So I’ve gotten more than a few comments on my posts over the past several months (yes I read them!) and many of them have to do with my choice – yes choice – to dunk and swirl poopy cloth diapers in the toilet instead of install a diaper sprayer.

Some of you are downright appalled that anyone would willingly stick their hand into a toilet full of water to clean off a child’s poop.  Even as I wrote that sentence, the “pre-kids-me” shuddered a little bit because truly it is gross.  But, I decided, it is better than the alternative.

The truth is, I do have a brand new diaper sprayer.  In my linen closet.  Still in the packaging.  And every time I get it out and contemplate installing it, my three-year-old suddenly appears by my side very interested in exactly what I am doing with that cool-looking contraption.  I usually mumble something about cleaning diapers and quickly put it away.

I have a couple of excuses issues.  First, it would definitely be my very non-handy hands installing it.  My husband has so little time at home with us and his list of to-dos is already very long. My daughter might be potty-trained by the time he got around to it.  Either way, messing with plumbing intimidates me immensely.  I know I should suck it up and just follow the directions but…

The other reason why I haven’t made myself install what one of you called a “life-changing appliance” is that I am worried what creative uses my three-year-old might find for it.  I have had visions of him spraying my entire bathroom with the super-fun sprayer, deciding his sister needs a bath with the sprayer or setting up a car wash for his trucks.  He uses that bathroom a lot.  And he’s independent enough to go to the bathroom and climb up on his stool to wash his hands on his own, so I am not always there – nor do I want to be there – to make sure he’s not touching the sprayer.

Also – this might be silly – but I don’t have a place to mount the sprayer.  There is tile behind the toilet that I am not willing to drill into and the wood vanity is along the side, but again, not willing to drill into it.  How do others solve the mounting dilemma?

Bottom line is that I am probably not going to install it (though I really am curious).  My daughter is 11 months old now and she generally only poops about once a day.  Sometimes less.  Her poops have become more solid over the past couple of months and relatively easy to shake off into the toilet.*  Sometimes the poop comes off cleanly enough that I don’t even have to dunk it.  Sometimes I do need to give it a couple of quick dunks and flushes.  And yes, there are times that I spend several minutes crouched in front of the toilet, swirling, flushing and shaking (okay, cursing and shuddering too) to get the poop off.  And I do have to wring out the diapers over the toilet when I’m finished.  But overall, I think my method works well enough for me to continue.

…especially because I don’t have to worry about an early morning wet bathroom surprise!

Tell me are there those of you out there that have chosen not to install a diaper sprayer?  Or maybe there are some of you that installed it and removed it out because it was being used for “alternative purposes”?  Or are there some alternative uses you’ve found that make it worthwhile?

*I have learned a couple of tricks along the way that do make my method a little easier. First, sounds gross, but leaving a poopy diaper alone to dry out a little makes the poop a lot easier to peel off and plop into the toilet.  Second, I have a designated rubber spatula that I keep in the bathroom to help flick the poop off the diaper and into the toilet.  Don’t worry, it will never be used again for food – I wrote “poop” on the handle just to be sure.

Sarah is a mom of two and blogs about her adventures in motherhood, cloth diapering and everything in between. Catch her “Cloth Diapering Unwrapped” series on the FuzziBunz blog every Tuesday.

Yes, you can keep cloth diapering simple, but when there are so many great cloth diapering accessories out there…why?

I think accessories are big part of what makes cloth diapering so much fun.  Everything from diaper sprayers, to the Snappi, to diaper liners, cloth wipes and wool dryer balls, someone has seriously thought of everything and come up with a cool solution (you mamas never cease to amaze me!).  I was thinking today about which accessory is my favorite, which truly makes my life easier, and which one I couldn’t live without.

And I settled on …drumroll please… my hanging diaper pail (and various other wet bags)!

What an ingenious solution:  a bag that holds the dirties, blocks odors, serves as a transportation mechanism and hangs up off the floor on a hook or doorknob.

We have ours hanging on the back of the doorknob in my daughter’s room.  The door is right next to the changing table, so it works to put dirties in there immediately after changing them.  Knock on wood, I have never had a problem with smell from the hanging bag.  So little smell that sometimes I start to take them out to wash and am surprised by the smell from some of the diapers.  It’s amazing that her room never smells like dirties – all credit goes to the diaper pail.

The FuzziBunz diaper pail has a cool feature that allows you to unzip the bottom to just let the diapers fall into your top-loading washer.  Pretty convenient, however I have a front-loader, so I end up taking them out one by one and putting them in the machine (truth is, I like to separate the insert from the outer shell on each diaper and have been pre-rinsing all my inserts anyway, so I would probably do it this way even if I had a traditional washer).

The really great thing is that even though I wash the diaper pail every time I do diapers, there is not one sign of wear or tear on this thing.  I think it would probably hold up through several more cloth diapered kids (the bag could handle more kids, not sure mama can!!).

I also have a couple of smaller, zippered wet bags that I take with us when we travel (clean diapers zipped inside on the trip there, then I use it to store dirties while on vacation).  When I chose wet bags as my favorite accessory, these little gems were definitely included.  A friend recently told me that when she cloth diapered her first daughter, she didn’t have any wet bags, so they just used disposables whenever they went out because carting the dirties home was too much hassle.  I don’t even have to ask her to know that wet bags are now on her favorite list too – what a difference they have made now that she’s cloth diapering her second baby!

The best part is that I figure all of these bags have a gazillion other uses once we’re out of diapers – a snack or lunch bag, for bringing wet swimsuits home from the pool, to send to school for potty training accidents (my son’s were sent home in plastic grocery bags, ick), lingerie/socks packing bags or to carry dirty clothes home.

So I’ve made my decision… wet bags make my cloth diapering life easier and more fun.

What’s your favorite cloth diapering accessory?