My Ramblings: Unwrapped: Flats & Handwash Challenge: Day 4 - Thoughts on Hand Washing and How I'm Doing

I am taking part in the Second Annual Flats and Handwashing Challenge hosted by Dirty Diaper Laundry. For 7 days I will be using only flat cloth diapers and handwashing them in an effort to prove that cloth diapering can be affordable and accessible to all. You can learn more about the rules and why this challenge was started by visiting the announcement post. This year there are over 450 participants from all over the world!

{Warning: Pic Heavy Post}

I tie dyed a dozen of MissE's flats! Check them out! Click here to see how I did it.

Can you spot the shapes? There's a Mickey Mouse head, a Rebel Alliance symbol (from Star Wars), and what was meant to be a Heart but didn't really turn out. I did the shapes towards the top of the flat instead of in the middle on purpose because most of the folds that I use do not showcase the middle, the back of the diaper would end up being more towards the top.

Back to the topic at hand. Today is Day 4 of the Flats and Handwashing Challenge! We're halfway through! So far, the hand washing is going great! I could definitely do this on the occasional circumstance such as travel or natural disaster, but honestly, it's a lot of work for day to day. If I had to choose between hand washing flats or switching to disposable diapers, I'd definitely take this route and hand wash flats though. I still love it! I'd also definitely take hand washing flats over buying disposables if we were in one of those situations that you keep hearing about on the news where families are having to choose between food and diapers or are trying to rinse out and re-use disposable diapers or leaving baby in them longer than they should to make that pack go further. It breaks my heart that people are in that situation when there are other affordable and sanitary options out there.

My current wash routine is to either leave the flat diapers dry or last night I soaked them in the sink overnight. Then I rinse them first thing in the morning with warm water. Next I fill the sink with water as hot as I can stand and detergent. I use my wash board to scrub each piece individually until I feel it is sufficiently clean and set aside until all pieces have been scrubbed. Then I fill the sink with a few inches of water to swish everything around in, then rinse each individual item under running water until I feel that the detergent has been completely rinsed out, wring out, and then take outside and hang to dry.

Today I washed all of the flats. In MissE's normal diaper laundry in the washing machine, a small bit of bleach (1/4 cup or less) has been the only thing that will guarantee that her skin will stay clear. I haven't been using bleach during this challenge and yesterday evening she broke out in a rash. So today I re-washed all of the flats by hand with a tiny bit of bleach, plus did regular laundry, packed for our trip tomorrow, {attempted to} cleaned the house, and chased the baby. It was a long day.

MissE was trying to pull down the flats that I tie dyed last night while I was washing diapers this morning.

As I had said in a previous post, the flats dry within two hours and most covers within four. My wool must be dried overnight but I haven't washed any wool covers during this challenge yet and the fleece takes a few hours longer than the regular covers. I live in South Texas about 20 minutes from the beach so it is hot and humid here. MissE went out to help me hang her flats this morning!