Cloth Diapers

I know what you are thinking.... I thought the same thing when she was born. Why would anyone put themselves through all that work?! They make disposables pretty darn cheap if you look for the good deals.

Well, our first problem arose when Lil would break out if anything but Luvs brand touched her. So, that narrowed our discount findings A LOT. Luckily, Brandon became an Amazon Mom, which allowed us further discounts and if we did this and did that, made us eligible for AmazonPrime, which is free 2-day shipping. Needless to say, we started ordering in bulk from Amazon.com and were really happy with what we were doing.

Then, I read this blog post. First of all, let me just say that Young House Love is my favorite blog of. all. time. I read back to their previous posts like this one to get the full story. Let me tell you, Sherry is one heck of a salesperson. So after research on my own, talking with Brandon over the weekend, re-reading the blog posts, more research, & talking more with Brandon, we decided to get the bumGenius 4.0 snap diapers.


My first thought was to go with the all-in-ones like the Petersik's did. But considering their price difference and whether or not we really knew for sure we wanted to go with cloth all the way, we decided on the cheaper, but still easy, version.

The 4.0s have an insert. They are made of terrycloth, so they absorb really well. Lil is 20 pounds and fits into the medium size snap length but has to leave 3 or so snaps wide. We still have maybe 4 snaps on each side to go when she gets bigger.

So changing a diaper is the same as always. One thing we are considering is going to cloth wipes, too. What I didn't think would be a hassle actually is -- removing the disposable wipes from the diaper after she's changed. You know, you put the wipe in the diaper, roll it up, throw it all away? Well, not anymore. One thing we've been lacking in Lil's room is a trash pail anyway, so yesterday I picked a small, $2 one up at WalMart. Now, I'm trying to get into the habit of wiping, throw in pail. Except for when it's poopy, then I put it in the Diaper Genie (which we still have in her room until we don't need overnight disposable diapers and know a better way to dispose of disposable poopy wipes). If we were to switch to cloth wipes, we could just throw everything in the wash. No separation necessary.

For a wet diaper, right now I'm just taking it to the sink and rinsing it out well. Then I found a little plastic basket I throw it in. I am doing this so that 1. the wet diapers don't get all the dirty laundry wet (gross) & 2. so I can easily find all the diapers that are rinsed and ready for washing. For a poopy diaper, most of her mess just falls off with a little shake into the toilet. Then flush! Here is where I insert that we didn't want to spend the $45.00 on a diaper sprayer when we didn't know if we'd stick with cloth diapering or not.
However, now that we know... We will be soon. This will help a TON to rinse the dirty diapers. Right now I'm getting them as clean as possible at the toilet, then rinsing at sink. It's not as bad as it sounds. Since all the gross stuff is flushed, I'm really just rinsing for a pre-wash.

Now for washing -- as of right now, I'm skipping the pre-wash on cold. I figure since I'm rinsing them as well as I can, that takes care of that job. So I start the load adjusting the water level, checking that the temperature is on hot, then putting the cycle on Normal, with an extra rinse. I am using Purex Free & Clear as of right now.

Sun bleaching is an option for those left over tints and stains. I'm trying that right now. I needed to get something better than hangers to line dry clothes anyway, so I bought a $10 drying rack at WalMart. It seems to be doing it's job, I guess. I mean, how hard can it be? As far as sun bleaching goes, the inserts that weren't that bad are bleached white, but the 2 that were pretty stained are still being worked on.

We ordered 8 to begin with, but will need to order more. One negative thing about cloth diapers is that if you are determined to only line dry, they take much longer to dry. Two nights ago, I did a load, then lined dry overnight. By morning, they were still damp, so I put them in the dryer for 20 minutes. They came out dry and warm. I'm trying to let this load line dry completely just to see how long it will take.

As of right now, I'm holding off on ordering more. We'll probably do upgrade to 12 or 15 sometime next week. But cloth diapering isn't that bad. I think it will come naturally for baby #2.