Off Grid Wool Suggestions

[simply_amazing]

Hello everyone I’m a FTM expecting in October. My husband and I live off grid, we get all our water through rain catchment and try to produce no/little waste, mostly because we’re out in the country without a garbage service.

I’d love to do a mix of cloth diapering and EC with my first. I’m trying to:

• use natural materials (wool, cotton, etc)
• have a lower maintenance system (no fancy folding)
• not need a ton of water… we can really only spare 1-5 gallons/day for clothes/diaper washing and I wash by hand… no machine!
• not spend a fortune

I’ve been looking at wool covers (the shorts kind) and inners that look like diapers but with snaps (not sure what they are called).

Am I crazy to have these expectations? I know it won’t be perfect but is this realistic?

What would you all recommend as far as types of cloth diapers, amount of covers and inners and sizes to get before birth, good prices brands (I’ve just been looking at some on Etsy) and realistic expectations? I’m also not adverse to using some compostable, disposable diapers for newborn stage and traveling if anyone has suggestions.

Would especially love to hear from anyone else off grid, first time diapering, or using CD with EC!

 

[kyleeak]

@simply_amazing What about something like those G diapers at least until you get more water? They’re like a reusable cover with compostable inner. I haven’t used them but my friend liked them fine

 

[simply_amazing]

@kyleeak Oh fascinating! I didn’t even know those existed… I just looked them up and they definitely seem like a good backup and I feel like they would be really good for traveling too!

 

[kyleeak]

@simply_amazing Yeah I didn’t know about them either! Love all the options that exist

 

[rehem]

@simply_amazing I’m going to be honest, I think this is going to be really, really difficult to achieve. Maybe not possible under these parameters. It sounds like water is the main limiting factor.

I hand washed (diaper) laundry for a while with my first, and it is DIFFICULT. And I had unlimited water. I don’t know your current setup, but I used a bucket and plunger system. You do diapers twice, always. So you’d need multiple gallons of clean hot soapy water for first wash, wring out. Dump the water (what do you do now with your waste? I would be avoid dumping untreated diaper wash water onto plants), add clean rinse water. Rinse. Wring out. Another round of hot soapy water and another rinse.

It just seems impossible to me to stay under your water limits. You have to be looking at bare minimum 3x4=12 gallons per load. And I never skimped on water when hand washing diapers, because to be honest I don’t think you get the same clean you get in a machine. So I would use more like 4-5 gallons per wash or rinse cycle. With clothes I would double up on the rinse water to save water, but for diaper laundry I think you really have to treat it pretty seriously to stay sanitary.

If you had more water, you could do it for sure! I would only do flats, and I know you want natural covers, but newborn poop goes everywhere. I would just get a few PUL covers, much much easier to wash!

The only way I can imagine this working with your water limits is if ECing really works for you and you catch most of the poops, then you could probably cheat a bit and maybe alternate a “real” diaper wash (two full cycles) with just one cycle for the next laundry day if you were only washing pee diapers.

Alternatively, if you can find a copy of that Carla Emery book Encyclopedia of Country Living, I believe she has a section about old school diaper laundry where you boil them. I don’t know if that saves you water, though?

I’m sorry to be a downer! I think you can totally do it if you can find some extra water.

 

[simply_amazing]

@rehem Thanks for your comment! I don’t mind a reality check… Doing a 12 gallon load every day would definitely be difficult for us since that is kind of our “max” water usage each day including water for dishes and drinking, etc. I wonder if I got a little manual pump washer if that would clean them as well without using as much water Good point about the PULs being easier to wash… I didn’t think of that. We do have the possibility of getting city water but I don’t think it will be before the baby is born. Definitely lots to think about, I appreciate your insight!

 

[rehem]

@simply_amazing I’ve been thinking about your situation more, have you ever used a Wonder Wash? One of those little hand powered drum machines?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002C8HR9A/

This link makes it sound like you’d use much less water than with a bucket or tub system: https://www.simplygoodstuff.com/wonderwash-instructions.html

I wonder if this could work? Maybe worth looking around to see if anyone uses one of these for diapers. The drum is small, I don’t know if it’s too small for a load of diapers?

 

[simply_amazing]

@rehem Yes this is exactly what I was looking into! Right now I just wash our clothes in the sink but I’d definitely consider getting one if it meant CD would be feasible… I’ll definitely have to see if anyone has tried it.

 

[rehem]

@simply_amazing If you want to try it, I would get either flats (Green Mountain sells half size newborn flats) or flour sack towels (very cheap!) and a few newborn PUL covers (if you want to be very low cost, Alva Baby makes very affordable NB covers I liked) and try just pad folding the flat in the shell. Wrapping the diaper around baby with pins or a Snappi isn’t as intimidating as it seems, but pad folding is so easy. Literally fold into a rectangle that fits in the cover. Theoretically you can reuse covers for several changes if they don’t get poop on them, which is easier with a flat you pin on. But pad folding is so easy and if you get the cheapest version of things, you could just try it and see what you think, you know?

Wishing you all the best with the rest of your pregnancy!

 

[simply_amazing]

@rehem Yeah for sure! Thanks for the recs I’ve already started watching the folding videos on GMD after everyone recommended them… I’ll admit it doesn’t look as hard as I thought. I definitely think I’ll order some flats and try it out they’re so cheap it can’t hurt

 

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[buckeye_momof4]

@simply_amazing Just because you’ll be hand washing and line drying, you’ll likely have a better time with flats. Because they’re one layer they’re easier to get clean and faster to dry. The folding isn’t as bad as it might seem—there are certainly complicated folds out there, but in my experience, the best fold for newborns through maybe four months are the simplest ones (angel) and the more complicated folds, like kite, are more useful once baby isn’t going through quite so many diapers in a day.

Check out green mountain diapers. They sell great flats and we really like their babeegreens snap covers. For wool covers or longies though, you can also find them pretty easily secondhand for less. A few pul covers would also be good to have around for stuff like car rides, as we found the wool often got compression leaks in the car.

 

[simply_amazing]

@buckeye_momof4 Good note about the flats… I guess I’m just intimidated by the folding as a first time mom and first time cloth diaperer, seems a like a lot to learn at once I’ll definitely check out your brand recommendation, it looks like a lot of people are recommending to have a few different types of covers at least to try.

 

[buckeye_momof4]

@simply_amazing I promise I’m not exaggerating that those early folds—angel, newspaper, jelly roll—are truly no different from folding dish towels. And it can feel so intimidating now when you aren’t in the thick of it, but once you’ve been doing cloth for a week or so the folding no longer seems like a big deal. Even when we got into the fancier folds, folding up an entire load of diapers plus wipes and washcloths seldom took more than 30 minutes every two or three days. My husband took longer because he was a perfectionist, but if you keep in mind that the diapers just need to be functional enough to catch poop or pee, it won’t take so long.

We didn’t start ec until baby was much older, but that also drastically cut down on the number of diapers to fold each load, so you’ll really be doing yourself a favor there too!

 

[markiplier]

@simply_amazing I lived off grid for a while and I’d try both wool and regular covers. I found wool took forever to dry and ended up gravitating towards covers because of how fast they dry and they are a lot easier to put on baby in my experience.

Flats would be my other recommendation for similar reasons as to already stated above. They wash easy, dry fast, and will fit from newborn to toddler with different folds.

 

[simply_amazing]

@markiplier Thanks! I appreciate some insight from another off-grid parent What was your washing setup if you don’t mind me asking? Did you have a machine that you powered off grid or did you hand wash or go to a laundromat?

 

[markiplier]

@simply_amazing I did a combination of two big buckets with a laundry plunger and wringer and washboard, at one point I used a laundromat, another point I used a smaller 5 gallon bucket, and I also had a portable washer once we weren’t off grid anymore and had power. It just depended on the weather, I couldn’t hang dry in fall when it rained everyday for example. We were living in a camper while our house was being built.

 

[simply_amazing]

@markiplier Sounds like you tried a lot of washing set up methods! Rain is a big deal here for us too and we live in a tiny house so not a ton of inside hanging space. We do have a laundromat about 20 minutes away which might be a good backup if weather is bad or water is low or I just want to be lazy

 

[jesse123]

@simply_amazing The diaper inners with snaps you were looking at are called fitteds. I would absolutely not recommend them to someone who is hand washing, because it's going to be very tedious to get them clean, as they're often 16-20 layers of cotton. They also take many hours to dry on a line even in full sun. Everyone recommending flats is 100% right, that would be the best option for you as they're very simple to clean and they dry fast.