The Great Diaper Experiment

You might remember the post from a couple weeks ago about the secret to a good night's sleep. I have to question whether or not we're using the best cloth diapers out there but the sleep wasn't consistent enough to justify using disposables outside of when we travel. We finished our test (results below) and determined cloth still wins out in the end. For now.

I have been having some serious issues with my wrists because of the snaps on the diapers and sleepers. Some days I feel like I have talons rather than hands. But am determined to stick with cloth and reduce my carbon footprint. Now it might be a different story if the city would take my compost if there's a compostable diaper in it. I'm not sure why. Are there not enough people in the city using them to justify the increased cost to break them down? Is it the human waste issue? Maybe people don't know that it's an option... maybe, just maybe, those who use disposables would switch to compostable diapers if they knew they just had to throw them in the big green bin. I think it's something worth looking into. If you know why, please shed some light. If I can't fix my wrists with physio and stick with cloth like we want to, my back yard is definitely worthy of a big ol' compost bin.

I guess it's just a process, figuring all this out. I know diapers are just the beginning. What a strange path I have ventured down. I can only chuckle and shake my head. I'm doing experiments on freakin' diapers!

The results - for those who want to see how it went in detail:

The first night, the one that started it all, we got a beautiful 6 hours - P woke up, nursed and then slept another 5 hours with just one boob fix during the second stretch.

Night 2 she went back to her routine of  4 hours - wake - 4 hours but then on night 3 - she gave us 7 glorious hours and then another 2 of restless sleep complete with lots of kicking (this kid is a ninja remember?!)

She slept 7 hours on the 4th night too, although we woke up after 4. Good luck getting out of that routine. She slept another 3 hours after that. At this point I'm starting to think that these long stretches of sleep may have nothing to do with diapers at all, but her possibly going through another growth spurt.

Night 5 and 6 - 4 hours - wake - 4 hours - wake - 3 hour; Night 7 - 4 hours, then 6

Back to cloth - first night she slept 7.5 hours, then slept another 4, and on and off all day. Growth spurt? mes thinks so! The next night, I honestly can't remember - it wasn't overly excessive on either end - short or long - trying to remember back a few days is hard ~ hence the name of the blog.

The third night back with cloth, she slept 4 hours with a quick side feeding, then 2.5 more hours... up for diaper change and quick feeding and back to sleep for another 3

Night 4 - 4 hours, 3 hours, and a restless 1.5 before we got up, night 5 - a decent 5.5 hours and then another 3

Night 6 sucked, and had nothing to do with her diaper at all. She slept for 4 hours, when she woke up wanting boob, we went to change her and she was completely dry. She slept another 3 and 3 after that

The final night of back to cloth she conked out for about 4 hours, then another three...

We went back to disposables for a couple nights, just to test my growth spurt theory (she did grow quite a bit that week). She ended up sleeping as (what's become) normal: a 4 or 5 hour chunk and then another 3, and if we were lucky another 2 in the morning.