Spray Pal Review

This post was originally written in March 2016 and updated in October 2020. My experience with Spray Pal changed over the years with use – like many things you have a honey moon phase and then you slowly fall out of love.

I purchased my Spray Pal system from Lagoon Baby in Canada. It’s also available at many cloth diaper retailers and shops across the world. 

Check out this podcast episode with Common Crazy on all the different ways to manage poop when cloth diapering. 

The first 6 months of cloth diapering is bliss. Breast fed baby diaper laundry is easy and carefree. They are simply just washed. Breastfeed poop is merely water soluble and washes out in the wash. Eventually, your child has to eat solids. You can’t avoid it. It’s the next step in growing up.

You could cloth diaper without a diaper sprayer. It’s not absolutely mandatory. However, it does make life easier and more fun.

Poop Belongs in the Toilet

Not only is poop gross and disgusting, but poop is health concern in our landfills. Poop is full of viruses that need to be handled by waste water treatment facilities. Diapers in landfills lead to a plethora of potential problem (think about cholera, parasites and e-coli break outs from the turn of the twentieth century).

Yes, this means even poopy disposable diapers should be shaken into the toilet before the garbage can. 

Getting poop into the toilet is a pretty straight forward task, unless the poop is stubborn.  Before I had a sprayer I would swish it around in the bowl until all the poop came loose. This was messy, gross and not very efficient.

What is the Spray Pal System?

The Spray Pal System is a cloth diaper sprayer and spray pal shield. It is very much like any other sprayer on the market (you could even use a bidet) but it features a special designed shield that helps contain the mess and allow you to spray without all the chaos.

There are many different types of shields used by cloth diaper parents for managing poop removal using a sprayer or bidet. Th

 

There are a few different options when it comes to sprayers, but a quick poll of my cloth diaper friends suggested they were all pretty much the same. I decided Spray Pal because it was the only option with the hand dandy spray shield. Some of my friends created their own spray shields for a fraction of the cost, but I had a moment of realizing – “let’s get real, you’ll buy the supplies and never finish the project.” So I bought the system from my favourite retailer and had it a couple days later.

Spray Pal Installation 

I let my husband install the sprayer. He failed to read the directions and decided to take apart more of the toilet than needed. It simply attaches to the toilet water tank. No additional parts needed. No need to take apart the hose and connection pieces (like my husband thought)

It was easy to install and even easier to use. Remember to turn off the water with each use otherwise it WILL leak. It did leak and I had a little bit of a mess to clean up.

This is the part of the story where I removed my Spray Pal sprayer because despite diligent turning off, my sprayer still leaked. It started becoming a chronic problem to the point where I no longer trusted it and my bathroom flooded.

We removed the sprayer and never looked back. Cleaning up a wet bathroom was challenging and I opted to dunk and swish. I never tried a sprayer again and I can’t say I would be the first to recommend one, but I maybe I had a faulty sprayer.

Using the Cloth Diaper Sprayer

1. It’s pretty simple.
2. Place the shield in the toilet, attach the diaper, turn on the sprayer and spray till clean.
3. Roll the diaper up (squeezing out the water) and dispose in the wet bag.
4. I then put my shield on a large prefold and turn off the sprayer.
5. Ta Da! Poop in the toilet, and diaper ready to be washed.

We’ve had it for about a month and I love it. I absolutely adore it. So far nothing has gone wrong and there have not been any major incidents. Its fun to use and reassuring that I know that my poopy diapers are being disposed of correctly. Here’s to saving our landfills one diaper at a time!

We’ve gone three years without it and I don’t miss it. I stopped using the shield because I found it would easily get splattered with poop and then was hard to clean. I found it bulky to store and my bathroom is roomy but not that big. I did pass on to a new family and we uninstalled the sprayer and tossed it.

Spray Pal Recommendation

Back in March 2016, I told you that you needed one.

Now, I’m not so sure.

It was lovely to have a sprayer, but if you’re in Canada you can access many lower cost bidets and sprayers through Amazon and the hardware store that may be more reliable.

I’ve also recently learnt about Diaper Dawgs and I think the spray collar is a much easier device to clean and store than the bulky Spray Pal shield. Check it out, it might be a better fit.

In the end, I rarely used my Spray Pal shield after the first month, and uninstalled my sprayer within a year.