Cloth Diapering: The Beginning

Last week marked the new adventure into cloth diapering. Our stash of disposables that lasted, amazingly, into Cai's 3rd month of life was dwindling and I was so glad that I already had another stash of cloth diapers. Honestly, God provided for us so well with diapers for 3 months that we never once had to go out and buy any diapers. Someone would show up with a box of diapers or they were given as gifts at showers. It was remarkable that we had just enough of each size before moving up to the next size.

Part of me wasn't sure, after 3 months of using regular diapers, if we were going to like making the switch to cloth, but it has been nothing at ALL! When a baby is solely breastfed, you honestly take off the poopy diaper and put it in your diaper pail, or in our case, a wet/dry bag. You don't have to do anything to the poopy diaper (like swish it a little in the toilet) until your baby is eating solids. It is really easy right now. I'll keep you posted on what happens after you begin solids.

I have 23 Bum Genius diapers. I think we spent around $350 for all of our diapers. While I realize that there are even cheaper ways to cloth diaper, I knew that in order for this to work for us, it needed to be as simple as possible and as close to normal diapering as possible. I also knew that I would easily spend $350 in disposable diapers over the course of a few months and with cloth it is essentially free to diaper any other babies. The diapers that I have are called all in ones, meaning that it is one size of diaper that will fit your child all the way up to potty training. There are snaps that you can put together to make the diaper smaller or larger depending on the size of your baby. Half of mine velcro around the waist and half have snaps at the waist. I bought half from a friend that bought them, but never got around to using them and half new from Cotton babies.com. Click on the link above to see what I'm talking about.

The other aspect of cloth diapering, is that you have to do more a little bit more laundry. I have enough diapers that I have to do diaper laundry about every 2.5 - 3 days. I wasn't sure if I would like having to do more laundry, but that hasn't been a big deal either. Once the wet/dry bag we use is full, I take it to the washing machine and throw all the diapers in along with the bag. You run one full cold cycle without detergent and then you run one full hot cycle with only 1 tablespoon of detergent. I'm using the cheap-o Sun detergent, because it is actually recommended for diapering due to the fact that it doesn't build up on diapers as much over time. After they are washed, I take out the covers and hang them on a drying rack and I throw all the liners into the washing machine. Pretty simple if you ask me.

The things I like about cloth diapering, so far, is that I haven't had that feeling of: Oh, crap, we ran out of diapers. We have to go to the store! It's not really possible to run out of cloth diapers. I guess, you could, possibly, run out of CLEAN diapers! It is a lot simpler than I thought it would be. Even, Hart thinks so! There are also benefits of less diaper rash problems.

We are using one disposable at night right now, because Micaiah has been sleeping 12 hours and I just don't want him to soak the cloth through. Although I did put him in cloth at one point and he did fine all night long. Micaiah also wakes up, usually, with a poopy diaper, so this makes it nicer to not have as many poopies in the wet/dry bag, although the bag keeps odor out really well. We also are using disposables if we are out and about at times, for the nursery workers at church, and for babysitters. Mostly, so that I don't have to explain how they work. Even though, it's pretty simple, like I said before!

One week after starting cloth, I can say that I still really like it. They are soft, come in really cute colors, and are pretty economical! So there you go! Maybe I will post some pictures of Micaiah in his Bum Genius diapers!