Why is it that you appreciate the comforts of home so much more when you are away? We’ve been out of town for 5 days now and I miss my bed, my pillow, my cat!
Luckily the family and I got to visit Disney again on Sat/Sun before I had to attend a training class in Orlando this week. They came back home Monday and I got home tonight. This trip was a little different than normal…
We traveled with our cloth diapers!!! That’s right, we took our stash with us to a hotel for more than a day! Here is what I had planned (followed by how it worked out!): 1) Friday night I washed our stash and put Lil’ B in her GroBaby diaper with BioSoaker, and 2) packed a combination of BioSoakers and Bum Genius. I was hoping to make it easier on my husband so he wouldn’t have to do a ton of wash as soon as he got home on Monday.
Unfortunately my plan didn’t work out as planned BUT it worked…Lil’ B pooped in her GroBaby Friday night and got some debris on the cover so I couldn’t take the only GroBaby cover I had with us!!! But I wanted to try the BioSoakers in other diaper covers to see how well they worked so I wasn’t too scared. I packed about 15 Bum Genius too; just in case something went wrong! (Old faithful has never done me wrong!)
We drove to Orlando and spent the first part of the day watching our GA Bulldawgs play football at a local sports bar then we went to check in to the hotel. Since Lil’ B was in red I put her in her Happy Heiny which is red along with a BioSoaker and the system worked well. Unfortunately after the second change the BioSoaker has bunched up and the HH cover was damp. I didn’t really care too much since I had plenty of BG covers and we were headed to the Magic Kingdom anyways (change in clothes was needed to stay warm!).
I packed my diaper bag with a few of each…a few BioSoakers and a few BGs…you never know what’s going to happen, right? At the first diaper change I noticed a slight problem…the BioSoaker sticky pad was not removing from the BG cover! OMG…my precious BGs!! Not only were they not removing from the BGs the fecula backing split open and the inside of the diaper was exposed…luckily it didn’t make a huge mess. Since I already ‘messed’ with this BG cover I stuck another BioSoaker on it for the next few hours. The damage was already done at that point. This continued the rest of the evening until we got back to the hotel again.
I then removed the BioSoakers from our rotation for the weekend and went back to regular BGs with the inserts (we use the 3.0 one size pockets). The next day at Epcot I packed 4 BGs in the diaper bag and we were off. I have to say it felt much more ‘normal’ to me to use the BGs as intended. My bag was a little more full with the stash but so much easier. Thankfully we didn’t have any poop-plosions while at Epcot to deal with though!!!! That was my worst fear was having to carry that around all day with me! (UCK!!)
Hubby went home on Monday afternoon and had just enough BGs to make it home with. Luckily I left a few behind so he has some at home to use too. Then it happened…
My hubby had to wash his first load of cloth diapers EVER! Now…my hubby is an awesome husband and father but I try to keep control over some aspects of cloth diapering so he won’t complain…one of those is the wash! Not only do I not want to hear about all the water used for washing the diapers…I also don’t want anyone else to be responsible for washing our stash wrong. Honestly you really can’t mess them up and he has heard me talk about the wash routine so much I don’t know what I was worried about. I left him verbal directions and gave him a choice of detergents (RockinGreen Soap or EcoNuts…his choice!!). He called me after he finished the wash to make sure he did it right…funny that he didn’t call me before though! Everything sounded like it went well. I got home a little while ago and the diapers are all neatly stacked in Lil’ Bs room, fully stuffed, ready to use again. Thanks babe for all that you do…
In the morning I will inspect the BG that was potentially damaged in the BioSoaker incident and let you all know the outcome. The worst case scenario is that the cover will have a sticky residue in two places…at least it’s only one cover and I can pass along the warning to all of you. If you are going to be using the BioSoakers use them with the GroBaby shell only…or accept the outcome! I love our GroBaby system and will write up my formal review tomorrow…the good and the bad!
The other thing that was different this trip was the absence of my ancient Medela electric pump…which croaked last Thursday! It’s seriously over 6 yrs old and I’m surprised it still works at all. Because I didn’t want to play around with it and attempt to fix it I purchased a manual pump on Friday. With Lil’ B being 9 months now I don’t really see the need for investing in another electric pump…this is my last baby and I don’t have much time left on our breastfeeding journey. I only needed to use the pump Monday afternoon through this afternoon…a full 2 days…how bad could it be?
…did I really just ask that question? It’s soooo NOT fun to use a manual pump! I’m so spoiled with my electric pump that I was not ready to pump for 40 minutes and still not get all the milk out! And think about it…all that pumping hurts your arms after a while…I guess that’s what it’s like to be a guy! (((LOL!))) Anyways, today was the worst day because I didn’t want to pump at all since it was taking so long. I got home around 7pm and I was about to explode! Lil’ B ate a few small snacks but didn’t really empty the milk factory yet. Is it wrong that I want to wake her up again when I’m done writing? I guess tomorrow I will take apart Mr. Medela and see if I can’t fix the electric pump so I will stop cussing at this stupid manual pump!
And on that note…I’m going to go check my email, Twitter, and Facebook one more time and log off for the evening. Sleep tight! (Of course most of you will be reading this until the morning so Good Morning!!!)
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I love you… Even though I think you’re a crazy person… 😉
Happy to hear your trip went well! I can’t imagine using a manual pump..I had to use an electric one the other day and I was so thankful I don’t have to do that every day.
How nice of hubby to do a load of laundry for you, I’m glad all was well w/ the diaper when you got back home! Looking forward to your GroBaby review 🙂
When you look at it all… it doesn’t seem like it was that bad. I do not let my hubby wash, he only rinses! I like really don’t like the sound of the word “BioSoaker” although the concept seems okay. I’m just use to my prefolds and covers.
Hope you get a good rest after all this,
CJR
You could use some dawn and a tooth brush to get the sticky off your BG’s.
Glad you had a good time and can’t wait to see your review on the grobaby!
invest in another pump…you can always resell it or give it to a bud when you’re done! worthy investment 😉 xoxo