Diapers!

May 24, 2009 - 7:30 pm EST

I think I mentioned a while back that Corey and me had decided to do cloth diapers. I’ve been meaning to write a bit about the why’s and how’s, because it’s not such a common thing. Here goes…

Our main reason for choosing to go cloth was to reduce waste and cost. It’s amazing how much gets thrown away when you have a baby in diapers, and incredible the cost. From what I’ve read, not only can cloth diapering be less expensive, but if you use prefolds (I’ll explain in a bit) you have a bunch of really absorbent wipe cloths and clean-up cloths that you can continue to use when the baby outgrows the diapers. Economical!

I say cloth diapering can be less expensive, but it’s very easy to spend a lot of money as well. The cheapest way to go is to buy what are called prefolds. These are basically just rectangular absorbent cloths that you fold in a certain way and either pin or fasten closed. We went with cotton because it’s cheap, and natural.

From what I’ve read you want to stay away from the cheap store bought prefolds because they’re often made of synthetic materials that aren’t as absorbent. You may be wondering how a bit of rectangular cloth can diaper a baby and keep out the mess, so here’s a little visual tutorial I read when we were originally researching this.

You can spend a little more money like Corey and me did and buy diaper covers. These are used over the cloth diaper to prevent leakage, and they’re just cute too. Some people buy enough to use them all the time, but some just use them for night time or whatever. However, these you don’t have to wash all the time if the baby doesn’t mess them between changes. Then you could ditch the prefold thing and do pocket diapers, which are like diaper covers that you put an absorbent something into the pocket. Some use polar fleece, and others even use prefolds. This of course can be even more expensive.

Even more expensive (see now why I said cloth diapering can be less expensive?) are All-In-Ones. It’s just like it sounds, which is basically like a disposable diaper that isn’t disposable. There’s no lining it with anything because it’s an enclosed diaper with all the absorbent material already inside. You have to wash these every time like you would prefolds, but they’re a lot more expensive and you need just as many as you do prefolds if you’re using them exclusively (which I’ve read is about 12 per day).

Phew, that’s a lot to take in and boy was I overwhelmed when I took the plunge and did my research for what we needed. Then I needed to figure out what the wash routine is. We chose to buy all of our stuff from Green Mountain Diapers, and they have the option during checkout to send an informative booklet free with your shipment. This thing is like 10 pages long if I remember, but there’s a lot of good detailed information about washing. It’s not that washing them is super complicated; it’s just that there are a lot of options and you kind of need to experiment to see what’s best for you.

Oh, and did you know your wash water from the washing machine goes into your sewage system?

There’s so much more you can learn about cloth diapering, but those are the basics. The cool thing is that cloth diapering families today have a ton of resources and places to buy products online. It’s not easy finding these types of products in stores, depending on where you live of course. I’ve got a bunch of links that I’ll put at the bottom, which is where I got all my information. It may seem overwhelming at first, but I think that’s mainly because there’s no common knowledge about this so you have to start from scratch.

We are determined to cloth diaper nearly exclusively, with a few disposables as backups for sitters too intimidated, or convenience on long trips.

There are a lot more reasons that some families choose to cloth diaper, other than just cost and reducing waste. If you’re interested, here are a few articles and links.

Cloth Diapers article at consumerreports.org

The Joy of Cloth Diapers at Mothering Magazine

Cloth Diapering Dictionary – The rest of this website has a lot of great info and reviews of cloth diapering products out there written by people who’ve used them as well. Very helpful if you’re not sure which brand you should go for.

A quick getting started for those overwhelmed at the idea of cloth diapering: Green Mountain Diapers New to Cloth Info

The Real Diapering Association – for the fanatical I suppose

Categorized: General