Thursday, April 14, 2011

Wet pail, dry pail, no pail?! Decisions, decisions, decisions.....

Since we will using cloth diapers for our baby I am trying to decide which will be best for us - wet pail or dry pail.... or no pail.  I think each method has benefits and disadvantage so it will be an experiment for us. 

Using a the wet pail method basically entails having a bucket, tub or basin filled with water and some sort of solution mix for the dirty diapers to soak in before they are washed.  From what I've read this seems to be the best solution (pail filled 1/4 of the way with water, then add 1/4 cup of vinegar, 1/4 cup of Borax, 1/4 cup of Baking Soda or Arm & Hammer Washing Soda, 3 drops of Tea Tree oil.  You can add 2-3 squirts of Bac-Out Enzyme Stain Remover for heavily stained diapers).  With this method you wouldn't have to spend a lot of time with rinsing the diapers, you could just toss them into the wet pail.  The disadvantages (in my opinion) of this method is 1- you have to change the water and solution everyday and I plan on washing every 2-3 days.  If you don't change the water and solution everyday you could get a build up on the diapers. 2- It could get pretty heavy to haul around when you are ready to put the diapers in the wash (depending on where you had it located). 3-You would still have to get the diapers out by hand, but I guess you could use gloves if you wanted.  Let's be honest, I'm pretty open minded, but the thought of sticking my hand in poo water just doesn't sound that amazing to me.

Using the dry pail method consists of a flip top trash can with some type of liner or bag to hold the diapers.  I have read (but haven't smelled) that you don't even need a lid and sometimes letting the air circulate actually smells less than if you had a lid covering the dry pail.  To alleviate any smells you can sprinkle a little Arm & Hammer baking soda on top of the diapers.
There is also the method of using no pail and hanging a wet bag (or something similar) where you change the diapers.  You just put the dirty diapers in the bag and on wash day the diapers and the wet bag go into the laundry.  The only problem with this is how big your wet bag is or how many bags you have will be the deciding factor on how often the laundry gets done.

I am still undecided on either using a dry pail or using a wet bag.  We might go with the dry pail first and see how that goes.

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