Cloth Diapering

We (meaning I) decided to cloth diaper Ellie about 6 months before she was born. I read up on the options and brands for weeks before making the decision. Ted was…skeptical. He didn't understand how it could be sanitary or practical to wash them ourselves, and I was a little nervous about it too. 

Ellie at 1 month

Here are a few resources that helped me make the decision.
bumGenius
Young House Love 1, 2, 3
Pinterest

The YHL posts were the main thing that turned me on to bumGenius. They use the Elementals, which are the all in one style. That was really important to me because I didn't want to be dealing with separate covers and inserts in the middle of the night. I also wanted to make sure they were as easy as possible to use in order to persuade Ted and my family that they were a good idea.

Besides the environmentally friendly factor, they are also wallet friendly. In the long term that is. They are definitely an investment initially, but after that, you never have to buy another disposable again if you don't want to. Different sources give a different opinion on how many cloth diapers you should purchase. Some say 18 is enough. Some suggest 24. We currently own 24 and I wouldn't mind owning another 6 or so. I wash them every other day right now and as long as I remember to throw them in by the afternoon, we are fine with what we have. If I have a busier day and don't remember until the evening, sometimes we cut it a little closer.

So just how much does it save you? Here is a good article that explains the cost savings in detail. For us here is the breakdown of what we spent.

Diapers: 24 bumGenius Elementals $525.71 (there are price breaks if you purchase in multiples of 6 and get better the more you buy at a time)
Wipes: BumGenius Flannel $30.50 (3 packs purchased at BuyBuyBaby with 20% off coupons - I know you can make your own too, but I was lazy)
Diaper Sprayer: We bought the bumGenius one, but there are others out there too $50.84
Detergent: bumGenius brand, but again there are others that work fine 14.95 for 70 loads (probably about 15 loads per month, so each bag lasts a really long time - maybe would need 5-6 bags for 2 years time)

Grand total: approx $682.00 (not counting utilities for washing). This number includes my local MI sales tax at 6%.

These diapers should save us about $2,000-$2,500 for this child and we can save them and use them on a future child(ren). The best part? I can sell them used when we're done with diapers! So it's definitely an investment up front, as I said, but HELLO? The alternative is spending a lot on stuff that gets pooped on and thrown in the trash. I'd rather take a couple vacations as a family with the savings.

That's what we have right now. I think I might buy a few of these extra inserts to use with Ellie's night time diaper, because as she's sleeping longer periods at night, she wakes up with a really wet one sometimes. She hasn't had any leaks yet, but she's only getting bigger and drinking more.

So how does our process work? Right now it's super easy. Ellie is exclusively formula fed (breastfed babies are cool too), so that means we don't have to do any sort of pre-spraying into the toilet yet. Once she starts solid foods at 6 months, we will need to spray the poopy ones into the toilet and then toss them into her trash/hamper as usual. Pee only diapers don't need any sort of special treatment.

We use these cloth trash can liners from Amazon and they work great. I bought two, so we would have one in the wash, and another clean one to put back on the can. When I'm ready to wash a load, I just pull the whole thing out of the can, carry it to our laundry room, dump out the contents into the washer, and then toss the bag in there with it. We have these smaller wet bags that zip that we keep in our diaper bag too for when we're out and about. They work the same way.

As far as washing goes, with our diapers, I first run the wash on a normal cycle with cold water, no soap. When that load is done, I open the lid, dump in one scoop of soap powder, and run another cycle on hot and press the extra rinse button. I have never had a load come out still dirty after this process. Sometimes there is a faint stain on a few, but leaving them to dry in the sun for a few hours bleaches them back to normal (really - it's magic!). For drying, the all in one style has a tendency to take a little longer to dry. My dryer has an extra dry setting that I use and it seems to work perfectly, but you can also let them air dry in the sun if you want. Sometimes that's not convenient for me because I live in Michigan where it's often humid, or too cold, so we just throw them in the dryer.

Ellie at 2 months

That's basically it. I will update again in the future once Ellie is on solid foods to see how that affects my process. But really, right now everyone who sees her in her cute cloth diaper butt is impressed with just how easy it really is. It doesn't have to be intimidating at all and most larger cities have a store that sells cloth diapers. Often you can go there for support if you have any questions. My local store, Hopscotch is where I actually bought all of our diapers. Their prices are the same as anywhere I found online, and they offer a punch card too, so I will earn free money once I use it up. Everyone knows a Dutch girl loves a good bargain :) And it's also great to support a local business!