Cole wearing a newborn size Super Brite at 4 days old, about 8 lbs

We welcomed our new son Cole into the world on Oct. 12, 2011. He was born at the hospital, and for the first 24 hours of Cole’s life, he wore the provided disposable diapers at the hospital.  We went home when he was 1 day old and began to use his adorable little newborn cloth diapers.

His birth weight was 8 lb 2.5 oz and he definitely wouldn’t fit into a one-size cloth diaper even though most one-size cloth diapers say they fit starting at 7 or 8 lbs.

I have a variety of newborn-sized diapers in his stash, including:

• preemie/newborn Bummis organic prefolds
• Bummis Super Brite and Super Whisper Wrap covers size XS
• Sandy’s XS
• Bamboozle size 1
• Thirsties cover size 1
• Woolybottoms Hybrid Wool Soaker size XS
• bumGenius AIO size XS
• Mother-ease Wizard Uno size XS

Today I’m going to write about the Super Brite wrap and prefolds.

Super Brite and preemie/newborn size Prefolds:

Until his umbilical cord fell off (it was day 6 or 7), the xs Super Brite covers with prefolds were the best fit.They fit the lowest in the front and didn’t rub against the umbilical cord at all. The preemie prefolds are also the perfect size inside these tiny covers. I’ve been using the “boy fan fold” and we haven’t had any leaks or runny poop getting onto the cover at all. This fold can be seen on the following video (it’s the 2nd one that is shown, at 25 seconds on the clip): Bummis Organic Cotton Prefolds

Prefolds are great at this age because I think the average of changing 12 diapers a day is an understatement – I think we’re changing him even MORE than that! (They really do poop a LOT at this stage!) For only $10 for a pack of 6, the preemie prefolds are a great economical choice during the newborn stage. They also double up as a change pad and to catch pee. Our little guy pees at at least 50% of all diaper changes, so I’m going through lots of prefolds because I use one to cover him up so that he doesn’t spray everywhere, and if I miss it then I use another prefold to mop up the mess. Once he outgrows these tiny prefolds I will continue to use them for this purpose, especially because they are smaller and won’t take up so much room in my diaper bag.

For about 2 days I used bio-soft liners until the baby’s meconium had passed so that there was no staining. Once his poop turned yellow around day 3, I stopped using the liners and have been putting the poopy diapers directly into the diaper bag without rinsing, and they are coming out of the wash perfectly clean and with absolutely no stains. (because he is being exclusively breastfed)

Bummis Organic Prefolds

Super Brite Blue

You can purchase the Super Brite covers and prefolds separately, or you can buy them in the Newborn Pack. The Newborn Pack includes:

• 1 green xs Super Brite
• 1 yellow xs Super Brite
• 12 preemie/newborn prefolds
• complete instructions

and it’s a better price than buying these products individually. ($43.75 instead of $47.00)

The following is borrowed from Bummis, some great laundry science information that I wanted to share with you!

Notes compiled by Shirley Murdock, Bummis Inc.

At this year’s Real Diaper Industry Association Annual Meeting, there was a fantastic presentation on laundry science. It was presented by Steven J. Tinker, who is the Vice President of Research & Development at Gurtler Industries, Inc. and has over 35 years of experience in the detergent industry. He is also the president of the American Reusable Textile Association and the Vice-Chair of the Advisory Committee of the Healthcare Laundry Accreditation Council.

Laundry Science

Water
The main point of Mr. Tinker’s presentation was that water is 99+% of what we wash with, therefore the quality of your water is critical for the best results. He strongly encouraged all who have even medium-hard water to invest in a water softening device. Costs are quickly recovered by savings on detergent and reduction of wear and tear on appliances, fabric and plumbing. Water hardness is a measure of the calcium and magnesium carbonate present in your water.
Other factors in water that can affect washing include total dissolved solids, chlorine, iron (yellowing), alkalinity (problems rinsing – harsh fabric), organic matter etc. So in other words, water quality is crucial to washing success.

Blue: chemical action; Red: Mechanical action; Yellow: time; Green: temperature

Blue: chemical action; Red: Mechanical action; Yellow: time; Green: temperature

The Four Main Factors
The other main factors in washing success are chemical action (detergent), mechanical action (swooshing), water temperature, and time (how long the wash cycle lasts). These four components need to fill the pie chart.

It is crucial that if you decrease one of these four factors you will need to increase the others. For example, if you decrease the temperature of the wash you would need to increase the three other factors:

Chemical action is achieved by the detergent you add to the water.
Mechanical action is achieved by the movement of the fabrics against one another inside the washing machine. You can slightly under-load your machine, but not by much or there will not be enough fabric to rub against itself. Think of washboards in the river and how pioneers rubbed the fabric against the boards to create the mechanical action that drew the soil out of the fabric. It is also important to note that if you over-load your washing machine, you will not get enough rubbing action either, as there is no room for the diapers to move!
Temperature: For every 10 degree drop in temperature below 110F, there is a 50% reduction in the chemical reaction – so washing in warm to hot water is best.
Time is crucial! If fabric is not exposed to detergent and mechanical action long enough, water will not penetrate fabric and soils will not be released.

Steps in the Wash Cycle

First step: pre-rinse
At this point you can either use water alone or you can add a bit of detergent to start the initial release of soil. Never use hot water in a pre-rinse as it will set stains, but warm water is better than cold, as body fluids are most soluble at body temperature (warm).
Second step: wash cycle
Here you will need significant chemical action to have a good release of soil. Mr. Tinker recommended detergents with an alkali (to dig out soil) and a nonionic surfactant (to take away soil).
What is a surfactant? This is the active cleaning agent in most detergent formulations. Surfactants change the chemical and physical relationship between water and the surface to be cleaned. Some surfactants are naturally occurring and some are synthetic. Surfactants loosen and suspend soil and enhance the wetting property of water. Soaps are a type of surfactant and natural soaps such as soap nuts, castile soap, Ivory Soap, etc. can work well under ideal water conditions. Unfortunately many of us have less than ideal water conditions and in this case the minerals in our water can bind to the soap and create a scum on the surface of the water. This scum can cause repellency and leaking issues as well as causing diapers to look dingy.
What about Enzymes? A detergent may also contain enzymes. There are three basic enzymes: protease (which works on proteins), amylase (which works on starches), and lipase (which works on fats). Mr. Tinker did not feel that protease or amylase pose any problems for skin or fabric. Because fat is stored in the skin, lipase can potentially cause a skin reaction in those who are particularly sensitive. In actual fact however, most people can use enzymes with no problems at all, and he did note that they are effective at removing odours!
Third step (optional): bleaching
This step is important if you need to achieve ‘hygienically clean’ diapers or when you need to disinfect your diapers. Time and temperature play a crucial role here as well, especially if using oxygenated bleach. Thus when using oxygenated bleach, you will need to have both mechanical action and adequate temperature in order to activate the bleaching action; very hot water must be used along with at least 10 minutes of agitation. There does exist a type of “activated” oxygen bleach called Peracetic Acid, which can be used at lower temperatures than those required with regular oxygenated bleach.
We encourage the use of oxygenated bleach instead of chlorine bleach for environmental and health reasons, and also because chlorine bleach is extremely destructive to fabrics and laminations, etc. If chlorine bleach is ever used in a home wash – for example to deal with a particularly tough yeast infection – it is important to make sure that all urine is completely rinsed out before using it, because urine + chlorine = ammonia smell from chloramines!
Final step: rinsing
Rinsing removes any residual soil and chemicals. It can take more than one rinse to achieve great results. Mr. Tinker recommends rinsing in warm water because it releases residues more effectively. But even more importantly, a warm rinse allows water to be released more efficiently in the spin cycle so that clothes dry more quickly! Fascinating!

Fabrics: do different fabrics wash differently?
Absolutely! This is why laundry services wash cottons and polyesters separately. The fibers that make up the fabrics are very different.
Polyester is a perfectly smooth round fiber. Its base ingredients are derived from oil so it does not like to get wet (repels water initially). It also likes to hang on to oily stains and the trapped oil could possibly lead to stink if not properly washed.

Cotton twists and folds over itself, which is why it has such a great capacity for absorption. It is also very “wettable,” meaning it loves water and thus washing and rinsing are easy.

cotton fiber

In reality there is no such fabric called microfiber! What people in our industry refer to as microfiber is typically a blend of polyester and polyamides that have been treated caustically in order to create “channels” in the fiber. There are many different microfibers on the market with various appearances but the most common type has a pizza appearance (see below). Moisture is pulled in by capillary action and trapped between the inner core (star) and the “pizza” slices. This causes microfiber to be very absorbent, but also means that it is more prone to “stink” – as urine or bacteria can get trapped in these pockets. It is hard for clean water to penetrate microfiber since the polyester does not like water to begin with and the channels are already full of urine.

What helps to achieve hygienically clean diapers at home?
1) Dilution. Each time you change out the water (pre-rinse, wash, rinse…) you dilute the amount of bio-burden in the wash and flush it away.
2) Heat. Temperatures of +140F (60C) (hot water wash) deactivate common bio-organisms.
3) pH. This is applicable mainly in commercial laundries.
4) Oxidation. Chlorine or oxygen bleaches.
5) Heat from drying in the dryer on a heat setting.

I didn’t cloth diaper my first child right from the start. I didn’t really know anything, and in fact I had never even changed a diaper before!

I knew I wanted to use cloth diapers. Just like with breastfeeding, it never occurred to me that there was even another option. I had no idea what modern cloth diapers looked like, or what they cost, but I knew that disposable diapers was out of the question for me.

I didn’t do any research before my daughter was born. There was no where local at the time to purchase cloth diapers other than one kind at the department store, so I bought those, only to find out that my daughter didn’t fit into the smallest size (10-25lb). So we used disposables that people had given us at the shower and waited a couple of weeks for her to grow into her diapers. When they finally fit, we discovered that they were horrible quality and we were constantly getting leaks and poop coming out the sides. It didn’t even occur to me to research online, because if I had I would have come across dozens of wonderful online cloth diaper boutiques! But my sister thought of it, and when my daughter was about a month old a wonderful package arrived in the mail with an assortment of excellent quality cloth diapers!

In my starter package there were a variety of prefolds, fitted diapers, diaper covers, and pocket diapers, and so my journey began! As I became familiar with the diapers, it frustrated me more and more that I couldn’t purchase these wonderful products locally. I found out there was a cloth diaper boutique near where my parents live (3 hr drive away), and started planning trips home around the store’s open hours so I could pick up a couple new diapers to add to my stash every time I went home to visit.

The idea to open my own cloth diaper business came to me when my daughter was 6 months old. She was napping for about 3 hrs every day and it seemed like I had the time. So I launched “Cushy Tushies” and started with accounts for 3 different cloth diaper brands. A couple months in I stumbled across some legal issues and had to change the name of the business and it’s been “Sweetheart Diapers & More” ever since. I worked out of the house and sold online as well as locally by appointment. It was hard to expand into other products without having a show-room, and I soon began to daydream about having a store where I could also sell and demonstrate baby carriers, locally made baby items, natural skin care products, and toys. When the business was almost 2 years old I decided to take the plunge. I quit my other work (teaching piano lessons and working as a piano accompanist) so that I could focus full-time on working at the store. That was just over a year ago, and the store has turned into just what I had envisioned and hoped it would be.

The store now carries dozens of different brands of products and in addition to cloth diapers and diapering accessories, we also have breastfeeding supplies, natural toys, unique locally-made baby items, and a nice variety of styles and brands of baby slings and wraps. The majority of the items we sell are not available at any other local store.

Now I’m ready to go into labour at any moment (I’m 40 weeks pregnant) and I’m looking forward to doing things with baby #2 that I didn’t know the first time around! And so the cloth diapering journey continues. I will get to experience cloth diapering a newborn from the first day he is born. And there are quite a few new cloth diapers that have come out in the last couple of years that I never used on my daughter and I’m excited to try them out!

~Margaret Deneau, owner
Sweetheart Diapers & More

My due date is next week, so I really could go into labour at any time. This week I finally “prepped” all my cloth diapers and finished getting the baby’s room somewhat organized.
“Prepping” is to prepare your cloth diapers for use. When you first buy them, they need to be washed several times to obtain their absorbency. Natural fibers especially (cotton, hemp) need to be washed 3-5 times to strip them of their natural oils so that the diapers will absorb liquid quickly and effectively. I’ve got a variety of newborn sized cloth diapers that I’m excited to start using.
It is important to wash the diapers with a little bit of detergent and to fully dry them in between each washing. (*Make sure you use a cloth-diaper approved detergent! This is very important!*)
If you are using prefolds, you will notice that they start to fluff up and quilt up more with each washing.

Prefolds and fitted diapers that are made of cotton, hemp, or bamboo will need a bit more prepping (I would say 4-6 washes) than diapers that are made with polyester which is synthetic such as the microfibre inserts common in pocket diapers (which are probably good to go after 2-3 washes).

Since I have a variety of diapers, I washed all of them 4x so far.
I have 12 newborn-sized organic cotton prefolds, and I could see them transform from flat thin pieces of fabric into fluffy quilted absorbent pads the more they were washed and dried. They might need a few more washes to reach their FULL absorbency, but they should be good enough for my newborn for now since babies poop so much during the first couple of days that I will be changing him very frequently anyway!

In preparation for the meconium (if you don’t know what that is, I’ll leave it up to you to look it up rather than getting into the poopy details!), I’ve got a roll of flushable bio-soft liners ready to go. They will make it easy to just flush the poop down the toilet until the meconium stage has passed. After that, I won’t have to worry about rinsing poop or anything out of the diapers because I will be breastfeeding and the breastfed poop is washable and water soluble! I know some people are nervous to start cloth diapering their newborn from day 1 because of the meconium, so I will let you know how it goes.

I didn’t cloth diaper my daughter right from the start so cloth diapering a newborn will be new for me! More on that another day