Taking the Leap
I read this horrible book while I was pregnant. It was basically a giant conspiracy theory about the baby industry. Even though it was written with such a bias that it could hardly be considered a credible source of information, it did inspire me to do some more reading about things I wouldn’t have otherwise looked into.
I bought “natural” wipes and diaper ointment and shampoo and body wash. Those things were pretty straightforward. But cloth diapers? I had never really considered before.
I have the best intentions to be a “natural” mom. I try to be conscientious about what they eat and what they put on their skin. But convenience often wins out and I find myself feeding them Mac and cheese from a box and slathering them with soap I can’t even pronounce the ingredients of. I don’t beat myself up; I know that I’m improving and making little steps. Doing everything the “right” way is effing hard, man.
Cloth diapers interested me first because of the claim that the chemicals in disposables are bad against baby’s skin. When I read and found that to be mostly false, I still considered cloth diapers for the money saving potential. Since I’m still new at being a stay-at-home-mommy, I’m trying to find ways to contribute financially. Because getting paid in crayoned drawings is the best. But it’s also a big adjustment.
I’m rambling. I decided to try cloth diapers, mainly to save money. I happened to find a sale on Zulily that had FuzziBunz Elite One Size diapers for about $10 a piece, which is a ridiculously good price. I cautiously ordered five of them, thinking that would be a good start. Even if I just used five diapers a day, that would save us money, right?
The diapers arrived and they were soft and colorful and fun to touch. And also a little confusing. Why were there two inserts? How did this work? Am I supposed to change the whole diaper every time or just the padding?So I did what anyone would do. I googled.
How I Accidently Picked a Style
And it turns out, even though I had done some reading on using cloth, I had barely scratched the surface. For starters, I didn’t realize how many different kinds of cloth diapers there are. All-in-ones and pocket style and hybrid and all-in-two and prefold and so on. Yep. All different things.
Without knowing it, I had ordered the pocket style diapers, which, after reading more about each type, is probably what I would have chosen on purpose because you can add more inserts to customize absorbency better than an all-in-one and they dry faster after being washed.
I learned that the inserts in my diapers were microfiber, which was great except it can’t sit directly against baby’s skin. Hence, the pocket.
I also learned that with pocket style diapers, you wash the whole diaper and insert after each use much like an all-in-one. With hybrids and all-in-twos you can replace the insert and reuse the shell.
(A note in researching cloth diapers: I found YouTube to be incredibly helpful for the visual demonstrations of diaper use. I also watched a few “day in the life of a cloth diaper mom” videos that helped me to figure out the diapering area setup and the laundry situation.)
(Another note: I found a fantastically helpful site that ranks the top rate cloth diapers and has an incredible amount of information about cost, care of diapers, etc. You can find it here.)
Getting Started
Ok. So I have my pocket style diapers. Check. I ordered a washable, reusable diaper pail liner from Amazon, and got another plastic trash can with a lid. Time to try them out!
They felt a little bulky at first. And it was really hard to tell if she was wet or not. But they worked pretty well. I was impressed.
We used three diapers the first afternoon. I put her in a disposable for bedtime because disposables wick the moisture away from their skin better, which means less chance of diaper rash when they sit in it all night. It also means when you use cloth, you change diapers more frequently, both to prevent rash and to prevent leakage.
The laundry part was relatively easy. Dump the contents of the laundry bag in, push the bag inside out, and throw it in as well. A rinse cycle in cold water, then add your detergent (less than for a normal load) and run on a hot cycle in the deepest water you can. Finish with an extra rinse cycle. Tumble dry on low or hang them to dry. It seemed easy enough. Maybe we could actually do this.
So I did a little bit more internet digging. I found a sale that had the bumGenius 4.0 pocket diapers for about $15 through The Green Nursery website. Not as cheap as the FuzziBunz, but they were really highly rated. So I ordered seven of those. Twelve diapers would cover us for a day and I could do laundry at night. We were ready to commit.
FuzziBunz v.s, bumGenius
When they arrived, I was surprised at how different the two brands felt. FuzziBunz feel softer and a seem to fit a little more comfortably. bumGenius diapers have more snaps to customize size, but the material doesn’t seem to give as much, making them feel a little bulkier. They might be better as she gets a little bigger.
A big difference I hadn’t expected? With FuzziBunz you can throw the diaper and the insert in the dryer on low. BumGenius diapers say it’s ok to dry the insert, but the diaper should hang to dry. With my plan to do laundry at night, and the fact we didn’t have a clothes line, this was kind of a big inconvenience.
But hey. We can roll with this. I’ll get a small drying rack we can put on the deck in the sunshine. Easy.
Why Stop There? (Alternate Header: All the Extra Stuff I Bought)
So now we were in. I felt like I had learned so much from my reading I decided to do a blog post outlining the important things I had learned. Which led to more reading. Which lead to more learning.
I discovered there are a variety of different materials… microfiber, like what my inserts were, but also bamboo and hemp and minky and organic cotton. Some were more absorbent than microfiber and could actually go against the skin. I decided to order a set of bamboo with microfiber and a set of hemp, just to try, since they were rated so well for overnights.
And since those inserts can go against baby’s skin, why not order a hybrid shell to try so I can test out changing just the insert and reusing the shell? So I ordered three of the Flip diaper covers. (Update: I tried the Flip covers with the bamboo inserts for the first time the other day. I love them as much (if not more) than the pocket diapers. They seem to fit a little trimmer on my three month old than the pocket diapers and they worked great. For traveling, it was so much easier to take the inserts rather than a bunch of diapers. I’m definitely glad I tried these.)
AND since cloth diapers were going so well, I decided maybe I could use them when we were going out and about. Which means I would need a way to transport soiled diapers back home without ruining my diaper bag. So I bought a small wet-bag from Amazon. (You can see the one I got here.)
And if that wasn’t enough, I decided to test drive some of the disposable liners for when poop happens. Technically, I could have waited on these because as long as baby is exclusively breastfed, you don’t have to rinse poop out before you launder your diapers.
Speaking of Poop…
When you set up your cloth diaper plan, you’ll want to have a poop-plan as well. Poop should be rinsed out of the diaper before it is put in the laundry (unless you are exclusively breastfeeding, then it isn’t necessary, but can be done to prevent staining). They make attachable sprayers that can hook up to your toilet line and allow you to spray the diaper contents directly into the toilet. The least expensive was around $20.
We have sprayer/detachable shower head in our shower, so I wondered about spraying the contents into a bucket in the bathtub, and then dumping the bucket into the toilet. The idea of spraying poop at my toilet sounds potentially germ-happy. At least if I was spraying into my shower, I could clorox the shower after each spray.
But for right now, she is exclusively breastfed and will be for the next few months. I haven’t done anything special other than following the typical protocol of running diapers through a cold rinse cycle before washing them. There has maybe been some SLIGHT staining of the microfiber inserts, but the pocket diapers haven’t stained at all, even without being rinsed.
How Not to Immediately Ruin Your Diapers
In all my researching, I found a few things that hadn’t even occurred to me when we switched to cloth.
First, DIAPER OINTMENT. You can’t use just any diaper ointment. It will get on the cloth diapers and it can inhibit their ability to absorb. Not good. Just to give you an idea, before I discovered this, I had a little bit of Butt Paste on my daughter with a cloth diaper on. Some of it got on the diaper. IT IS STILL THERE. After maybe ten washings. Luckily, it was a small enough amount that it didn’t ruin the diaper. But as I mentioned before: poop has washed out without a stain. Butt Paste is still there.
There are some lists out there about what diaper ointments are safe with cloth diapers. The two I’ve purchased are California Baby and Earth Mama Angel Baby.
Next, LAUNDRY DETERGENT. You can’t use any old laundry detergent with cloth diapers. Residue from the soap can build up over time and ruin the absorbency. After reading several reviews, I purchased Charlie’s Soap, and have been happy with it so far.
A Note on the Cost of Cloth Diapering
One of the biggest persuasive arguments for cloth diapering is all the money you can save doing so. And it can definitely be cost effective.
However, it can be very easy to over-invest. As I started experimenting with cloth diapers and became more excited about using them, ordering more types of inserts and accessories was fun! But cloth diapers are not cheap. They are an investment. If you buy a brand-name diaper like Huggies or Pampers, you will pay $0.18-$0.30 per diaper. If you buy a $20 cloth diaper, it will take you 111 diaper changes to just break even with what using disposables would have cost you.
And that is just for one cloth diaper. If you invest $100 in cloth diapers, it will take you 555 diaper changes to break even. And that is not taking into account the extra cost of laundry you will be doing (anywhere from $0.50-$1.00 per load).
See how quickly the costs can add up?
My total investment for twelve pocket diapers, disposable, liners, extra inserts, diaper pail liner, three Flip diaper covers, and twelve bamboo inserts was $254.79. If I use eight cloth diapers per day and do laundry every other day, it will take me 271 days of cloth diapering just to break even.
The point is: if you are cloth diapering to save the planet, awesome. (I am taking out so much less trash than before it is amazing.) If you are cloth diapering to save money, be careful not to over invest. Watch for sales, pick a more cost effective style of diapers (like the hybrids), and stick to your budget.
Conclusion
There is a lot to learn about cloth diapers. The research required to get started can be overwhelming. I wanted to share this story in case there are others like me who have good intentions for green parenting but are finding it hard to invest the time and energy into researching.
I read reviews after reviews and narrowed my selection of diapers, ointments, accessories, and laundry detergents down to the best balance of quality and affordability I could find. And I’ve been very happy with my choices. Having quality products and spending the time being prepared to make the switch to cloth has made it a wonderful experience. Honestly, I enjoy using them more than I ever expected to. So if you want to skip the research, the products I’ve listed above are a good place to start. Good luck and happy diapering!