Poop Happens {what to do with a dirty cloth diaper}

The dreaded day has come and gone: the day Ian started eating solids.

What's the big deal with that? Well, the first five or six months of cloth diapering an exclusively breastfed baby are awesome because his poop is completely water soluble. That means dirty diapers are tossed directly into the diaper pail (no rinsing necessary), then go through the rinse-wash-rinse cycle with all the other diapers. Seriously that easy.

When babies drink formula or start eating solids, an extra step is thrown in: rinsing the poop into the toilet. Here is that process for anyone brave (curious?) enough to read more. (This is a follow-up to A Cloth Diaper Change II.)

{1} WASH CLOTHS ARE DROPPED IN DIRTY DIAPER PAIL
That, my friends, is a close-up of Ian's dirty diapers. See, it's not so scary, is it?

{2} POOP IS FLUSHED DOWN TOILET
I separate the prefold from the cover by grabbing the clean edge of the trifolded prefold (the edge that rests against the back of the cover). Holding tight, I dunk diaper into toilet until all poop is off. This is the old school "swishing" method. At this point you could also use a diaper sprayer, but swishing is free and effective. Now that Ian's eating solids, many times the poop falls into the toilet without doing anything, other times it takes a little swishing to get it all off. The key is holding on tight to the clean edge and keeping hand far from hitting poopy water. It's really not that bad. Some also choose to flush the toilet a time or two to help swish the poop off, but this hasn't been necessary for us. (Seriously, at least half the time it just falls in.)

{3} RINSED PREFOLD IS TOSSED IN DIRTY DIAPER PAIL
Once rinsed, I move prefold to water-free area of toilet bowl and push prefold against itself to sort of "ring out" (without actually touching) the excess water making a drip-free move from toilet to diaper pail. (If I didn't remove the excess water, the diaper pail would also be loaded with nasty toilet water.) Keeping our pail right next to the toilet makes this step much easier.

{4} BAKING SODA IS SPRINKLED OVER DIRTY DIAPERS IN PAIL
While still holding onto the clean edge of the dirty diaper, I'll use my free hand to sprinkle baking soda directly on diaper before tossing it into the pail. Every other time (i.e., pee diapers), I just sprinkle a little baking soda into pail. Cover is also thrown in diaper pail after poopy diapers or if it smells like urine. If only a pee diaper and no smell, then the cover is set on the edge of the counter to be used at the next diaper change.

Sounds like a lot of information, I know. And who would volunteer to go through this process??!! It's really not that difficult. I bet I could make brushing my teeth sound complicated if I detailed each and every little step for someone that's never done it :) It really becomes that easy. Well, maybe easier because it takes far less time than what you're supposed to spend brushing your teeth.

{Congratulations!}

You just kept a poopy diaper out of the landfill and put the mess where it belongs :)