The Flats and Handwashing Challenge!!!

Guys, you've probably heard about this already but I'm so SO excited to be a part of the Flats and Handwashing Challenge that Kim Rosas at Dirty Diaper Laundry is organizing!


The idea came to her shortly after the story came out about how families are reusing their disposable diapers in an effort to save money, which has caused life-threatening infections in some children.  (The link to that article is in the blog post she wrote that I linked above) She was trying to figure out a way that low-income families would be able to diaper their children for nearly free so as not to have to make the difficult decision between diapers and necessities like food and clothing.  But "just use cloth" is not necessarily an option since many of these families don't have their own washers and dryers.  Then she thought of flat diapers which was the diapering option for families before disposables and even before prefolds.  There are tons of different ways to fold them to customize fit and maximize absorbency, and they wash very easily since it is really just one layer of thin cotton with LOTS of surface area.  Which means that they also dry much more quickly than any other cloth diaper there is.  So, she decided that it would be the perfect cloth diaper for low income families.  But how to get the word out?  Easy! Ask us to join her in one week of committing to use only flat diapers and no more than 4 or 5 of our covers without the aid of the washing machine, dryer, or (winces) the diaper sprayer.  May23-30 is the designated week when we'll all be doing this.  So please, take the challenge with us.  This could open up so many doors to spreading the word and helping out families in need.

And for me, the challenge couldn't come at a better time! My friend just finished the first trimester of her second pregnancy and is cloth diapering her 1 1/2 year old.  She found that with her super smeller of a pregnant nose, that no matter how she washed and stripped her microfiber pockets and no matter how clean they were, she couldn't stand the smell of them.  She switched to flats and not only discovered the bothersome smell gone, but found out that washing them is a breeze.  After hearing her story, I gave a third cloth diapering friend who was part of the conversation a bunch of my flats to try, and gave my remaining flats a second chance (I'd tried them once before and hated them).  Upon using them again, I decided to go with pins rather than snappis (if you read my blog post about afixing snaps to prefolds, you know I'm not a big fan of the Snappi because of how it cuts into my daughter's bony, little hips).  With pins, I LOVED the flats! And I started using them coverless, and with wool, and once or twice with PUL covers.  I became a big fan of them a couple of weeks before this challenge so it really came at a good time! I probably wouldn't have considered joining the Flats challenge if I hadn't given my flats a second chance prior to hearing about it.

Anyway, stay tuned here and at The Cloth Diaper Blog where I will be posting about my preparations for the challenge, and my week long journey.  I will be using the seven flats that I already have and some flats that Bryana at Diaper Junction has generously told he she would send me to help me complete the challenge.  If you need flats yourself, go go on over to Diaper Junction and show them some shopping love so you can join this challenge too!  $15.95 for 12 smalls and $17.95 for 12 larges. Anyway, I hope to hear that you'll be joining me! Who knows you may find you like using flat diapers, and you may even discover that you'll gain the experience necessary to help a family in need some day.