cloth diapers

My DH is very concerned about money now that we have two babies coming. He asked me tonight if we could use a combination of cloth and disposable diapers to try to save some money. Obviously when we take the babies to daycare, they'll have to use disposables. Hopefully they will be six months old by that time though. Is it reasonable to think we might be able to do this? I think cloth diapers need to be changed more frequently. Am I right? Are there different brands of cloth diapers? I'm so clueless about all of this! Any info or suggestions is greatly appreciated!

 

I used cloth diapers with the first two (singletons) and quit early on the second one. It is a lot of work but can be done. Funny how money can make you do something you probably wouldn't normally consider doing. Yes, you do have to change them more frequently. Good luck with which ever route you choose to go.

 

We are in the process of switching completely to cloth diapers. We have to switch, our girls have a reaction to disposable diapers.

I am not going to be much help, but I wanted to tell you that it is possible. The one thing I learned though is, that you have to be commited to doing them in order for it to work.

There are a TON of different brands out there and I got completely confused while searching. Right now though we are just using prefold diapers with diaper pins. I just ordered some other diapers (I don't remember the brand) that have velco. Hopefully I will like these better.

There are some other ladies on here that are more experienced and smarter about all of this than I am. Hopefully they will be of some help to you.

Good luck! It is possible.

 

there are a bunch of other TS moms who CD successfully, I tried w/ DD#1 but couldn't make it work for me. you should ck out www.diaperpin.com tho, they have great reviews of different diapers, and a forum as well.
Alyson

 

It can be done! I CD my twins, and it is SO not a big deal. Just a little extra laundry, that's all. (And I am NOT a "supermom" by any stretch of the imagination. ) We use prefolds (flat rectangular diapers that are much thicker along the middle) and Bummis Super Whisper Wraps diaper covers. Cloth wipes too, with plain water. I got my stuff from http://www.greenmountaindiapers.com/.

Since I've never used disposables, I don't know if they need to be changed more often. I change my babies whenever they wake up from a nap, and before putting them down for a nap (or the night), and of course if I hear them poop in between or if they seem uncomfortable.

You are definitely NOT crazy for thinking of CDing! It's a great thing. Much much cheaper than disposable, and you won't cringe at money down the drain every time a baby pees/poops right after you've gotten them into a clean diaper. Even if you have to use disposables at daycare (and you might not - worth checking!), you'll still be way better off not having to use them all the time - can switch right back to cloth when you get home. It's much kinder to a baby's skin, and I've heard that CD babies tend to potty train earlier.

Good luck! Feel free to PM me for any more info.

 

It's completely doable! We've used cloth diapers from the beginning.. we started out with prefolds from a diaper service (which costs more than doing it all yourself but is still about half the cost of disposables), and from 6 months of age we've been doing it all ourselves. It's not that much work... I wash and hang the diapers (one load of laundry) every other day, and it's MUCH cheaper than disposables. We did use disposables at night when the boys were younger (we now use Sandy's cloth diapers from Mother-Ease- they're terrific) and we still use disposables when we're away from the house for any length of time.
I think it's a great idea! If you're nervous maybe try a service to start with and then move on to buying your own if/when you feel comfortable...

 

We are using both. Cloth at home and disposibles for whenever we leave the house. It really isn't as big of a deal as some would have you believe. But I have a family of 7 now and have to do several loads of laundry daily as it is. One extra load of diapers a day, isn't anything major for us.

We just out grew our small fitted diapers and have moved up to the mediums. We have only bought two packs of disposibles thus far and are only half way through the second bag. MUCH MUCH cheaper

 

100% doable, even at daycare. We used cloth at home and at daycare and we LOVED it! (how many people say that about disposable diapers :lol. It saved us money, it was healthier and more comfy for the kids, it was a smarter choice for the planet and it was FUN. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

 

I wish we had the option of a service, but in rural MN, there aren't any. So, if we try this, we have to do it ourselves. I know there aren't any daycares in the area that will do cloth diapers. There are mostly in-home daycares in the area and I'm having a hard enough time finding a place that is able to take two infants (that's all that's allowed by the state). But, that's a whole other issue. I don't mind using a combination of cloth and disposable if we can make the cloth portion work for us at home. If we just want to try it, how many do we need to start with?

 

We use cloth full time...we love it!! Definitely give it a try.

Check out cottontailbaby.com. The owner is really nice & helpful. You could e-mail her & she can help you figure out what you'll need to get started. They carry a variety of different kinds, which is why I usually order from her. I second PP's recommendation for greenmountaindiapers.com for prefolds...they're the best I've found. We use a good mix (prefolds & fitteds w/ covers, pockets) but some people stick to one kind for simplicity. We didn't start until they were about 2 months old, so I really don't know how many you'll need for newborns.

Good luck!!

 

cottontailbaby and greenmountain are both sites i've had good experiences with. I have also had good experiences with sunshinediapers.com and with nossgalenbaby.com (run by a TS family, actually).

To start out, we had a total of 24 diapers and that was enough for a full day with both boys without coming up short at the end of the day.

For daycare, we used Happy Heiny's. in shape and function, they are JUST like disposables. The daycare put them on like a disposable and the daycare took them off like a disposable (velcro and all). I supplied a diaper pail and every day I supplied a clean water-resistant bag. The ONLY special step they had to take was to toss the used diapers into our pail instead of the trashcan. Out of the 4 childcare arrangements we had during that time, we never had one complaint.

I actually just cleared out most of our diapers since the boys are potty trained now and I was SO sad to get rid of some of my favorite diapers and wool soakers :blush:

 

We CD too. It's saved us so much money. We have disposables on hand for when we go out of the house. We use prefolds with covers during the day and pockets stuffed with microfiber and hemp inserts for nighttime. My mom made the covers and pocket diapers for us so that's saved us even more money. I do a load every day and it's not hard at all. I work too but still manage to keep up with it.

About numbers to buy, for the preemies I bought too many preemie prefolds. I used those with DS for a little while since he was the smallest at 4lb12oz. If I were to have twins again I would just get a dozen of the preemie prefolds. With DD who was 5lb12oz I used the preemie ones for only a few days before going to the infant size. For the infant size, I had 48 I think. Another time 36 would be fine but all the premium infant instead of half premium half regular thickness. We still use the infant size for DD (who is now smaller than her brother) and have just moved up to the regular size for DS. I bought 24 regular size premium prefolds.

Good luck. It can be done and even parttime will save you lots of money.

 

About quantities - I went all out and got 8 dozen diapers and 8 diaper covers, and I think 80 cloth wipes. I could probably manage with about 6 dozen dipes and still have wiggle room (for not getting around to laundry, etc). 8 dozen and I don't have to worry at all - there are always extra on hand. Which is good, because they are useful for EVERYTHING - burp cloths, cleaning up messes, etc.

Agree with pp about 2 dozen being a good "trial" amount. If you do prefolds like I do, 2-4 covers would also probably be good enough for just trying out.

I only used infant size, never preemie, even though DS came home weighing less than 5lb. No probs!

Good luck.

 

I wouldn't invest too much in any single style diaper right away. Take some time to "get to know" what's out there and what will work for you. Some sites have "sampler pkgs" where you can try a variety of styles at a discount. Sunshinediapers.com even has a "test drive" that you can buy to get you through the small sizes that babies wear through so quickly. There are so many fun choices and while you may decide you want to do prefolds (the least expensive), you might also find that there are diaper styles that allow you to balance convenience and cost. Everyone has a different diapering style and builds a "stash" to suit their own family's lifestyle.

 

Ladies,

You certainly have been helpful. Thank you, Fay, for the daycare suggestion. When we find daycare, we may see if that is an option if we can make CD work for us.

I don't know what I would do without this site!

 

I'm also in process of switching over to cloth. Whoo hoo! I think we're going all pocket dipes tho'. I tried prefolds when the girls first came home and couldn't deal (couldn't get the stupid things to fit right w/out leaking all over), but that's me and we had a lot of my recovery stuff going on so...I don't think it was the diapers! :unknw:

Pockets are more pricey, but I think I'll stick with it better and one is still only the cost of one package of disposables...drives me batty to buy them every week or so! And then I get to reuse them for the next baby

Oh, and around here, I talked to several daycares (centers, not home care) and they told me that state regs wouldn't allow for cloth diapers at all.

We had no diaper services in the entire state either! :blink:

Good luck!

Any one have any recommendations for their fav pocket diaper??? My girls are long and lean! :rotflmbo:

 

We also cloth diaper full time. You can spend as much or as little as you want to on it. One thing that's pretty economical is to go with a system that grows with your baby. I know moms who love Mother of Eden. They make fitted diapers that fit from 7 pounds to 35 pounds! Your baby wears that fitted diaper and a cover over it (NOT plastic pants, but a cute velcro or snap cover). Another "grow with you" system is Bum Genius and Blueberry diapers, which are both "pocket diapers" that you fill with an insert. The pockets are more convenient when you're out and some of them are downright cute (Happy Heiny's), but can be a pain to be stuffing all the time, versus a fitted diaper and cover.

I have a mix of diapers myself. It really, really is not much extra work. I'm pretty maxed out and I haven't given up cloth diapering, even though I've been giving up everything else I can. We went on a short vacation that we used disposables on (no access to good laundry facilities) and we actually missed our cloth diapers (disposable diapers really smell very badly, even when on! You don't realize this till you've switched to cloth and have to use them again). You can PM me for more info if you want. DH was "so-so" on the cloth diaper idea at first, but now he's been converting other dads at work! It's HILARIOUS.

 

I swore I would CD, and I never even tried (and I have an Environmental Science degree too)! For what it's worth, I am a bargain shopper, and my babies wear pampers, and with coupons and watching the ads, I only spend $60 a month on diapers, and we go through 10-12 in a 24 hour period.

You ladies have me thinking I should give it a try, that it's not too late. My DH was never on board with this idea, and I know I'd have even more trouble convincing him now that we just got a new washer and dryer! Is is sanitary to wash the poopy cloth diapers in the wash machine, or do those liners I read about take care of that part?

Good luck with your decision.

 

If your baby is solely breastfed, you wash the diaper poop and all. Once your baby has formed poo's, you plop the poo into the toilet and wash the diaper as is. Most poos just roll off the diaper into the toilet. If your child has really messy, loose poos, the liners are awesome. We used liners for our first but don't need to with our twinkies.

It is sanitary if you have hot water! I wouldn't do them on warm! My diapers have been through a lot and look/smell great.

 

Definitely check out diaperpin.com -- it's a great resource.

We cloth diapered for the first six months with my oldest. I was gung ho about it, started with pre-folds (loved Snappi fasteners instead of pins), then moved to all pocket diapers. I used soft fleece wipes, and had a sprayer on the toilet to easily clean off poops. I put a waterproof bag inside a dry pail, and would toss the dipes in there, and then dump them all in the washer once a day, or once every other day, at most.

It wasn't especially hard, and I really tried my best to like it. And, I did like that the diapers were soft next to my baby's skin, and that none of the yucky gel in disposables got anywhere close to her sensitive parts. I liked that it was kind to the environment....

Aside from that, I hated it. For one thing, I overdid it, bought really cute diapers, and spent way too much money. For another thing, my DD was a super pooper, and had messy, smeary poops MANY times a day -- spraying them off into the toilet got old really fast. (If I'd been able to just dump solid poop in there, I might have felt differently.) I hated the extra load of laundry every day, and I hated stuffing the pocket diapers with the hemp inserts.

Plus, no matter what detergent I used -- and I went out of my way to get something from the hunting section at Walmart, that is supposed to completely remove any odor and leave no residue -- my pocket diapers still leaked. I'm not sure if they were wicking, or if they just didn't fit DD properly. She liked to pee with her legs up over her head -- crazy flexible hips on that one -- so the diapers were constantly leaking at the waistband. And, I thought they left a weird pee smell on her clothing, and I hated that they were bulky under clothing....

So, we switched to disposables around 6 months. I sold most of my diapering supplies to a friend, although my DD is now 3, and uses some of the diaper covers on her dolls, LOL.

I still keep up with the CD culture, because like I said, I really wanted to like it! I'm still bummed that I just wasn't happy about it. It helps that it wasn't a financial issue for us -- I just wanted to reap the other benefits. Ah, well.

Needless to say, we're not cloth diapering our twins...

 

I've been trying to use cloth diapers as well, but haven't found any that work for us...until recently. I just ordered some called Fuzzy Bunz and they're very good. They aren't too bulky so my babies' clothes still fit (was a problem with the Mother Ease diapers). You can always use cloth at home and disposable at night and when you're out of the house. That's my plan.

 

QUOTE
Is is sanitary to wash the poopy cloth diapers in the wash machine, or do those liners I read about take care of that part?


Definitely sanitary! For now my babies are mostly BF (occasional bottle of formula here and there). I just throw everything in the wash. First a cold wash on the "power wash" setting, then the hottest wash possible on my machine, then into the dryer. Nothing smells. We'll see what we do once solids enter the picture...

Just wanted to add too that you don't have to use disposables at night or when out of the house (though of course there's nothing wrong with it if you prefer!). Whenever we go out (not that often with twins lol) we just bring cloth diapers and wipes, and a sturdy ziploc bag to put the dirties in. We've never had a problem using cloth at night either, even though they sometimes go as much as 9 or 10 hrs between changes. The diaper gets soaked, but nothing leaks, and if you use good butt cream diaper rash won't be an issue.

 

QUOTE(Becca34 @ Sep 9 2007, 10:15 PM) [snapback]400543[/snapback]
For another thing, my DD was a super pooper, and had messy, smeary poops MANY times a day -- spraying them off into the toilet got old really fast. (If I'd been able to just dump solid poop in there, I might have felt differently.) I hated the extra load of laundry every day, and I hated stuffing the pocket diapers with the hemp inserts.


That is EXACTLY how my oldest child was. The poops were so messy and nasty. I seriously wouldn't have continued with cloth diapering if it weren't for the flushable diaper liners we bought from Imse Vimse. Messy, nasty poops three times a day. ECK! I don't blame you for quitting!!! With my twins, it's so much easier than my first. They have actual "turds". I don't know how many times I've turned to my husband and said, "isn't it great that they have actual turds?" I'm SO GLAD I didn't forsee this kind of excitement in my future 5 years ago.

 

Someone asked about pocket diaper brands...

Green Acre Designs are my all-time fave right now (greenacredesigns.com). They are really trim under clothes, have snaps instead of velcro (my babies take velcro off if they aren't fully dressed), & come in cute color combinations & prints. We've never had a leak w/ them either.

For night we use Bum Genius one size w/ the insert it comes with plus a hemp doubler or microfiber towel from the auto section of Wal Mart.

 

My two favorite pocket diapers are Happy Heinys and Olive Branch Baby's Marathons. Trista at OBB makes beautiful diaper sets and the Marathon is by far the trimmest pocket we've ever tried. Personally, I prefer the aplix (velcro-like) so her aplix closures were perfect for us. And the loop part of the closure was a fabric, not the actual aplix, so it was really soft on skin. The most unique thing about it was that the lining wasn't fleece or suedecloth, it was athletic wicking fabric that is specifically designed to wick moisture away from the skin. The down side is it can be pretty tough to get goodies from her, I hear. She also makes THE best night diapers, IMHO

The Happy Heiny's are very affordable (noss galen baby had the best value when we bought, they have a twin pkg) and very durable. They come in cutie prints but the solids are great b/c they rarely wick. The size range is really flexible so you might find that once you hit med or large, you stay in that size for a good long while. And the hemp inserts come with extra ovals that you can layer to customize the absorbency where you need it without adding much bulk.

 

We use Fuzzi Bunz & love them. They are really cute. Disposables smell when they are wet - ugh! We do use disposables some - if we will be out of the house for awhile I put one on them the last change before we leave so I can just throw it out instead of carrying it around with me (the only downside to me of CD is they take up soo much room in the diaper bag) We bought 24, do a load everynight & we have plenty. If they ever lose their absorbancy it is due to soap buildup. The FB came with instruction to use only 1/2 amt of detergent you would normally use. If you have a problem I would wash them through several cycles w/o adding any detergent at all. In hindsight though, I wish we went with the kind that "grow with baby" - you only have to buy one set! They've already outgrown the smalls.