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Crash Course in Cloth Diapering Part 2: Questions

by - May 25, 2012


Ace in a Bummis Super Brite Diaper Cover


How do I know what type of cloth diapers are best for my baby and me? 

This is the question I thought about most before I had my son. I did a lot of research on the different types of diapers and asked other cloth diapering Moms what their opinions were on which diaper they liked most. I never got the same answer. The reason being is every family and baby is different. Babies not only differ in gender but size. I noticed Pocket diapers that worked perfectly for a friend with a chubby baby girl did not work well for my skinny baby boy. Some of my friends preferred old fashioned prefolds while others liked the convenience of Pockets or All in One diapers. There are so many options out there that it is hard to say what will be best for you.

Ace in a Flip diaper cover, size Medium


Then how do I go about finding the right diaper for my family? 


The best suggestion I ever got was to try different types of diapers. It seems like it could cost a pretty penny to do so but the best thing about cloth diapers is you can buy them used and they are just as good, sometimes better, as new diapers. Cloth diapers become more absorbent the more they are washed and if someone has taken excellent care of their diapers then buying preloved diapers is a great way to say some money while trying out different styles. Also if you have a friend who has used cloth diapers, they may be willing to let you borrow theirs and see how you like it. Cloth diapering Mom's are usually so excited to find someone else interested in cloth diapering their baby that they are more then willing to help you out.

Ace in a pocket diaper


But isn't it expensive to cloth diaper my baby?

For me the cost of diapers was a small reason for cloth diapering. I truly did it because the thought of all those diapers in a landfill grossed me out. I thought it was going to be expensive to start up cloth diapering and it would be a bit of a financial burden on my family until we got all the diapering supplies we needed. I found this to actually be quite the opposite. I started my diaper stash with 2 preloved Flip diapers and 6 inserts. I believe I spend about $40 on those and they we in new condition since the person who got them didn't use them but had prepped them. That saved me at least $10. I also decided to get some pocket diapers that I found on sale. I got 4 for $8 each from Cloth by Tel (no longer selling diapers). So right there on about a day's worth of diapers I spent about $72. This seems like a lot of money for a days worth of diapers, right? Wrong! The best part is after they are dirty you just wash them and reuse them. So in reality you just saved yourself money because you aren't going through disposables for at least one day every other day if you do a wear, wash, wear, wash routine with a days worth of diapers. This seemed a bit silly to me so it made sense to have more then one days worth of diapers. We had gotten 2 Gdiapers from Babies R Us and they came with one insert and we bought a pack of 6 inserts, we had also gotten 2 packs of size 1 OsoCozy prefolds. We bought all of these with gift cards from our baby shower or got them as gifts for my shower. So essentially this didn't cost us anything but you can get these preloved for really cheap. This helped give us at least two days worth of diapering. If our shells or covers didn't get dirty we could easily go three days with all the inserts we had. We also bought ten pockets super cheap on ebay for probably $50. These were more for fast changes then anything else.

Ace in an All in One diaper


Isn't using "preloved" diapers gross?


Since cloth diapers are cleaned in the washing machine it isn't much different then washing a onsie that your baby had a blow out on and reuse it or giving it as a hand me down. When you clean a cloth diaper you wash the poop off prior to washing it in the washing machine. We use a diaper sprayer attached to our toilet. If the idea of using another baby's diaper grosses you out consider buying inserts or prefolds new but preloved shells or covers. This way you can save money on part of your diaper stash.

Ace in a Thirsties Duo Wrap cover Size 2


What are the benefits to cloth diapering?

I have found many benefits to cloth diapering. One of the main ones is how much money it saves us on diapers. We use disposables for bedtime and usually one when Ace wakes up when I go nanny(4 days a week) in the morning since his first diaper is usually a poopy one and its easier for me to change him out of that before getting all of our cloth diapers set up at their house. That means we usually only use about 50 disposable diapers a month. Sometimes more if we are going to be out all day and we don't want to carry around a huge wet bag with us. Also my son poops at least 3 times a day, usually more. No clue why but that would be a ton of diaper changes. Most babies don't seem to poop that much so you may be able to change them less but not my kid.
Another benefit is my child has only had diaper rash once and it was when we were out of town and we used disposables. Because he poops a lot and has sensitive skin disposables just don't help in the rash area. Other then that his bottom has never had an issue.
The best part is we are creating less waste! We do love the fact that we don't have a ton of nasty disposables going into the landfills.
Ace in an OsoCozy pre fold size 1 with a Snappi to secure it. 


What is the actual savings from cloth diapering?

Since I mostly cloth diaper I couldn't tell you how much it would cost me to diaper my child in disposables in a month because it changes based on whether we are out a lot or if we goes days without touching a disposable (once in awhile we will use cloth for bedtime). Overall we can go awhile with a large box of Luvs diapers. The box holds 108 diapers and we usually buy them when we see them on sale for $16.99 at Target. A lot of time they have them on sale and buy 2 and get a $5 gift card. We figure its worth it to splurge on 2 boxes. Those can last us awhile. I can't even remember the last time we bought diapers.
What I can tell you is that if you buy the right cloth diapers (One Size diapers) they can last you from about 8lbs to 40lbs or so. So the upfront cost is only a fraction of what you would pay long term for disposables. Here is a great site that breaks it down Cost Savings: Cloth Diapers vs. Disposable Diapers


If you have any more questions please feel free to email me.

Check out Part 1

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