DAY 1 - DDL Flats & Handwashing Challenge - Why Am I Doing It???

Ikea Receiving Blanket in Origami Fold

It's officially started!!!  Today is Day 1 of the Dirty Diaper Laundry Second Annual Flats & Handwashing Challenge and I'm pretty psyched.  So what is the Flats and Handwashing Challenge?  Well I (along with several other cloth diapering parents) have vowed to used only flat cloth diapers and forgo my use of the washer and dryer so that I can hand wash all of Linc's dirty diaper laundry.  Ok, you can ask the question now.  I'm sure you're all dying to ask.  My husband's asked me a million times already.  "Why on earth would you want to do that?!?!"  Well I'll tell you why.

I've been cloth diapering for over six months now and have known I wanted to cloth diaper for over a year.  Being a part of the middle-upper class I've gone crazy with my cloth diaper purchases and have made cloth diapering more of a collection hobby than a bare bones necessity.  Yes, I know I could save a lot of money cloth diapering, but I choose not to.  Now at the same time I blog about cloth diapering.  I talk about how great it is and how much money you can save over disposables.  There in lies the problem though.  I don't practice what I preach and how can I really influence those that are striving to save money if I'm telling you all that the best cloth diapers will cost you around $35 each???  The simple answer is that I can't.  That being said, I found this challenge to be just what I needed to get back to the basics and practice what I preach ... saving money!  

My goals with this challenge are the following:

• Show that with a limited supply of money (as little as $50), you can cloth diaper your child till potty training.
• Research several different flat cloth diaper options and see which ones work the best.
• Test out several different flat folds and see which ones work the best.
• Show that even bare bones cloth diapering can be fun (Whoot!  Love tie-dye!).
• Build up some awesomely toned arms.
• Open my eyes to a whole different world of cloth diapering that I didn't think I'd ever try.

Day 1 notes:

- Last night I put Linc in a Orange Diaper Company toddler size bamboo terry flat origami folded with a Hemp Babies flat padfolded in.  Over that I put a Thirsties size 2 hook and loop diaper cover.  There were no leaks and he could have went even longer since the diaper wasn't fully saturated.

- This morning I had Linc in a padfolded Green Mountain Diapers Cloth-eez Flat size small.  Over that I put a Flip hook and loop diaper cover.  I'm realizing just how easy it is to padfold a flat cloth diaper.  Why mess with all the crazy folds when you can padfold in about 2 seconds.

- Right now I have Linc in an Ikea receiving blanket origami folded with a Thirsties size 2 hook and loop cover.  I love that I can get cute prints when using a receiving blanket!

A Little Cloth Diaper Challenge Humor For The Day:

A Few Hours Later ...

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If you would like to read more great posts from other bloggers also taking this challenge feel free to check out the links below.

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