Pooping...

When it comes to cloth diapering, poop is probably the biggest fear and hurdle many parents face.  As I'd mentioned before, when we had a service we never really dealt with poop.  Sure we wiped our son's bottom, but that was the extent of it.  Leave it to the service to take care of...

Now we don't have that luxury anymore.  It has to be dealt with in one way or another...  There are two products we use that really reduce the grossness of handling a poopy diaper.  The goal behind using these items is to reduce the amount of actual poop touching that might occur.  Trust me, I know it's different when it's your own kid's poop, but I still find it pretty disgusting.

Even back in the day when our parents were cloth diapering, the first step to cleaning a poop diaper is to shake as much of the poop itself into the toilet.  With toddler poop that can sometimes be all it takes, but it's not a guarentee.  One way to assist the clean break between poop and diaper is a flushable liner.  We use GroVia BioLiners.  I chose this product because it seemed a bit wider than the other liners that were available at our diapering store.  I simply lay the liner on the top of the diaper before putting it on our son.  It's a little tricky with a prefold using my standing up technique, but when it's in the diaper the right way it can be a real life saver!  In our experience this alleviates 80% of the poop handling you might have to do.

The other 20% of the time for us is typically when we don't have a liner in, or the liner has shifted and isn't really giving the proper coverage inside the diaper.  Today for example, I changed a poopy diaper and then did not put a liner in the next diaper, figuring that was his nap diaper and it would only be pee.  I was wrong, I got to change two bombs in a row.  I didn't freak out though, I have a diaper sprayer!  This sprayer attaches to the plumbing at the back of the toilet.  We don't have ours nicely rigged to the wall or anything, it sits around the bottom of the toilet out of the way.  The water pressure is relatively good, and with a little patience you can spray the remaining poop particles off the diaper without getting your hands dirty.  Having a pail in the bathroom close by would be a good idea.  For now I have to ring out a bit of the water and walk the diaper to the laundry room.  You should wash your hands after changing a diaper anyway, so it doesn't phase me too much.

I've read that breastfed newborn poop is water soluble and doesn't require rinsing.  I'm still a bit skeptical as I don't want to put poop straight in the washing machine.  At least with the presoak step in my washing routine I could probably deal with the newborn poop in the utility sink first.  Toddler poop on the other hand needs to be removed as much as possible before washing, so I'm glad I use liners and a sprayer or I wouldn't know what to do!