Diaper pins? Not here! Plastic Pants? No thank you. This is not your grandmother’s cloth diaper!
Check out how our little family cloth diapers.
HOW TO:
Choose Your Cloth Diaper:
12 Bum Genius Organic Elemental Cloth Diapers All-in-One & One Size
Upon researching I knew that I wanted an All-in-One cloth diaper that was One-Size. Which plainly means one diaper that will fit your baby through potty-training. These diapers are designed to fit 8lbs-35lbs which for us meant that we would need to use disposables on our newborns before they would fit into the cloth diapers. There are newborn cloth diapers available, but we chose to forgo the extra expense.
40lb Toddler & 16lb Baby
No stuffing inserts-sorting sizes-harsh chemicals- buttons instead of Velcro(which wears down quite rapidly when worn daily, unfortunately for those that choose Velcro)-can be worn from 8lbs-35lbs and potty training. Now that we have gone through one child, our oldest, wearing these every day and now into potty training I can tell you that the money you pay upfront is worth every single shiny penny! These diapers are now being used on our baby girl who is eight months old. For those counting that is close to two and a half years of daily use and our original twelve diapers are still in fabulous shape.
Why 12 diapers? For us it was the cost. If you can purchase more, then go for it! You will be doing loads of laundry much less frequently! We do a load of cloth diapers every day and a half. While our daughter is in her last one I pop them into the washer.
Prep Your Cloth Diapers:
Cloth diapers need to be prepped. The fabric needs to be softened so that it will be able to absorb more wetness. Read: The more you wash them, the better they work. All cloth diaper companies have a different prep method so please read up on their care. Many companies have product warranties that will only be guaranteed if you follow their prep and care regimen FULLY.
For Bum Genius you will need to pre-wash 5-7 times in hot water with a bit of detergent in each load. Tumble Dry- low.
Purchase Wet Bag AND/OR Diaper Bin:
Kanga Care Diaper Liner in a standard closed top trash can. This will fit all of the 12 One-Size cloth diapers AND contain their smell. Essential for any household.
Planet Wise Small Wet Bag for diaper bag or purse. This fits just one diaper and I use it when we are out on play dates, at the zoo, or for after swim class. The small size has worked for our family for almost two years-please note that the larger Planet Wise wet bags do not hold up as well when used every day.
Cleaning Regimen:
After you change your little one out of a soiled diaper you can throw it right into the diaper pail unless they dropped a big old number two. That my friends takes work, and is a big reason why some of my friends said that they couldn’t ever be able to cloth diaper. Well, they invented a better way to scrape off the crap-you spray it off with a small hose attached to the toilet. Easy and mess free. Spray and then simply put the diaper in the bin. Takes ten seconds.
Every two days(or less) I do a load of laundry. I wash my cloth diapers in cold water with 1/4 of the manufacturer’s recommended amount of additive free detergent. Then proceed to wash again with hot water with the same amount of detergent. Double rinse. Dry warm. We are lucky to live somewhere hot enough to dry our cloth diapers outside nearly every day- whenever I can I put out the cloth diapers in the backyard to air dry. An added plus? When they are in the sun the liners get sun bleached.
Ammonia Got You Down?
Sometimes after months of washing your clean diapers can give off an ammonia smell. This is both disgusting and aggravating. Luckily there is an easy way to stop ammonia build-up on your cloth diapers. Add a ¼ Cup of bleach to your load once a month, save your nose some misery. You’re welcome.
Benefits:
No Diaper Rash- Both of our little ones tended to break out or develop diaper rash if they were ever in cloth diapers for an extended period of time. As soon as they were in cloth diapers for a full day the rash would be gone.
For the sake of honesty, we do use disposables at night and for when we stay with family over the holidays. My children were both heavy wetters and as soon as we switched to disposables at night, they stopped waking up because they were wet. Much needed sleep is a price I will dearly pay for the cost of one diaper a night.
No blow-outs. That’s right. I said it. We have never had a blow-out in one of our cloth diapers. I can think of at least four EPIC blowouts, but each time my children were wearing a disposable. Save your sanity, and your children’s clothes with cloth diapers that fit.
Bonus: Our cloth diapers have gone through five sets of swimming classes with our toddler and now multiple trips to the pool with our eight month old. They contain any mess and you don’t have buy diapers specifically for swimming.
Cloth Cost Analysis:
12 Bum Genius Diapers: $260
Kanga Care Diaper Liner: $18.95
Planet Wise Wet Bag: $16.20
Garbage Bin: $8.99
Diaper Sprayer: $50.00
Total: $354.14
The average amount spent to diaper a baby for a year is in between $700-900 dollars according to BabyCenter.com. Two babies and three years of cloth so far! Thankful what a little extra laundry can do.
The links for the product above are from the companies that I purchased all of the products from three years ago. Now you can buy everything listed above at our local Baby Town-support local, family owned companies!
So fascinating! Cloth diapering sounds pretty cool and a lot cheaper than disposable. What do you do when you go on vacation?
Depends on how long of a vacation… 2-5 days and we cloth diaper. A week or longer? Just depends on if we have a washer and dryer available to us. We have cloth diapered on almost every vacation and just supplement with disposables when necessary!
Our daughter was never baptized as a baby due to being born a premmie,a couple of relocations,etc.when she was 13 and in 7th grade we finially had her baptized at easter vigil and dressed her in the traditional,white,poofy,sleeveless,top of the knees baptism dress with the matching bonnet,lace anklets and white shoes.Gramma on the husbands side gave her a package of 10 white cloth diapers in the 24×27 inch size to wear under the dress,along with the diaper pins and a pair of white adult size rubberpants to go over the diapers.The rubberpants fit her blousy over the cloth diapers and could be heard crinkling under her dress sometimes.The next year,when she was 14,she made her First Holy Communion and i put the diapers and rubberpants on her again under her communion dress.Gramma was happy that the daughter got two uses out of them!