Cloth Diapers are Easy, Inexpensive, and Perfect for My Family

My son Peter at 6 months in a bumGenius 4.0

My Cloth Diapering Experience
 
When my sister started cloth diapering her son I thought she had gone off the deep end.  But then again, her baby, Henry, did look super cute in them, so maybe she wasn’t that crazy.  When it came time to decide what type of diapers to use on our new baby,  my sister convinced me to try cloth.  Had it not been for my sister, I’m not sure that I would have found the amazing world of cloth.

 Henry sporting a bumGenius Clementine

I had lots of questions so I went online and did my research.  Cotton Babies was a wonderful resource to find answers to all the laundry, product, and sizing questions that I had.  I am also fortunate enough to live near a Cotton Babies’ retail store located in Vancouver, WA.  My pregnancy coincided with the store's grand opening sale which allowed me to start up my cloth diaper stash with some amazing deals.

The next step was convincing my husband that we should cloth diaper, and he is one of the biggest skeptics on cloth diapering that I have met.  I showed him some of the bumGenius diapers I had gotten from Cotton Babies, and he was impressed with the ease of them.  However, his biggest question and concern was “What do you do with all the poop?”

This was something that I was worried about too, but thankfully you can just throw the diapers in the wash.  He was a little grossed out at the thought of the poopy diapers being washed in the same machine that his shirts and pants are washed in, but I can honestly say we have never had a problem.

We started using cloth diapers once Peter weighed about 8 lbs and I've never looked back. As for my husband, he's adjusting well.  I secretly think he likes cloth diapers more than he will admit.

Henry and Peter (cousins) in matching diapers

Laundry

While Peter was exclusively breast fed, his diapers could just be thrown into the wash.  Now that we have started solids, I just rinse the contents of his diapers into the toilet with a diaper sprayer.

One of the great things about cloth diapers that I have experienced is that I have never had a "blowout."  Disposable diapers just don't hold the poop in like cloth diapers do so people often loose their baby's adorable outfits to nasty poop stains.  Because the cloth diapers have elastic around the back and  the front,  the poop stays in.

I usually don't have to change Peter's outfit during the day because we rarely have leaks and don't have to worry about the poop.  I would most likely being doing extra loads of laundry each week of baby clothes  if I used disposables.  There really is a trade off, use disposables and wash poopy clothes, or use cloth and wash poopy diapers.  When you have a baby, there is no way to completely avoid the poop.

So about that laundry...  I can honestly say that laundry is one of my least favorite chores to do in the world.  But its okay, because cloth diaper laundry is super easy.   I do a load of diapers every two to three days.  I know that the official “rule” is that you should wash your diapers every other day so that they don’t stink but I've never had a problem. (I'm not always the best at staying on top of my chores list.)


   My cloth diaper laundry routine is this:

•            Regular wash on cold with a little detergent.

•           Re-wash on hot with detergent with an extra cold rinse.

•             Hang up covers and diapers with hook and loop closures to dry. 

•          Throw everything else in the dryer on hot.

I hang dry diapers on a rack in the laundry room.

And that’s it.  I love cloth diaper laundry because I don’t have to worry about pulling everything out of the dryer the second it is done.  Most my diapers have pockets that I stuff but the nice thing is I can stuff the diaper 5 seconds before I put it on my child, so if I put off stuffing the diapers, it's ok. Even though it drives my sister crazy that I don’t neatly fold all my diapers all the time, my baby still always has a dry diaper and a clean bum.

bumGenius 4.0

These are my favorite diapers.  These diapers are very easy to use and are "daddy friendly."  You can adjust the size of the diaper so that it grows as your baby grows.  In figure 1 below, the diaper sizing snaps are in the small size, and in figure 2 they are in the large size.

Figure 3 shows the insert for the diaper.  It's folded over into the small size.  Because we have a boy we stuff the folded size into the front of the diaper for extra absorption but for a girl you would put that at the back of the diaper.  Figure 4 is the pocket that you stuff the insert into.

figure 1

figure 2

figure 3

figure 4

Cost Analysis 

Another wonderful aspect about cloth diapering is that you save money.  And because cloth diapers can last through the diapering of multiple children, the more babies you cloth diaper, the more money you save.  So lets do some math to see just how much we can save:

There are three basic diapering solutions for you and your babies diapering needs; disposable, cloth diapers (to wash at home,)  and cloth diapers with a diapering service.  For my calculations I am going to assume that the average baby is potty trained at two and a half years and that an average their diapers is changed 6 times a day, which is a very conservative estimation.

For the disposable diapers I am basing it estimate off of Costco's Kirkland brand diapers because that is what my husband and I would be using if we went that route.  I researched the Tidee Didee Diaper Service in Portland and used their prices for the estimate.

As you can see, using a stash of bumGenius 4.0 diapers is the cheapest way to go and the diaper service is by far more expensive.  The nice thing is that we started cloth diapering with our first child.  Hopefully, we will have more children in the future, and we can use the same diapers over for them with no added expense.

Edit:  I also wanted to point out that you can save even more money on cloth diapers if you use prefolds and covers like the econobums.   Going this route you could cloth diaper a baby from birth to potty trained for only $100.  You can't beat that.  Also, in the cost analysis I said you would need 24 bumGenius 4.0 diapers, this is pretty conservative.  A lot of people prefer to have 18 diapers and I have even heard of people getting by with 12.

Tips on Cloth Diapering

• You don’t have to be Super Mom.  I am far from perfect and I do just fine.  If you forget to put your diapers in the wash after on the second day, don’t freak out.  Just wash them the next day, they will be just fine.
• Make sure you use the laundry tabs on the diapers.  If you don’t fasten them, you will pull a big blob of cloth diapers out of the wash all at once which isn’t very good for your diapers and will be a pain for you.
• Get a wet bag or two.  I use the ones here and I love them.  They have a zippered dry section and a wet section so they will hold both your clean and dirty diapers. 
• Get a garbage can with an easy open lid for dirty diapers.  Mine has a lid that swings open with one touch so you can dispose of dirty diapers with one hand. 
• Find a pail liner that works for you.  I really want one of these from Cotton Babies but right now I’m just using a nylon draw string bag I got in the sporting good section at my local store. 
• When buying a changing pad cover, don't get a terry cloth one.  We got one because it matched all our other nursery stuff but the hook and loop closures on the diapers kept snagging the on terry cloth.

Goals for Cloth

     Writing this post has inspired me to make some changes.  First off, I still use disposable wipes.  I've kept thinking that I need to get cloth wipes but I just keep putting it off.  I've heard of  people using a diaper warmer to keep moist cloth wipes in at the changing table.  I've also seen people make their own spray to wet the wipes with before using them.  My first goal is to start using cloth wipes. They are super easy to make or really cheap to buy.  I will keep you all posted on my venture into using cloth wipes.

      My second goal is to invest in a few more diapers.  Cotton Babies just came out with a brand new diaper called the Freetime All-in-One diapers. Once they are in the retail stores I will have to head  over to Vancouver to check it out. 

     

      Finally, I would really like to influence a few people into trying cloth diapers.  I don't want to guilt anyone into it but I just want to let people see Peter in his adorable diapers.  Hopefully people will see how easy they are and try them out for themselves.

Peter is in new "Albert" diaper

     Comment Below
   I wrote this entry to enter a contest for Jenn Labit, owner and founder of Cotton Babies.  I have not received any compensation for writing it but I could win 12 cloth diapers and if you leave a comment YOU could win 12 cloth diapers too.  Let me know what you think of cloth diapers.