Adventures in Cloth Diapering: Part 1 - Making Decisions

I had planned on writing a blog about our new cloth diapers, but it's taken me awhile to get to it - and now that I have a few moments I also have several more things cloth diaper related to blog about. I am really enjoying cloth diapering, but we've hit some bumps along the way that have made for an interesting experience.

Pre-kiddos I never gave much thought to using cloth diapers. A conversation came up once at work between my mother-in-law and another co-worker about how they had used cloth when their kids were babies simply because it was so much cheaper. My mother-in-law felt she'd earned the right to use disposables after dealing with all the folding, pins and plastic covers. Can't say I blame her, because that sounded to me like a lot of work. My only contribution to the conversation was to say that I thought cloth diapering was 'nasty' and there was no way I'd ever use cloth diapers on my kids, no matter what the savings. Foot? Meet mouth.

The idea of two kids in diapers at the same time really made me put the savings of cloth diapers into perspective. When I found out I was pregnant with Elena I started looking into the idea. I'd been better introduced to the more modern cloth diapers they have now thanks to a couple online message boards I participate in, as well as seeing some in person that Special Ed's Wife was using on her daughter. I was curious how cloth diapers worked so I started asking more questions - Which cloth diapers are the 'best'? How are they cleaned? Is it a pain? Is it really gross? Does it significantly add to your energy and water bills? I really liked the diapers I saw Special Ed's Wife using - they looked pretty simple to use and put on, almost like a disposable.

We ended up deciding against cloth at the time. Nathan wasn't 100% sure he liked the idea of using diapers that had to be washed - he gets gaggy around baby poop. ;) It was also the larger amount of money up front that we would have had to put out that turned us off, though I'm now rolling my eyes a little at this reasoning. We ended up spending that much on disposables within 3 months after Elena was born. When Elena was about 5 months old I started mentioning the idea of cloth diapers to Nathan again whenever we would go buy a new box of diapers and it wasn't long before he was agreeing with me. Nathan is nothing if frugal and spending that much on diapers was putting a huge drain on our grocery budget. I sat down one night and figured out the cost of disposables for the next year and a half, assuming we would continue to buy diapers at the same rate we were then (a huge Costco box about every 2 - 3 weeks) and compared it to the approximate cost of cloth diapers - the savings worked out to be about $700 and that was more than enough of a savings to convince us!

So now that we knew we for sure wanted to switch - we had to face an even bigger decision - what diapers do we get? Entering the world of cloth diapers is a bit overwhelming. There are so many different choices and when you ask for opinions 5 different cloth diapering moms can give you 5 different answers on what the best cloth diapers are.

The cheapest option by far is prefolds + covers, which was what my mother-in-law used. Now they have a fun invention called a snappi that means you no longer need to use pins. You can also skip the pins or snappi all together and just fold it in 3rds and lay inside a cover. There are a multitude of cover options now besides the wool and plastic covers my mother-in-law had. I thought prefolds didn't sound too bad, but Nathan didn't like the idea of them, especially if we had to use pins or a snappi. And I admit, I'm not sure if my kids would hold still long enough to get the diaper on and snappi'd in place. I'm slightly afraid of leaks by just laying the prefold inside the cover. But there are so many cute covers out there, I am tempted to buy some prefolds just so I can buy a few cute covers to use.

Nathan's one request was that the diapers be as similar to a disposable as possible. The cloth diapers most similar to a disposable are called All-In-Ones (AIO) diapers. The waterproof cover and the inside absorbent part are all sewn together. I like the look of them but I have been told they take considerable more time to dry than other diapers so I nixed them from our list. I just don't have the patience for something to take an hour or more to dry. I was also worried that the waterproof cover part of the diaper would wear out faster being constantly dried in the dryer. I don't mind line drying but I don't imagine it would dry very fast on a clothes line or drying rack either.

The next closest diapers to disposables are pockets and All-In-Two (AI2) diapers. I like both of these types a lot. The pockets have a waterproof outer cover that has a soft lining inside - usually fleece which helps a baby to feel 'dry' - and a pocket that you stuff an absorbent insert into. The nice thing about these is that if you need more absorbency you can just stuff more into the diaper. Most inserts are typically microfiber, but you can also change it up by using hemp or bamboo, which are more absorbent and trimmer. AI2 diapers are like pockets - without the pockets. Instead the insert lays or snaps into the cover. The advantage to an AI2 diaper is that the cover can usually be reused 2 - 5 times before it needs to be washed so you don't have to buy as many covers.

I did lots of research and asked a lot of questions on cloth diapering forums and we finally decided on an AI2 diaper from Softbums. What sold me on these diapers was mostly the ease of adjustability. I knew we wanted a one size diaper so that we could use it on both kids. Most one-size diapers use 3 rows of snaps in the front that you can fold down and snap to adjust the rise of the diapers. Softbums diapers however have a very stretchy elastic in the leg gussets of the diaper. There is a tiny pocket in the front of the diaper that you stick your fingers into and you find a small toggle - like on a hoodie drawstring - that you use to tighten or loosen the diaper this way. This makes it easy to fit on practically any baby.

These are our new diapers:



There are unfortunately no girlie colors because they were out of stock. I'm hoping to add some pink to the collection later.

This gives you an idea of how adjustable it is:



I was surprised how small the diapers looked when they were sized all the way down. I was curious so I compared one with a disposable newborn diaper I have leftover from Elena. I think the Softbums diaper may actually fit a newborn - even one of my 6 - 7 lbs newborns. Most one-size diapers claim to fit a baby from about 8lbs - 35 lbs but from what I've read the reality is that they don't usually fit properly until 10 - 12 lbs. Not something I need to worry about now, but if we decide to have another in the future it would be nice to not have to buy disposables for the newborn stage.



Once we decided on the diapers we had to start thinking about everything else we would need. How would we store the dirty diapers? What would we use to wash the diapers? How do we handle poopy diapers?

We like the wet bags they have to store dirty diapers. We ended up ordering 2 of them - one of them is large enough to be used as a pail liner if we ever decide to use a pail. For now it is just tied to the doorknob of the laundry room door. The other is a bit smaller, but it's my favorite one by far and it's still large enough to hold all the diapers I need for 2 days. It has a hook to hang it from the doorknob easily (the other one regularly comes untied) and it has a zipper close instead of a drawstring close which is much easier to use - and it's still stink free when closed. I like that we have two though so that I can still use one while I'm washing the other (they get washed with the diapers). We got a 3rd one as apart of a free sample pack, just a small one that we can use in our diaper bag for cloth diapering on the go.

We considered a diaper sprayer for the poopy diapers (it attaches to your toilet and you just spray the poop off) but in the mean time we bought flushable liners - they catch all the poop so all you have to do is dump in the toilet and flush it away. They are an added expense but at $6 for a roll of 100 it's nothing like buying disposables. They were doing the job quite well but I'm now re-considering the sprayer after the mess I had today...

Before we started looking into cloth diapers I didn't think much about our detergent. I figured we could use the same detergent we have now - Kirkland Free & Clear. I was told that I should probably use a cloth diaper detergent. I wasn't sure if I really 'had' to do that or not. We decided to use Purex since that's what Softbums recommends on their diapers, but when Nathan went to pick it up it didn't have the HE symbol on it and we weren't sure if we could use it in our HE washer. I decided to go ahead and use the Kirkland detergent. I did order some Rockin Green diaper detergent, but I figured that the Kirkland would work just fine in the meantime. Boy was I wrong - but that saga belongs in it's own blog.

There were also a few things I didn't think about, like a diaper rash cream. We rarely use that here but what I do have on hand - desitin - is not cloth diaper friendly. It has fish oil in it and will apparently make your diapers smell like fish, not to mention create a buildup that will reduce the absorbency of the diapers. I can't find anything in the store that is acceptable so I think I'll have to buy some from a cloth diaper retailer online. But other than the rash cream, we are pretty much set.

I didn't realize how long this blog was going to become, I hope you all made it this far. If you found this even remotely interesting, stay tuned for my next installment all about overnight leaks and laundry issues.