figbash's Profile

sangüiche, of course. occasionally sangüichito.

This is so far down, I don't know if anyone is still reading, but I thought that i would share our experience with cloth because it hasn't been covered yet. We cloth diaper our little one and we use a LAUNDROMAT!
Our criteria for diapering were that it had to be cheap, have minimal extra accessories/equipment, and not require more laundry trips than we already make.
We decided on prefolds and bought an initial batch of 36 diapers ($36), 1 each of 4 different brands of covers (approx $50), 1 snappi ($3), a Bummis wet bag ($15--pricey but totally worth it), and a Diaper Dekor diaper pail ($40). Initial investment was just shy of $150 and has lasted us into our son's 7th month. We just bought a batch of 15 diapers in the next size--which we expect to last until he is potty trained--($30), another 4 covers (Thirsties Duo Wrap fit him best--$50), and 3 more snappis ($7). That brings the investment total to $231. We may buy a few more prefolds if the smaller ones are completely ineffective in the larger covers.

We did not buy any other accessories and do not plan to. A few weeks ago I made some washable wipes by cutting some old flannel into rectangles with pinking shears and putting them in an old wipes box half filled with plain old water. If i'm feeling sassy, I add a few drops of essential oil. We are considering trying some flushable liners when his poop requires that.

Our diaper routine is as basic as it gets: at changing time, we toss the prefold and used wipe into the wet bag in the diaper pail, give the cover a quick wipe (if it ever gets a little poop on the edge, we hand wash in the sink), and leave the cover out to dry until the next change.
The laundry routine is just as basic: We do laundry once a week at the laundromat. All the diapers and the wet bag go in one load. They go through 1 (one!) cycle on hot with a tiny bit of Tide (!) Free and Clear (which is our usual detergent) and then into the dryer. We are open to buying special soap if it becomes necessary, but so far Tide is fine. Covers go into our regular laundry, also once a week. I often use white vinegar in the rinse cycle. It costs a total of $3.75. Every 6 weeks or so i give them an extra hot wash with no detergent--extra $2.25.

Seven months in, it all works great. Not much extra work, very cost effective, and no big issues with smell/mess. There will always be some smell--they're steaming hot packages of urine and feces after all--and there is an extra step if you're dumping poop into the toilet or if you have to hand wash a cover, but we have our routine down and don't feel that it's particularly onerous.
We started at about 4 weeks because of size and getting over the initial craziness of first-time-parenthood. For nights and trips where we have to pack suitcases, he wears disposables--for everyone's ease and comfort. Target brand is super cheap and works very well for us.

Sorry for the length. My hope is that someone will find this info helpful because when we were researching we found very little discussion of how this works with a laundromat.

I love muscovado sugar and try to use it as much as possible. However, i have had some things turn out really badly when i substituted 1:1 for regular brown sugar. Mostly the bad results have been with cookies that spread too much and turned out sort of greasy. I have assumed that this is because of the extra moisture in the muscovado. Cakes, muffins, breads, and the like have turned out great--perhaps slightly denser, with beautiful intense caramel delicious flavor--but watch out with more delicate things like cookies.

I also make my own brown sugar. I especially like being able to make it as dark as I like and since I always have sugar and molasses around, I never worry about having enough brown sugar for a recipe. I do make it in advance--two or three cups at a time--and keep it in a tin. Hardening is never really a problem.

The cake looks lovely but I am really entranced by the cake stand. Do you care to share where one might find something like that?