There's a little shop downtown, just a few blocks away, with a whole wall of cloth diapers. The cutest little things - flowers, bugs, abstract patterns - and they completely confuse me. We're going to have two in diapers come April. A newborn and a 13 month old. Every time I buy disposables right now, I'm imagining buying two packages or boxes at a time, and that's $50-$60 each time. Oh my.
So I'm looking at cloth diapers... I know it's an initial investment, and there's plenty of laundry to do. But that's about all I know. I'm still doing my research and asking questions, and I'm sure I'll visit that little shop. I can't get the image of a tiny little newborn bum in a cute little pink diaper!
How did you decide to go cloth?Were you using disposables and then made the switch, or were you cloth from the beginning?
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Comments (39)
Ive herd its easier to start with cloth from birth. (my best friend and his wife did cloth with all their babies, she said its more expensive to start but when you have your stock its a lot cheaper. She also says to invest in a diaper sprayer and clothesline)
If I have a baby of my own I'd like to use cloth.
I tried cloth and abruptly stopped after my child wet through every diaper even when she peed a tiny amount. My cousin used a diapering service that picked up diapers, cleaned them and dropped off newly cleaned diapers whenever they picked up the dirty ones. That seems like a great way to do cloth diapers.
I'd recommend cloth diapers with the thickest/or most pee-proof outer layer which usually consists of a high thread count and different material than the inner layer. Don't buy the plain white ones off the shelf from Babies R Us because they leak and you'll have pee and poo everywhere. That's all I can recommend - thick outer layer diapers and a diapering service.
I think in the long run it is much cheaper and much better for the environment. However, disposable diapers are more convenient.
My children are 11 months apart and I bought Wal-mart diapers which are as good as the name brands and the least expensive brand you can buy. I don't like to do the math of how much money I spent over the last 3 or 4 years on diapers so if I had had a diapering service in my area, I might have gone with that option.
I just couldn't justify spending so much on disposables. I was planning to do cloth diapers anyway, but when the girls were born they had to wear disposable diapers in the NICU and it gave them the worst rashes. They have wicked sensitive skin and that firmed up my decision.
It was actually the awful chemical smell of the disposables that sold me. I love saving money (over a thousand dollars this year alone since the only ones that work for us are Pampers!) so we would probably have done it anyways, but the deciding factor was gagging when I changed my son out of a disposable when he would get back from an overnight trip with his grandmama. Even in the newborn stage with two children, the laundry is not too overwhelming. I know it is weird, but I enjoy folding diaper laundry!
We switched to cloth when my first was about nine months old. Obviously, we have been doing it since birth with my second. He just turned a year old and we have yet to have a single blowout using prefolds or flat diapers with Thirsties Duo covers. It is awesome!
I am completely jealous that you have a store that sells cloth diapers beside the bad Gerber ones. I would love to be able to walk into a store and go cloth diaper shopping instead of doing it online.
@snarkius@xanga - We have an 8.5 month old right now, so if we went to cloth it would make sense to do it now, and when #3 gets into the size #2 is in now, we'll already have them (if we go for more neutral vs gender-specific). Hmm.. we need to decide soon since we're due in early April!
I can't remember why I thought about trying cloth but I ended up buying a bunch of Fuzzi Bunz when Little One was about 6 months old. I only used them at home because I didn't want to deal with the day care making a fuss. They were easy for me and got me started with cloth pads for myself which I still use 6 years later. The next baby will be all cloth.
@Mandi - I think you should try some now even if you only get half a dozen. Then, you will know for sure if you want to use them and if you do, you can spend the next several months picking out cute diapers! It is nice to be able to reuse diapers on younger siblings, but I admit that if I was going to give birth to a girl after my two sons, it would be hard for me not to buy some cute girly prints.
I have used cloth diapers to varying degrees with my two boys. I didn't think of them for my oldest daughter. But I started using them with my oldest son (he's now 11) because he kept breaking out in rashes. So, I tried cloth and used them most of the time. It seemed for him that a combination of cloth and disposables worked. My youngest son started off in cloth diapers but ended up in disposables because the cloth diapers kept giving him rashes! Go figure... there are no rules. Good luck!
My mom owns a daycare and there is one baby who is in cloth diapers. I will, hands down, change every diaper but his and leave it for my mom to do. As harsh as that sounds, it's because of the horrid, horrid smell that is his diaper. Not the mess he's made, but the diaper itself.
If you don't wash them properly, they smell while not even being dirty and can make the baby actually smell gross too.
This could just be the mother herself. But I would think this being her 3rd child in cloth diapers, she'd know how to do it. Just be warned when going into a daycare that we don't love it.
@Whatsthat - Did you use a cover over your diapers? Cloth diapers are supposed to be covered with a cover that has a water proof lining. The aren't meant to be used by themselves.
OP- I love everything about cloth diapers. I love how cute they are. I love the eco-friendlyness of them. I love that they don't put yucky chemicals on babies' bottoms. I love the cost effectiveness of them.That being said, its important to remember that- depending on the type of cloth diapering system you use- they may not be the most cost effective, and you may end up saving more money using disposables. Cloth diapers can get very addicting to but- they're just so cute! Plus, if you don't have anymore children, you would have made the investment, but not have the diapers long enough to pay it off.Cloth diapers become more and more cost effective the more children you have. You can use the same diapers for all of your children, if you take care of them properly... They diapers not the children
I used to buy disposable at Sams Club until my girl hit the size 3 (it got more expensive and more than one box for a month). Id even go to Walmart for a package or two to last. I then bought online (Amazon) for $35 (no tax) and a couple packages which was still well under $50. Once my girl got unto pullups I bought two $16.47 boxes at a time at she got pottytrained just when she turned 34 months!!!!! I figure if I buy $60x12x3yrs it would be about $2160 for the most expensive brand. With cloth costing a good $500 up front, it may be better to buy it all at once. But I would totally make $3000 budget apart of future disposable diaper baby costs.lol. I dont know if I want to scrape poop and carry around wet cloths around the world. Raising my laundry costs and sense of smell.
@snarkius@xanga - Every time I see a girly cover I get all excited, so yea, I will have to buy some girl specific ones.
I just thought they were super cute lol. I put up with the laundry and poop scraping, just so I can see that fluffy butt!
I usually buy used diapers or sew my own- so my stash has been very affordable. I started 3 years ago with one of my kids and now his little sister wears some of his old diapers. Oh and of all my kids- he potty trained WAY faster than the others.. not sure if cloth had anything to do w/ it, but that was pretty cool. We'll see if my baby girl potty learns earlier too.I never used cloth diapers with either of my children. Mostly because I grew up in a cloth diapering family before they had the precut, wonderful velcro inventions. (Being the oldest of 8, I have changed a lot of diapers, my first at age 5) I HATED touching those nasty soggy things, sticking my fingers with pins, smelling that horrible odor. I cringe just thinking about it. But I do know that cloth diapers have come along way since I was younger. I was temped to try them out again when I had my own children but I knew my husband was still going to want to have disposables around. He wasn't brave enough for cloth. So we shell out the dough every couple weeks and stock up at Sam's Club. Thankfully my first was nearly trained by the time my second came along and he's 20 months so we only have a little longer to buy diapers. Kudos to all you moms who choose cloth over disposable.
I used cloth for my son until he was 13 months, and I really liked it- definitely saved money by washing them at home and line drying. He NEVER had diaper rash. We used pre-folds with plastic snap covers and it was super easy. I loved it too because when he was small (say 3-6 months) he used small size, then got chubby and went up to medium, and then when he was crawling more and walking he slimed down and got taller and went back to small, so we were able to use the same covers for a long time. I can't recommend them enough- from a money to environmental standpoint (side note- my mother used them for us when we were small too)
My parents were considering it when they got pregnant with me and my grandparents even offered to buy them until the baby grew out of them when they got too icky, but my mom decided she didn't want to wash baby poop out of diapers. In the end, I agree with her; it's one less added stress when taking care of a newborn.
I have a 3 moth old and we do cloth during the day and a disposable at night because its easier to just jump up and change baby with it. I honestly cant stand the thought of throwing away money every time my kid pees. i use just regular flat fold diapers and sometimes pre folds and a little cover, i reinforce it with a diaper liner. i think its more cost efficient and they are good for the babies skin. but its all in what you think is best. when we go out i use disposables too but any other time its cloth. saves money especially if you have two.
We cloth part time over here lol. I too started looking at them when we had 2 in diapers at the same time. Since then I have had 3 in diapers and then back down to 2. I went in just buying 8-10 to get started and see if I would even be able to keep up with the laundry part of it. I am a full time student and now mom to 3 under 4. We have since bought about 20 more dipes and cloth diaper about 80% of the time. My husband is not fully on board so we keep sposies around for him while I'm in class but it has still been a huge money saver. I would suggest looking at BumGenius, they have started making cute prints recently plus they have lots of colors, and the snap diapers are great because you can adjust to the size of the baby you are diapering. Good Luck! Message me if you have any questions, I really enjoy it and I am so glad I looked into it. Oh and I also use Rockin Green detergent, it gets them so clean!!
I started using them because I wanted to potty train my toddler. I was hoping by using cloth that he would realize he was wet, wouldn't like it and we could move along with using the potty. Needless to say that didn't work. Since I already had just a few cloth diapers I thought maybe I could try it on my son who was 3 months old at the time. It turned out it wasn't that bad and I could save some money. At the time I was buying big boxes of diapers on amazon so between the 2 of them I only spent about $60 a month on diapers. My real savings is coming in now that my toddler is potty trained and only uses a pull up at night. I wouldn't recommend doing it until they are 2 months. I say this because I had a 2 1/2 year old and a newborn and there are so many things to adjust to in the beginning I wouldn't recommend adding anything else to it. I think it was easy to do at 3 months because we had all adjusted to the new baby in the house, were in a routine, breastfeeding was easy, etc. If I had to do it all over again I would buy one or two of several different kinds before buying a lot of one. I have that I love gdiaper inserts but not in gdiaper covers so I use them in my flip covers because I don't like my flip inserts. I also really like kushies. These are great now because they go on just like a disposiable diaper which is great because my son moves like crazy now and it is really hard to do all of those snaps. I also use a disposiable at night and a box of diapers lasts me several months.
I do not have children and hopefully will not for a long time, but I plan on using cloth diapers. I cannot imagine paying so much each month to just throw it away! I'm excited for when I do get pregnant and I can actually justify buying them.
Well if your willing to be washing dirty diapers everyday, be my guest. But like any other fabric, the smell stays forvever detergents just take out the stains and mask the odor.
Regardless of the high monthly expense of disposable diapers, I'd rather use them because to me they seem more sanitary. And if the baby has super sensitive skin, there are diapers that have aloe vera. Cloth though it may be less expensive, it's too much of a hassle plus you'd be washing a lot of them very frequently which also sky rockets your water bill.
@chellexduh@xanga - The mom needs to strip her diapers. That's why the smell is so bad. Not that you can do anything about it, but that's why. LOL.
I didn't cloth diaper my first two. My third was in disposable diapers until he was about 10 months old. I don't know why I decided to cloth diaper. I just did. We've been cloth diapering him for over a year now & will have another coming up next month, who we plan to cloth diaper as well. You are getting MANY uneducated/unresearched opinions here. You need to properly wash cloth diapers & they will have no smell. You should NOT smell any detergent fragrance on cloth diapers. If you smell anything, you are using too much detergent. Also, Gerber & pretty much any prefold diapers you buy from Babys R Us, Walmart, Target, wherever, are NOT good quality. Yes, they will work, but you'll be changing diapers more than you are doing anything else in your life. I can give you more information, if you want & some websites. You can message me if you'd like, or e-mail: cc.schmitz6107@gmail.com I'd be glad to help you make an informed decision, even if you decide to stay w/ disposable diapers. & I only need to do diaper laundry every 2-3 days & it's EASY.
i suggest trying a few different brands and styles. Your research has probably shown you a dozen dozen different kinds of cloth diapers. There's a diapering style, seriously, for every child/parent.
I prefer fitted covers for newborns. it's easy to just lay the prefold in the cover and slap it on just like a disposable. I HIGHLY recommend getting a fitted for a newborn. One size doesn't truely start fitting until 12lbs or so, I've found.
After that, I use one size pockets all the way.The outter layer should be made of a PUL type material and the inner of mine is fleece. Some people prefer different inners. I still use prefolds to stuff with but we have some microfiber inserts, too, that i double with when i need to.
Be sure to just buy one of two of a brand or style and get a few different ones untill you find what works for you.
Then you'll find a washing system that works for you.
EVERYONE does cloth differently. There is no one right way to cloth diaper a child.
I've been using my diapers for 3 years now on my two children and they still smell fresh and new after every wash. If you find yourself battling stench, like @Orlei@xanga suggests then there's something wrong in your wash system.
If any of you moms would like to write up your laundry routine for cloth, I'd love to compile them and post! It would be neat to see how much you are washing, how often, what you use, etc!
@Mandi - That's a fantastic idea! I would love to read it. It might put hubs and me in a more willing state of mind if we have any other children.