So many people have asked me in my year and a half of cloth diapering, “But what do you do with the poop?” For those of you who are wondering, but were afraid to ask, here’s your answer.
Maybe some of you remember your mom using cloth diapers on younger siblings (my mom was having her kids in the ’80s and disposables weren’t quite up to par just yet). I know I remember, and that was one reason I swore I would never use cloth on my kids. I remembered my mom sticking her hands in the toilet and scrubbing those diapers silly to get the mess off and I swore I would never be caught dead doing that. You know what? I still swear I won’t be caught dead scrubbing diapers in the toilet….I don’t scrub them….I spray them! Thanks to somebody’s genius idea, there is now a handy contraption called a “mini-shower sprayer” that attaches to your toilet plumbing (very easily, I might add) and never again will anyone have to stick their hands in the toilet to clean a soiled diaper! It looks kind of like the spray hose on your kitchen sink, only it has a little more power and it works great at getting off the last bit of soil that won’t fall into the toilet on its own. I think I payed around $30 for mine and I really love it! It takes a little getting used to at first, but it is really not that big a deal.
For those of you who are still skeptical, here’s some more info for you about the “yuck” factor:
- “The extra step seems like too much work.” Most disposable diaper packaging, until recently, had instructions on it directing you to dump solids into the toilet. Turns out the trash is really not the best place for human waste. We have all sorts of codes for sewer and septic systems, but when it comes to dirty diapers in the trash, it seems like people just look the other way. I don’t know why these instructions have disappeared from diaper packaging. My only thought is that they figured nobody was doing it and it makes disposables seem less appealing, so they took it off. Really, the extra step should be taken whether or not you are using cloth, and while it does add an extra minute to a diaper change, it is only a minute!
- With the exception of one mom I know who throws away soiled clothes, most people still scrub out their child’s clothes if a diaper has a blow-out or if their potty trained child has an accident, so in terms of dealing with your child’s messes, you will likely be doing it anyway. And really, once your kid is on solids, their dirty diapers should just knock off into the toilet most of the time anyway, no spraying required. Cloth diapers also come with the added bonus of less blow-outs than disposables. I can honestly say I have had much fewer messes in cloth, and the messes I have had in cloth were usually due to “operator error” or a size getting too small.
- Ready for the shocker? My husband prefers cloth over disposables. He says disposables smell horrible (something we have noticed: that a soiled disposable smells worse than a soiled cloth diaper.)
- Exclusively breastfed babies (that is, those that take no formula and no solids) have dirty diapers that do not require any rinsing in the toilet first. Breastfed waste is water-soluble, meaning it will come out in the wash. So for the first 6 months or so, you won’t be doing any rinsing! Just take that diaper off and throw it in the diaper pail!
- Wash day requires no touching of yucky diapers. You will use a diaper pail with a lid (can be a tall kitchen trash pail with a lid) and you will put either a plastic trash bag in or a “wet bag” (a special washable bag specifically for diaper pails). When you are ready to wash, simply lift the bag out of the pail and dump contents into the washer. If you are using a wet bag, just drop that in on top of the diapers and wash (post to come on how to clean and care for your cloth diapers).
I hope that helped to clarify the “yuck” factor. I truly enjoy using cloth on my baby and I want to help others on their journey as they grow to love using cloth on their own babies, so if you have any other questions about anything, please email me. kd_2006@hotmail.com
For my diaper specs see:
“Cuddly Newborn Cloth” and “All About My All-in-Ones” and keep watching for those nighttime diapers I told you about!
Very informative!!
Thanks for all the info, Kerry! I’m definately considering this option for my little one
I’m sure I’ll have lots more questions as we get closer to his/her arrival 
Hey Keri,
My sister in law does cloth diapers and is looking into getting one of those sprayers that attaches to the toilet. I remembered you mentioning it a while back so I looked up this post on your blog. She has been looking online for them and has been finding them for $40+. Where did you find yours?
So I guess you just put the urine soaked diapers in the pail & it all comes out in the wash? I know if I don’t rinse the urine out of my potty training child’s clothes after an accident, it still stinks even after it has been laundered (not to mention makes the other clothes in the load stink!).
You are exactly right! The urine soaked diapers go straight in the pail. I know the stink you refer to and have experienced it myself with my older son’s clothes. For awhile I couldn’t figure out why my diapers didn’t stink, but potty training clothes do! I think it actually has to do with two, maybe three, things. The first is the wash routine diapers call for. I always do a cold rinse first without detergent, then a hot wash with detergent and a cold rinse and then another cold rinse. Lots more water means lots more clean! The second thing is that diapers get stinky (and leaky) with detergent buildup….the buildup is actually what holds the odors. With my older son I used a different detergent for my regular clothes than for my diapers (the diaper detergent being less prone to buildup), so I have a hunch that was why I had problems with only the clothes! The third thing that could possibly be the culprit is the type of fabric. Synthetics tend to hold odors more than natural fabrics and that goes for diapers too, which is why I like to use cotton bamboo for my diapers. I always noticed that those pajamas made out of nice synthetic stuff ALWAYS stank the worst after accidents had set in them for a few days!
Anyway, I rarely have the stinky problem for my child’s urine soaked clothes anymore (Isaiah still has that occasional accident) really do to one thing. I switched to a fantastically amazing detergent called Charlie’s Soap. In a study compared to Tide, two loads of laundry were repeatedly washed, one with Tide, the other with Charlie’s. After each wash, the load was weighed with a very sensitive scale and they found that the weight of the Tide load actually kept increasing, whereas the Charlie’s load stayed the same. I use Charlie’s on my diapers and my regular clothes now and I rarely have stink for anything! Ask my stepmom, she confessed to sneaking a few sniffs of my clean diapers and other laundry when she was here visiting last and was shocked to find there wasn’t one!
So there’s my long-winded answer….yes, I just put the urine soaked diapers in the pail and it all comes out in the wash.