Cloth Diapers
While this is our fourth child between us, each child comes with a new set of challenges. We had never considered anything but slapping a disposable diaper on a baby’s butt and may have thought of people who cloth diaper as a little out there. We’re not very green, we recycle but that is about the extent of that. When Ellie was born we brought ourselves to the local warehouse store and picked up a few cases of diapers. Then we started to have a little problem no matter what diaper we put on her cute little tush she leaked out of it. This became more than frustrating and I turned to one of the many on line parenting communities to say “what do I do?!” I hated ruining clothes on a daily basis, and it was just gross. The big recommendation was Cloth Diaper! To me, this meant diaper pins, rubber pants and some white things we use as burp cloths. That completely terrified me, so I started to research. I learned there are MANY different types of cloth diapers. There are All-In-Ones (AIOs), Pockets, Fitteds, Prefolds and Flats – and you don’t use pins anymore, there is this fabulous thing called a snappi! There are also hybrids like the g-diaperflip system. I suddenly was on cloth diaper information overload. Fortunately I had a friend who sent us a bunch of different types to try and we learned we liked pockets the best. Pocket diapers are a cover where you insert a microfleece or hemp insert that holds the pee and the poo stays on the cover. We wash our own (really, we have four kids what is another load of laundry a day…) and then stuff the diapes and are ready to go for the next day. We found a local Cloth Diaper (CD) store and they helped a ton to get us started. Every baby is different so what fits my baby with skinny legs may not fit yours. Our CD store had a trial program where you can try 8 different types of diapers for two weeks, bring back what you don’t like and purchase what you do for only $25 plus the cost of the diapers you purchase. Our local CD store has been awesome! And while it may seem icky, there is fabulous resale value on used cloth diapers. So if you buy sized diapers instead of one size (depending on the brand, they are either sized small, medium, large or One Size (OS) and go from 8-35lbs. The challenge of the OS diapers is they don’t fit the littler babies as well as the older ones and when you use one diaper for that long, they can tend to wear out. The sized ones are great but you have to replace them – there are great on line communities to post your used stuff so you get funds towards the next size, but it’s an investment. All in all we’ve spent about $300-$350 on diapers including Ken building a diaper sprayer so we can spray the poo into the toilet. Obviously, these are our opinions. Please leave your comments and share your thoughts.