About The Poop?! Modern Cloth Diapers 201

What About The Poop?! Modern Cloth Diapers 201 | Twin Cities Moms Blog

A frequent question I receive from parents who are curious about cloth diapering is, “What about the poop?” My usual response is, “What about it?” There are a lot of reasons people give to not use cloth diapers on their baby and having to deal with the poop is definitely at the top of the list. But, as you learned in Modern Cloth Diapering 101, these are not your grandma’s cloth diapers and the same can be said of the way you deal with poop.

The Dunk, Swish and Flush Method

This, I imagine, is probably the oldest way of dealing with poop on cloth diapers. It’s precisely as you read it – dunk the diaper, swish it around and flush it down. There have been some improvements in the process though with a few products!

What About The Poop?! Modern Cloth Diapers 201 | Twin Cities Moms Blog
Eco Sprout Bamboo Liners

One such product is the flushable or biodegradeable liner. This liner is made of biodegradable materials that disintegrates when it’s flushed down. These liners are more effective, in my opinion, on a baby who is eating solids. Actually, little fact for you, an exclusively breastfed baby’s dirty diaper does not need to be rinsed off before laundry day. If your baby if formula fed, his or her dirty diaper does need to be rinsed off.

There are quite a few flushable liners on the market:

My favorite is from Eco Sprout: Eco-Bottom Liners (seen above). They’re made from renewable bamboo and not only are incredibly soft to the touch, but also, bamboo is naturally anti-microbial and anti-fungal. The liners are very thin and fit in most diapers.

A few other brands that have flushable liners are: Bummis, Bumkins, GroVia (If you follow the BabyGuyNYC, GroVia is the cloth diaper brand he’s working with.), OsoCozy, gDiapers, Kushies, Imse Vimse, and Charlie Banana. I don’t have any experience with these brands though so I can’t personally recommend any of them.

I also know of some parents who have a “poop knife” that’s basically dedicated to scraping off the poop into the toilet. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t trust myself with a knife in the bathroom. I mean what if someone else came to my house, like a babysitter, to care for my kids and she saw the knife up in the bathroom. Unknowingly, she brings the knife back downstairs and puts it into the dishwasher. I’m sorry, but no amount of detergent would get me to use that knife for eating ever again!

Dunk, swish and throw in the dry pail

This method is the same as using a flushable liner only rather than flushing the liner down the drain you simply swish, place the liner in the diaper pail and then it goes in the load of laundry with the rest of the diapers. This method isn’t any easier; you’re basically doing the same thing that you would be if you didn’t have a liner to begin with.

 

What About The Poop?! Modern Cloth Diapers 201 | Twin Cities Moms Blog
Liners by generationMe

 Diaper Sprayer: The Luxurious Way to Deal with Poop

When we made the decision to use cloth diapers on my son in 2008, the selling point for me was being able to use a diaper sprayer. This awesome little contraption is like a mini shower that attaches to the tank of your toilet. You simply spray the dirty diaper off into the toilet and flush. In 2008, we purchased our sprayer for$40. Recently, I looked at purchasing a diaper sprayer for a friend and was appalled that the cost has doubled! I mean we have had our sprayer for six years and we have used cloth diapers for all three children so it’s definitely worth the money that we spent on it in 2008. Do I think it’s worth $70? No. I say no because you don’t have to have one to use cloth diapers, however, it does increase your chances on being able to easily maintain a cloth diapering lifestyle.

What About The Poop?! Modern Cloth Diapers 201 | Twin Cities Moms Blog

You can make your own diaper sprayer and there are tons of tutorials on the inter webs on how to do this. You have to be careful though, I’ve heard some pretty gruesome horror stories of failed DIY diaper sprayers. My pal, Lindsey, from So Easy Being Green made her own diaper sprayer and has a beautiful tutorial on how you can do one too. Click here to see how you can make your own.

A newer (as in they weren’t around when I started using cloth diapers) brand, Spray Pal, created a shield for you to use while you’re spraying your diaper off in the toilet. You see, if you have the sprayer aimed the wrong way at the diaper…um it’s quite the mess. (I just did this the other day to myself!) There is a ton of water pressure in that little diaper sprayer!  Enter the Spray Pal and you have splatter free diaper spraying! Spray Pal has also come out with their own diaper sprayer and you can purchase a Spray Pal Diaper Sprayer Bundle (the diaper sprayer and the shield) for the same price as some of the other diaper sprayers on the market. Plus, the money that the family-run business makes off of their product goes directly toward the medical expenses for their son who was born 3.5 months prematurely.

What About The Poop?! Modern Cloth Diapers 201 | Twin Cities Moms Blog
from Spray Pal, illustrated by Erin Human from Human Illustrations

Those are the three main ways of dealing with poop and cloth diapers. In my humble opinion, I would either make my own diaper sprayer or I would maybe ask for a sprayer as a gift if I were to start over again. I like to call it a necessary luxury: necessary because I believe it truly will be crucial to your cloth diapering success and luxury because you don’t need it to cloth diaper at all.

Do you use cloth diapers? What do you to with the poo? If you don’t use cloth which method of poop removal would you use?

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5 comments

Lauren December 10, 2014 at 7:35 AM

We use the diaper sprayer. It’s been through 2 kids and still works like a charm. We love it – it’s the BumGenius one and it’s still a good price ($45 on Amazon). I give it to Momma’s to be as a shower present often if I know they’re going to use cloth. I didn’t realize you don’t need to spray breast milk poop off. I’m looking in to that because that would sure simplify like right now!

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Bert December 10, 2014 at 7:47 AM

Yep! Definitely do not need to spray off the breastmilk poop. If you have a few stains sunning them will get the stains right out; it even works in the winter if you sun them next to your sunny window. I’ll have to look on Amazon (duh!) for the sprayers in a few of the retail stores. We have the bumGenius sprayer too!!!

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Krista December 10, 2014 at 11:30 AM

Love cloth diapers!!! I bought the Osocozy brand sprayer and it works awesome! It was about $35-$40 at All Things Diapers in Blaine. They had another more expensive option but my mechanically inclined husband said the only difference wasn’t worth the extra expense. I’m sorry, but I can’t remember the difference. I tried the disposable liners but found them to be more annoying since I was too afraid to flush them since I read to many horror stories of doing so! I dropped a diaper accidently in the toilet for the first time and I was grossed out for the first time since staring cloth! Ha!

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Bert December 10, 2014 at 8:01 PM

Yeah I think that the disposable liners are really only effective if you have a child who is very consistent with his/her bodily functions. Trying to get a pee soaked disposable liner off and into the toilet is quite messy! And yeah..dropping a diaper in the toilet’s totally gross. I’ve done that too!

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Ashleigh December 28, 2016 at 3:04 PM

Love cloth diapers! We do the knife method but with a sturdy spatula instead 🙂

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