Monday, September 8, 2008

Cloth diapers?!

There are quite a few things I said I would never do. One of them is use cloth diapers. Now we all know we should not say "I never will ...", but I did it anyway and I am now eating my words. We have been currently cloth diapering Elli for about 2 months now and I love it. We don't use the traditional cloth diapers with the pins and diaper covers. We are quite modern and use a fully adjustable pocket diaper called bumgenious. They are so cute and come in adorable colors. They have a microfiber insert and Velcro closers. If you want to see what they look like you can go to http://www.kellyscloset.com/. That is where my diapers came from.

The reason we are cloth diapering is not because we are trying to be all "green" even though it does help. We are not doing it because she is allergic to disposable diapers. Although it looked like she was headed in that direction. We are doing it for the purely selfish reason of saving money. I know that is not selfish, but those other two reasons can sound a whole lot better.

Now I get asked a lot of questions about these diapers so here I go to answer them. The start up cost can be a lot, but a wonderful bestest friend of mine (you know who you are) who believes in cloth diapering (just as much as I do now) bought the diapers for Elli. We have 12 diapers which cost about $220 or a little less. If you shop around you can get free shipping. 12 diapers allows me to do diaper laundry every other day. I wash the diapers with borax and strip them of build up with oxiclean once a week. What about the poop? We use rice paper liners to catch the poop. It really just helps keep it off the diaper as much. The liner is flushable and 100% biodegradable. No, you do not have to dunk the diaper in the toilet to get the poop off. If you do the diaper will become extremely heavy because the microfiber insert will soak up a bunch of water. If there is excess poop. Just wipe it off or take out the insert and rinse off the diaper. No, the diapers do not stain or smell. I can't even tell which diapers she pooped on because the poop stain is gone. Which still amazes me every time. She has only leaked one time because she went to bed, woke up, and had a bottle feeding without a diaper change. Any disposable diaper would have leaked too. These diaper hold an amazing amount. We only change her every 3 &1/2 to 4 hours unless she is poopy.

So, to wrap up I love these diapers and wish I had used them with my first, but I will say that cloth diapering is not for everyone. It was just right for me because we save money at the grocery store, and doing one more load of laundry is no big deal (it is just 12 little diapers). So, that is my cloth diaper experience so far. Many people have said I needed to write about this and I finally have. I am open to answer any more questions that come. I really do love the decision we made to switch and we are not going back. Sometime I will post a cutie diaper picture. Cloth diapering and loving it!

3 comments:

EngineersFalcon said...

I love that you are using cloth diapers. So cutie and so cheap. You rock girl! It amazes me how easy cloth diapers are now. She is a pro, so ask her if you have any questions, she will tell you all about it!

Unknown said...

I can't wait to try them next round. Thanks for the intro!!!

Faith-Hope-Love said...

Hi D! I have been researching cloth/disposable diapers as well and love the bumgenius diapers that I saw online, but I had no reference from anyone that used them. I think we will try to look into those. We did buy the G diaper system which are flushable, but they are still about the same cost as disposable diapers. I will look into it - and I will probably have questions!! Hope you and family are doing well!!