Preparing for the 7th Annual Flats & Handwashing Challenge

The Flats & Handwashing Challenge begins on Monday! Cloth Diaper Revival is hosting it this year, taking over for Dirty Diaper Laundry. This will be my first time participating and I could not be more excited!

Even though the challenge actually begins next week, I have already begun my preparations. Normally I am a procrastinator, so I am chalking up this abnormal behavior to my enthusiasm for cloth diapers, the sense of community as we all participate, and my fear of failing miserably. I am such a perfectionist.

So, how have I been preparing?

By purchasing supplies…

True to character means that I should be frantically taking advantage of #flatchallenge specific sales and wondering if I will have enough time to prep. Instead and surprisingly, I began buying items back in March with the hopes that the challenge would continue another year. I also took advantage of Earth Day sales to help bulk up my stash. Y’all, this cloth diapering world is such a rabbit hole.

By reading all the blog posts I could find about the previous challenges…

While nursing my baby, I would google “#flatschallenge” and just start reading. It has been fascinating to learn about people’s past experiences with the challenge. I found a few useful tips for the wash routine. I enjoyed comparing previous participants’ stashes and what worked for them; many of those posts helped me narrow down my own stash purchases. Reading participants’ reasons for participating each year and their reflections at the end of the challenge was also eye-opening. There are a variety of reasons – most we can all identify with – but there were also one or two that stood out in my opinion.  I cannot wait to share more on that in a subsequent post.

By practicing different folds and overnight options on my baby daughter…

The Flats and Handwashing Challenge is actually the inspiration behind my decision to ditch using disposables overnight. In many of the blog posts by previous participants, the overwhelming consensus was that flats were an adequate-to-excellent solution for overnight cloth diapering. As a newly-minted cloth diapering mama, I have been nervous about my wash routine; therefore, I reasoned that flats wash up really well and would be an excellent choice for my 7 month old daughter. After all my purchases arrived, I prepped them, and began using them both during the day and at night. We are also using one Sustainablebabyish OBF which I purchased second-hand. I like both, but I am thankful to have a bit more confidence going into the Flats and Handwashing Challenge with a few weeks worth of overnight flats under my belt.

What about you? Have you been preparing at all or are you a veteran #flatschallenge participant? If so, what is one piece of advice you wouldn’t mind sharing?

P.S. Click the link below to see a list of all the other blogs also participating in this year’s Challenge.

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