People cloth diaper their babies for many reasons and I get asked all the time why we do it. It was never something I considered until after our Baby Shower Diaper Supply ran out and we began buying our own disposables and then I really started looking into it when Sunny was one and I got pregnant- I was buying 2 sizes of Pampers which was eating into my personal shopping money. After I decided that we could only save so much money letting Sunny just be naked and pee as she pleased outside, I started to cloth diaper her. So we do it for that and that only- to save money. I dont care about the environment (sorry!) or the harmful chemicals in disposables (really? What about all the chemicals in EVERYTHING else, every single toy and baby equipment we all own.....?). And there really isnt a huge cost when it comes to washing and drying these suckers either. We make our
own laundry detergent, wash on the smallest load, and hang dry the diaps outside. We're in Florida! The sun does the work for me...
Ok, so the point of that paragraph is... Why do you want to cloth diaper your baby?
Everything I learned about cloth diapers... I learned from Brooke. Or trial and error. Or online, which is difficult since there are a LOT of diff types of cloth diapers, and everyone online likes to speak in a weird cloth diaper code (lots of acronyms).
I'd suggest joining
http://www.babycenter.com/ and then joining some of their groups about cloth diapering. There is one subtlety titled, Cloth Diapering. Its a good place to start. And then there are groups about each brand, about selling used diapers (this is huge! Buying these expensive diapers used is not weird, its totally acceptable and done!), and about.... pictures with your baby IN the cloth diapers, whatever. There is a lot of info there. This is where I discovered that women on these boards have 60-100 cloth diapers and are gonna probably be on a new reality tv series soon if they dont start controlling their obsession.
After some research, Jenalee & I started using gDiapers. They looked super cool but had 3 pieces you had to rig together, almost each diaper change. Sure Jason and I figured it out, but forget letting the grandparents do it- too much work. & Jena and I both came to the same conclusion- these diapers leaked, making disposables look so desirable that she quit and I sold mine.
After more research I zeroed in on my favs so far. They were the least amount of pieces- 1!- and have amazing reviews. They also have a new design on the outer part which makes them super cute. They are the Bum Genius brand and we bought the 4.0 All-In-One Elementals (see how confusing this is, there are SOOOOO many names for these things).
Makes it only 1 piece and easy. Each diaper change you get a new diaper, just like disposables. Thats easy to remember, right? I guess the downfall to that is that you need at
least as many diapers as you change each day. Sunny's old enough that she only does about 6 changes a day and we currently have 10 BGs (bumgenius). We will get more as... we get more money, lol. They are one of the most expensive (I got ours on sale at
http://www.cottonbabies.com/, free shipping, for $19ea) but I know what I'm paying for now- the assurance that they wont leak! That I wont lay awake at night and wonder if I should let Sunny fuss back to sleep if she wakes up or check that her jammies arent soaking in pee! Its nice to have peace of mind, especially in the middle of the night concerning your baby. We're also paying for convenience and the fact that our parents can cloth diaper our baby without a big drama.
I mainly cloth Sunny while we are at home. But if we leave the house I grab one and bring it with us, even though I also have back-up disposables in the car. Plus wipes. And we have a cute 'wetbag' I bought on ETSY to throw in any wet/dirty cloth diapers to take back home to wash.
Then the washing part... Its not exciting, its not that fun. But its worth it. If Sunny has a dirty diaper, immediately after changing we dump it into the toilet then into a bucket, with a lid, that sits next to the toilet. There is nothing in the bucket (sometimes people have a 'wet' bucket that they think may be cleaner? Its filled with water, detergent, vinegar, anything you want- but it sounds messier to me). After the diaper bucket is full, you run out of cloth diapers, or its been 2-3 days, we wash. I toss everything in the bucket into the wash with some vinegar, or nothing if I forget, and do a rinse cycle. Smallest load and hottest water. That finishes in about 10 minutes- then I pour in the detergent that I make myself, and do a whole cycle, with the same small load and hot water. Then I hang to dry. And in the meantime, if all of the diapers are washing/drying, we have to use disposables! So... I need more cloth diapers. I sometimes time it so that I only do half as many diapers in the wash so I always have some clean/ some washing/drying. But I really do just need more diapers.
Watch the youtube video here on the EXACT diaper Sunny wears- same colors, same snaps, same All-In-Ones. It clears up exactly what to do and how easy they are:
