We’ve been calling Julius “little squish” since he left the hospital. He gets all cuddly and kind of squishes himself up against you when he is sleepy. And he’s basically a ball of goo when he’s tired. You could squish the little guy into any position and he’d live with it. Hence “little squish”. Well my little squish is now a whopping 9.2 lbs and 22 inches long as of last Thursday! 22 inches is in the 95th percentile for his age! I told Will we’re going to have to start calling him “big squish”!
I thought the baby blues were supposed to be over by now, but I started sobbing today thinking about putting the little squish in daycare. What if I miss his first word? I know millions of people put their kids in daycare, but for some reason this is a serious concern for me right now!
At this point though, his daily milestones are mostly eating, sleeping and pooping. This means I’ve (understandably) gotten lots of questions about how cloth diapering is going. I can honestly tell you, it is going pretty well! We started him in cloth diapers as soon as we got back to our house (this was a week after he was born since we stayed with my parents after leaving the hospital). For now, we have decided to continue using disposables when we’re out on the town, just to make things easier. (But we don’t go out very often so we haven’t used many disposables.) From what we’ve observed, he doesn’t mind the cloth diapers any more or less than disposables. He seems indifferent to either type and cries when he is wet regardless of the diaper. As for me, I think the cloth diapers make his fanny look big which is kind of adorable.
When I decided to go the cloth diapering route, I also decided to use cloth wipes as well. In the hospital they teach you to use a disposable wipe that you wet with water, and that’s just what we do at home with the cloth wipe. Originally I purchased a package of OsoCozy wipes off amazon. Their wipes cost $.66 a piece, which isn’t big money, but I knew I could make them for a fraction of that price. While I was pregnant I bought a yard of flannel fabric from Joann fabrics (on sale for $2.50 a yard). From this I produced 20 wipes – for a total of twelve cents a wipe! Now that’s more like it! You can make your own wipes very quickly if you have a serger. I made all twenty in less than an hour!
Little squish striking a pose in his cloth diapers.
What you’ll need:
- 1 yard of 42″ wide flannel fabric (I purchased natural cozy flannel)
- Serger
- First machine wash and dry your flannel. There will be some shrinkage, so its easier to account for that initially.
- Divide up your fabric into 20 8″x8″ squares (or whatever size your shrinkage allows – it may be a bit smaller or bigger depending how much shrinkage occurred.)
Divide fabric into 8″x8″squares
- Cut squares.
Cut squares
- Serge your fabric squares, rounding the corners slightly.
Serge squares, rounding corners slightly.
The wipes are easy to put into a wipe container. My co-worker gave us a munchkin wipe warmer, and while I’m still debating if I want to store the wipes wet or dry it works perfectly for holding fabric wipes this size! To store your wipes in a container – assemble as follows:
- Place wipe on table.
Place wipe on table.
- Place second wipe overlapping with first wipe by 50%.
Place second wipe overlapping with first wipe by 50%.
- Fold first wipe in half over second wipe.
Fold first wipe in half over second wipe.
- Place third wipe overlapping with exposed portion of second wipe.
Place third wipe overlapping with exposed portion of second wipe.
- Fold second wipe in half over first wipe.
Fold second wipe in half over first wipe (left side of second wipe over right side).
- Place fourth wipe over exposed portion of third wipe.
Place fourth wipe over exposed portion of third wipe.
- Continue stacking wipes until finished, then push the top wipe half through the storage container opening.
Place wipes in box.
Feed top layer of fabric through hole in wipe box.
Or just watch this GIF!
How to fold wipes
