The flats challenge at Dirty Diaper Laundry

As I mentioned in this post we're going to participate in the Flats Handwashing Challenge over at Dirty Diaper Laundry.  How exciting!

Today was Day 1 of the challenge, and the rules state that you have to start the morning of day 1.  I did not.  Actually, with all that's been going on around here I completely forgot what day it was today!  Sometime mid-morning I thought "was today that challenge?" and went online to look it up.  And then I felt so guilty that Samuel had gone until about 2:45pm on Day 1 NOT wearing a flat diaper!  I quickly changed him into cloth but the guilt lasted all of another 60 minutes or so, right up until there was a giant bowel movement.  The guilt miraculously evaporated at that point, and I feel as though my penance has been served.

I was not prepared for Day 1, despite having spent last week thinking I was on the ball with the handwashing thing.  I priced everything I needed for a non-mechanized camp style washer, I ran the idea of purchasing a countertop washing machine with my husband, who was on board with the idea.  I even did a trial run of washing by hand in the bathtub.

The wash cycle...

 

The rinse cycle...



And the not-tumble-dry cycle.

I thought that doing a 'dry run', so to speak, would give me a handle on whether the handwashing challenge was going to be a success, or a really, really big headache.  Not that it would have dissauded me from attempting it, I just like to know what I'm supposed to expect!  The trial wash and dry was not a resounding success.  It took a pre-rinse (by hand under the tap until the water ran clear) then two washes with soap and a thorough rinse to get everything as clean as I would like it.  Thank goodness I don't pay for my water.  Then even after wringing everything as tight as I could it still took about 36 hours to dry completely (and some diapers, like the AIO {all-in-one} took 48 hours).  This was with windows open and a cross-breeze.   I felt a little uneasy about it all at that point, but I soldiered on.

So here we are now, Day 1, and I have a little stack of diapers (growing bigger by the hour) all needing to be washed!