Cloth Diapers

 As I've mentioned before, we're using cloth diapers on Peter. Almost all of my friends with babies use disposables so I have done a lot of internet research and learned a lot about cloth by trial and error. I wanted to document our experience with cloth diapers for others who may be interested and also because I use this blog as my baby book and this is a significant part of Peter's babyhood.

We started using cloth when we ran out of disposables that people bought for us, which was at 3 months. Our stash includes 24 diapers and I wash them every other day. Most of ours are BumGenius brand, but we do have 4 from a garage sale and several others I ordered online because they had a really cute pattern (Legos, mustaches, and Spider Man).

We chose to buy the pocket-style one size diapers. The pocket-style diapers come with microfiber inserts which go into the diaper and pull the moisture away from baby's bottom. You can add more than one insert for night-time to go longer between diaper changes. We went with the adjustable diapers because they can fit baby from newborn-potty training, so that will save a lot of money in not having to buy more diapers as baby grows. The snaps on the front are what allow you to adjust the diaper to fit baby in all directions (around the legs, tummy and front to back.

He loves the diapers. I promise.

There are a lot of advantages  to cloth, but the ones that appealed most to me were:

1. Price! It's significantly cheaper in the long-run to use cloth diapers over disposables.

2. Cuteness! I think babies extra padded cloth diapered bums are just adorable.

3. No blow-outs! Cloth diapers hold messes in much better and tend to be more absorbent so they minimize the outfit changes needed, especially with poopy diapers.

4. Price! Seriously. It was probably the number one factor for us because I quit my job to stay home with Peter and we are now living on one income. Diapers are expensive! We also use cloth wipes, which were given to us for free, so we've been able to avoid the expense of wipes as well. 

5. Future kids! We hope to have more kids in the future and the real savings will come into play when we don't have to buy diapers for them because we'll already have these cloth diapers. However, I do have to say that I'll probably want to buy a few girly diapers if we have a girl. 

(There are, of course, some disadvantages also, but it's still worth it to me.)

For many people, the idea of adding MORE laundry to their life would be enough to rule out cloth diapers completely. I actually don't mind doing laundry...it's one of the chores that I tend to keep up with pretty well. (Now, cleaning toilets and washing dishes, I let those go way too long! We all have our downfalls.) Another load of laundry every two days isn't really a big deal to me, particularly because I am not working and spend most of my time at home. If I were working full time outside the home, I do not think I would be doing cloth diapers, mainly because I wouldn't want to devote my coveted home time to doing more laundry. 

The wash routine is fairly simple, once you're in the habit of doing it. If we're at home, we change all of Peter's diapers on the changing table that's connected to his crib. The cloth diapers, microfiber inserts, and cloth wipes all go into the trash can we use as a diaper pail. It has a reusable liner in it that's also washable, so we just dump the liner and all of its contents into the washer at one time. The diapers go through a cold rinse cycle first and then get washed on hot with an extra rinse at the end. Nothing else goes in the load so it's not like we're getting poop on our clothing during the wash cycle. When they're finished washing, the inserts, wipes, and liner go into the dryer and we hang the diapers to dry in our bathroom. We'll probably hang them on the back porch when the weather gets nice this summer.

We spent about $250 total on cloth diapers, which is more than you'd have to spend to get started. I bought almost all new because I hope to use these diapers for several kids, but you can buy them in good used condition for much cheaper. The average cost for disposable diapers is about $70/month so that means we'll start saving money after using our cloth diapers for 3.5 months, which is in just a few weeks. I haven't done the math myself, but most of the articles I read regarding cloth diapers stated that you can expect a $5-$10 increase in your water/electricity/detergent usage per month, but that's still pretty minor compared to buying disposables every month for a couple years. 

One concern I'd heard about cloth diapers was that clothing, especially pants, wouldn't fit correctly because they can be so big and bulky. We've not found this to be a problem for Peter. He has always worn clothing for his age (at 6 months he is wearing 6 month pants) and hasn't had to go up a size because of his diapers. He does have an extra padded bottom and it sometimes looks pretty funny in tight pants, but it does give him extra cushion when he falls down.

We use cloth diapers exclusively and have since we started. Many people who use cloth use disposables when they're away from the house, but that actually seems like more work to me, so we stick with cloth all the time. I keep a couple plastic grocery bags in my diaper bag at all times and I just put the dirty cloth diapers in there until I can get home and put them in the diaper pail. Right before we went to cloth diapers, we were given a Costco size box of disposable wipes (900 wipes!) so I keep some of those in my diapers bag and use those when we're away from the house. Oh, speaking of wipes, I make my own solution for the cloth wipes. I store the wipes dry and then squirt a little solution onto the wipe before I use it. The solution is a mix of water, coconut oil, baby wash, and lavender oil. It smells yummy, removes the gunk really easily, disinfects, and the coconut oil even coats his little bottom so that poop won't stick to him very well and stays on the diaper. 

This is what the diapers actually look like in the drawer most of the time...shoved in there, facing different directions.

I'm really grateful that cloth diapering has gone well for us. I certainly don't believe it's for everyone and this post is in no way meant to say that using disposables is bad or wrong. As Peter starts eating solids and his poop starts getting more solid, I'm starting to think disposables sound pretty good actually. :) We all do what works best for us. For us, if that means I have to wash, dry, and stuff diapers 3-4 times a week to get to stay home with Peter, I'll do it happily!