The modern cloth diapers can now be used just like how we use the disposable nappies. If you know how to use the disposables, then cloth diapering your children with Bumwear cloth diapers should be a piece of cake.

Dealing with baby's urine
Bumwear cloth diapers, with its fleece lining next to baby's bottoms allows the wetness to pass through to the soaker material (the insert) placed in the pocket of the diapers. The fleece will remain mostly dry. With a single microfiber insert, the diaper can last about 3 hours, depending on the baby's output.

How about the solid waste ?
Dealing with solid waste, is definitely one of my least favourite aspects of cloth diapering. However, I have discovered to my delight that using cloth diapers lined with fleece makes cleaning poo off diapers so much easier.

The following section is lifted wholesale from the http://diapershop.com/washing.htm by Jessica Wiseman.

“Don that biohazard suit, it's dunk time. The Chunky diaper and I make our way to the bathroom. I shake any loose solids off into the potty. If I feel it needs a little rinsing, I rinse. I do not submerse my hands in poop-water. Geerrrooosss. I recently learned that my own mother would dunk and rinse and wring those dirty dipes out with her BARE HANDS!! *moment of silence to honor my brave and fearless mother who thinks I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to dunking poopie diapers* I rinse a chunky-style diaper PRINCESS STYLE. I hold it by it's dryest, cleanest corners and delicately dunk and swish, NEVER submerging the whole thing! This is NOT baptism by immersion. I just swirl it around until I think most of the big stuff is off. I drop it into the pail in the bathroom and forget about it until wash day.”

I absolutely recommend using a nappy liner each time. I found that if I use two layers of nappy liners, most of the baby's poo would be "caught" by the liners leaving me with minimal washing. This works well even with a fully breastfed baby poo. The little poo that might have got to fleece is washed off easily under running water. No sweat. Really :-)

Solid waste are easily washed off the Bumwear cloth diapers because of the fleece material we use. Newborn breastmilk poo just slides off the fleece when it’s rinsed in the toilet. As the baby grows and has more “stickier” poos, the poo will be caught by the nappy liner. If you have forgotten to use the nappy liner, you can clean the poo-ey diapers "Princess Style" like how Jessica does it above. If the dunk and swish method of the Princess Style doesn't do the job to your satisfaction, then it's time to use the spray gun. I simply spray at the poo-ey parts until they fall off the diapers into the toilet bowl.

How about meconium ?
There is the trickier question of how to deal with meconium, the tar-like first poo out of newborn babies. The meconium passes over the first one day to one week of the baby's life. Cloth diapering presents an interesting challenge while the meconium passes as it stains horribly. The cloth diapering website http://www.clothdiaperinfo.org presents a few options to prevent staining (and possibly having to throw away badly stained diapers).

Disposable Diapers
Since disposables are simply thrown away after being soiled, there is no worry of staining.

Disposable Liners
Disposable liners can be put in the diaper to prevent the meconium from staining the diaper. Once the baby has pooed, simply throw away the liner.

Washable Liners
Flannel liners can be put in the diaper and used like a disposable liner. Some parents choose to wash and reuse these little pieces of flannel, others just throw them away.

I personally prefer to use disposables until the meconium is completely passed out. No point risking my precious stash of cloth diapers :-)