Cloth Diapers

After seeing this picture of Abram with his cloth diapers, someone asked if I would give my thoughts on cloth diapers. I would love to! (Thanks, Leah, for asking!)

First, though, I want to start by saying that if you use disposable diapers, that is great. This post isn't meant to make you feel bad for not using cloth diapers. Most of my family and friends use disposable diapers and I am very happy for them to do that.

WHY DID WE CHOOSE CLOTH DIAPERS?

It all came down to saving money. Steph Flies did a post on her blog about cloth diapering and I'm going to steal her statistics on the cost of disposable diapers.

Disposable diapers are expensive. If a child is potty trained at 3, he/she will wear an estimated 8,000 disposable diapers — and buying Luvs, Pampers, or Huggies (even the Target brand) in their economy-sized packs at stores like Target, Babies R Us, Amazon.com, or Costco works out to an average of $.19/diaper. That’s an estimated $1,520 per child, assuming I buy the diapers at this economic price every time. If I buy the diapers in a regular-sized pack at a grocery store, the average price is $.24 — that’s a whopping $1,920 per child. (and to be completely honest - this was the BEST CASE scenario as most $ numbers I've seen have been much higher than this).

WHAT BRAND?
We use BumGenius All-in-one diapers. When I was looking into cloth diapers, I talked to a friend of mine (Jenny Drew) who had had tried a number of different brands and kinds of cloth diapers over the last few years. She said if she had to do it all over again, she would just buy all Bum Genius diapers. So, I took her advice and went with it and I have been VERY happy with them. In fact, when they arrived, my husband was even impressed with how they looked (and he has a high standard of quality). I think they looked much more like a real diaper (and better quality) than he expected!

HOW MUCH DO THEY COST?

Bum Genius diapers are on the higher end of cost for cloth diapers. They are about $16 each. (But as I mentioned above, the quality is very high.) Here are the other items/accessories I bought:

- 18 diapers

- trash can that fit in Abram's closet that I could keep dirty diapers in.

- 2 large diaper totes (water resistant bags to line your trash can with). I like having two so I can use the clean one while the dirty one is being washed.

- 2 travel wet bags (water and odor resistant bags to carry in your diaper bag)

- A few packs of bio-liners (These are disposable, keep your diapers from staining and make flushing the poop easier! They are not necessary, but I like them.)

- Anti-pill fleece from the fabric store. Several months after using my cloth diapers, Abram started to get diaper rashes regularly. You can't use diaper rash cream with cloth diapers (because they will make the diapers unable to asborb fluid). I cut the fleece about the size of the bio-liners and use them when I need to use diaper rash cream. They have worked well.

All-in-all, we spent a little over $400. But, this will last us through the diapering years of all the babies we have.

HOW MANY DIAPERS DID YOU BUY?
I ended up buying a total of 18 diapers at Jenny's recommendation. (I probably bought the 12-pack and then the 6-pack from the link I posted above). I chose 18 because I estimated 6 diapers per day would last me three days and that has worked out very well. I think it has been about the perfect number of diapers.

HOW OFTEN DO I DO LAUNDRY?
I wash diapers about every three days. But, that has been true since Abram was 6-7 months old (going through 4-5 diapers a day and not six or so). So, at different ages of your baby, you may wash more or less. I try not to let them sit more than 3 days.

STAINS?
I buy flushable liners you can put in the diapers (I bought them first from the same website as the diapers and just bought more from amazon.com). They are really thin and resemble (in size and weight) a dryer sheet. Their function is to basically catch the poop (and protect the diapers from the poop!) so you can flush the liner and the poop down the toilet. They are great and I wouldn't like doing cloth nearly as well if I didn't have those liners! Because of those liners, the diapers don't stain much at all. Steph mentioned on her post that she washes all her diapers in clorox once a month.

ANYTHING I DON'T LIKE?
I will say that before Abram was eating solid food and his poop was more soft/runny, when I would stand at the toilet and have to wipe the poop out with toilet paper, I didn't like it. (Really, who would?!) But every time I would think, "even though I don't like doing this, it is definitely worth it because it is saving us a lot of money!" And I totally believe that today.

I do want to say that because Abram was formula fed, early on he only pooped once a day so that made cleaning the poop out fairly easy in comparison to others. One of my friend's baby pooped several times a day and had very runny poop. That would make cloth diapering more work, but I imagine those who have been in that situation have thought it was worth it, too.

WASHING
First, and very importantly, there are a limited number of laundry detergents you can use with cloth diapers. Regular detergents can ruin the cloth diapers. I think you can find the kinds that work on the website above. I haven't looked into it much because I use soap nuts. I decided to use them before I got cloth diapers. They are all natural and unscented. Someone suggested them to wash my new baby clothes in. I was honestly skeptical of how they would work with my dirty diapers, but have been very pleasantly surprised and impressed. My friend Jenny Drew sells these. I think $12 worth lasts me 2-4 months worth of laundry (all my laundry, not just diapers). So they save a lot of money, too!

When I wash them, I just dump my big laundry bag (large diaper tote) into the washer on a cold wash cycle with no soap nuts. It is basically an inital rinse cycle. I think most people then do one hot cycle with soap/soap nuts. I wasn't happy with the smell after these two cycles (I have a pretty old washer), so I actually do TWO hot cycles with soap nuts.. Even though I do three cycles when I wash them, because I just dump them in, washing them is very easy. I dry them on low.

OTHER THOUGHTS
- The BumGenius diapers we bought work for the baby's full diapering life . . . they expand (via snaps) to three different sizes. This makes them a great investment because you don't have to buy different sizes as your baby gets bigger.

- I didn't start using the cloth diapers until Abram was 2-3 months old (I think this is what most people do). Until that point, babies are just too small for the cloth diapers to work effectively. I guess it depends on how big your baby is. Abram was 6 lbs. 8 oz., so he was pretty little.

- I had problems with leaking around 4-5 months and found out that I needed to move up one size. I'm still on the middle snap size with Abram. I only have problems with them leaking when I wait too long to change them.

- You should use a disposable diaper at night. Cloth diapers don't hold the moisture away from the skin as well as disposable. Using cloth at night creates diaper rashes.

- Obviously when you are traveling, disposable are worth using for those times. I do use cloth when we go to our parents for the weekend or something like that.

CONCLUSION

Abram is now 10 months old and I have loved using cloth diapers. Of course it is more work than disposables, but once you get in the swing of it, it just seems normal and "easy." And every once in a while when I am having a bad day, I just use disposables! It is great to have that option available.

It was really helpful for me to have Jenny Drew nearby when I was buying all my diapers and supplies and when I started using them. I called her many times! So, please feel free to contact me if you have questions or want to talk more about cloth diapers. I would love to help!