Full-time cloth diapers!

Yup, I'm doin' it. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law found a large set of cloth diapers at a garage sale for a great price (those things are pricey, even second hand!) and brought them to me last week. They are great for around the house, but they are REALLY bulky and Alaina kinda doesn't like that (which is a good thing, but I'll get to that) and they also don't fit under clothing at all. At least, not anything that fits the rest of petite little Alaina. I could dress her in 3T clothes, I guess, but I decided to take a different route. I decided (with Brice's input) that it would be worth the investment to buy some cloth diapers that were more fitted to use along with the giant stash we now have (between prefolds, homemade (which are the only ones that fit under clothes), hand-me-downs, and the new used garage sale set, we have a bundle) so that we could go at this full time and not just around the house on days when it's warm enough for Alaina to toddle around naked. So I shopped around (I love the Internet) and found a great deal on diapers.com. For less than what it would cost to buy a three month supply of the cheap disposables from WalMart, I got six gDiaper sets with cloth inserts (I told you they were expensive). I plan to convert a portion of our vast prefold collection into inserts and not buy anything else for diapering for Alaina EVER! Even if Alaina is potty trained in three months (which is a possibility), I will still feel justified for two reasons. Without the feedback of cloth diapering, potty trained in three months is much less of a reasonable goal. Second, we will have this set of cloth diapers for the next baby and won't have to spend money on disposables for him/her. If this goes well, I may buy some more of these cloth diapers in a smaller size to use before he/she is big enough for the set we now have.

The first time we tried to put one of the garage sale diapers in Alaina, she freaked out! I couldn't get within a mile of her with another diaper for 20 minutes. Since then, she fusses about half the time I try to diaper her in cloth! She'll tolerate the disposables, but the cloth kinds create a momentary uproar (once the diaper is on, she's over it). The good part of that is that it motivates me to let her run around diaper-free, which facilitates both her awareness and mine of when she needs to go. Even though her initial objection to cloth was due to the bulky kind of diaper, I think that she also associates the cloth with feeling wet because after she pees, she comes to me to tell me, whereas she doesn't tell me when she's wet a disposable. This was my main purpose with going to cloth full time. Until I got the new diapers in the mail yesterday, I was using just a prefold without a cover held on by one of those waist scrunchies I made a while back (I think I posted about those). Those are not bulky at all, but also not secure enough for regular use--I only use them when I'm keeping a close eye on things. But she still objected to those some of the time. She's fussed about the gDiapers once or twice, but she's mostly okay with them. She fussed when I tried to put a new one on after the first time she pooped in one.

Alaina poops in the bath A LOT! She hates it, I hate it, we all hate it, but I think it's actually a good thing. It means to me that she doesn't like to go in the diaper and that some awareness is still there. I usually put her in the bath to play and I sit on my bed to read or piddle around on the computer so I can hear everything going on but I don't have to sit on the floor of the bathroom. Today, I got my yoga ball and a book and sat in there with her because I could tell right at the beginning of her bath that she had to poop. She tooted and signed potty to me. So I sat there with her and any time I saw her straining to poop, I took her out of the bath and offered the potty. Mostly we just caught gas. But eventually she did get one tiny little piece of poop out. Not enough for me to do a full on happy dance, but she's trying! I watched her really close for the next hour or so hoping that the rest of the load would come, but it didn't. She got so tired I had to put her down for a nap and I knew she would poop then. I was right. She woke up poopy. Drat. Oh, well. We're getting closer! One step at a time.

Wow

My bad. Oops. Alaina was in the tub a little bit ago and she signed potty to me. I had just pulled off a poopy diaper before I put her in the tub so I figured that she had probably peed in the tub. But then a minute later, she was crying and fussing and when I went in to see why, she'd pooped in the tub! She really hates being in the tub with her poop, so maybe that motivated her to tell me she had to go preemptively. At any rate, I think I'll start putting her in the tub any time I know she has to go. Then maybe we can finally get a catch!

Then, just now she signed potty to me again and at the same time she tooted. I took her to go potty and her toot had been juicy. She didn't go, but she's doing better with signing! Yay!

Progress--slowly but surely

Alaina has been signing "potty" to me more and more. A couple of times it's been before she goes, but then she still won't go on the potty. Ten or fifteen minutes later, her diaper will be dirty. She also likes to sit on the potty, even if she won't use it. So we just need to put it all together. A couple of times lately, when I hold her over the potty, I can tell she's trying, but just doesn't have to go. So hopefully it won't be too much longer--we only have three more months until the baby is born! C'mon Alaina! You can do it!