Flats Challenge Day 3 - For the Love of Flats!

For those of you who somehow missed it, I am participating in the 2nd Annual Flats and Handwashing Challenge.  If you want details click the link, but basically everyone who is participating (almost 500 households) agrees to use flat diapers that are then handwashed and air dried for a week.  Each day those of us with blogs try to talk about the same topic so that we can all share our ideas and learn from each other.  The topic for Day 3 is "How do you use your flats?".

Being me, I assumed that this question was asking what your favorite folds are which I briefly touched on in my last post (origami for T and pad fold for A).  However, when I started looking around I saw that this post could be a lot more broad.  The topic isn't just flats this week, but flats in general.  That is a topic I can really get behind (please pardon the pun).

Tired boy models the origami fold.

While flats may not be me normal "go to" diaper, they do see a lot of use in our house.  How hard our water is seems to change a couple of times a year and when that happens I have to adjust my washing routine for my diapers.  While I'm figuring out what's wrong I switch over to flats because they are the easiest to get clean and the fastest to get dry.  If I can get any diaper clean and dry quickly it will be flats.  My cotton prefolds are next on the list (and my general favorite), but they are still harder to wash and slower to dry than the flats.  I also love flats for when my baby is in between sizes of diapers.  When the infant prefolds were just a touch too small and the next size up was still rather giant, flats fill the gap.  When A became a supersoaker and was leaking out of her diaper at night a folded up flat provided the extra absorbency we needed to save the sheets.  Flats are also really breathable so when we have had problems with diaper rash a flat with a wool cover gave our kids the air their bums needed to heal.

A much younger A sporting a flat and shorties during last
year's challenge. We use the same set-up for rashes.

However, the place we use flats most often is as a backup against running out.  A despises disposables and refuses to wear them.  Now that she is verbal she claims that they hurt, especially when she pees.  Because of this we can't really plan to buy disposables if we run out of diapers due to lack of planning.  We keep a few flats and two one-size covers in the car in case we run out while running errands or visiting friends and we keep a stack of flats in the house in case we get behind on laundry.  We try not to need these back-ups, but when we need them it is nice to know we have them.  I especially love that I don't have to worry about leaving A in a wet diaper if she uses her last one when we are at a friend's house or carrying a half naked T in to the laundry room because I didn't realize until it was too late that I hadn't pulled the diapers out of the dryer yet.

A still loves her flats, this time in her training
pants!

How about you?  Do you use flats in every day life?  If so, how?  Click here to read everyone else's answers.