Cloth Diapering

Cost calculator

2010-01-27T17:49:00.000-08:00

Ever wonder exactly what you will save using cloth diapers?

Click here

dealing with the gross poops

2010-01-02T12:10:00.001-08:00

When I started writing this blog I had an almost 3 year old foster son. We did the cloth diaper thing with him but shortly after potty trained him and thank goodness because his poops + cloth diapers = nasty nasty mess.

At the time my son was just a baby and still on breast milk, his poops were no big deal.

When we started feeding him solids and not being comfortable with his poop going in the washer anymore we had to find something else to work with, that is when my friend recommended these:

Found here: http://tinyurl.com/yd9l2eu

They are brilliant! They come in small and large options. They line the diaper, catch the poop and are then flushed down the toilet. They are thinner than toilet paper and are bio degradable. The large cost $8 and last us about 2 months, so definitely worth the investment.

If you use them and your child doesn't poop, you just toss the liner instead of flushing.

Happy cloth diapering!

All about stripping

2010-01-02T12:00:00.001-08:00

So once you've used your diapers for a while they start to build up detergent on them (at least this is what I was told... aka not exactly fact). But you WILL find (fact) that they stop being as absorbent. Just like that out of no where your child will start leaking through the dipes.

So you will need to "strip" them. I didn't have to do it for 8 months, but sometimes you'll need/want to do them more frequently.

Here is the process:

1. Cold soak for 30 minutes, drain.

2. Hot wash with 1-2 tablespoons of Dawn (the blue/original kind) in addition with your diaper detergent.

3. Cold rinse

4. repeat steps 2 & 3.

5. repeat steps 2 & 3 but without the Dawn.

6. extra cold rinse cycle at the end to get all the dawn out.

Then line dry as normal. Your diapers will get their absorbency back!

Great price on Bm Genius!

2010-01-02T11:58:00.000-08:00

They are $4 off! I don't know how long they'll last

http://www.justkidsstore.com/prod/bumgenius/3-0-one-size-cloth-diaper/White

The sun is your friend.

2009-05-21T09:11:00.000-07:00

Even if you choose to dry your diapers in the dyer, you can still throw them out in the sun every once in a while for a natural bleaching! You wouldn't believe the stains that the sun takes out in an hour! They come out looking so white it's like they're brand new.

I will post pics on the subject sometime down the road, but for now, know that the sun works miracles!

How do you CD on the go?

2009-05-12T14:15:00.000-07:00

I worried at first that using CD's while out and about would be a hassle. What I've found is it's no big deal! Sure the diapers take up more space in the diaper bag, but all in all it's really not a problem.

I usually keep 2 BG's in my diaper bag, a few cloth wipes and a wet bag. This is the one I use from Target:

click here for link.

It was $12.99 at Target. I only have 1, but I really could use another one. It's on my list! The only reason I need 2 is so I have one while the first one is being washed.

It's just a bag with a liner that zips! You just throw the diaper/wipes in the bag and bring it home to wash. But make sure you wash the wet bag with the diapers! You don't want to leave a poopy mess behind! :)

Before my days of cloth wipes I use to throw the disposable wipes in the diaper and put the whole thing in the bag. And then I would just wash it all. Turns out it's no big deal to wash the disposable wipes! In fact I would be willing to bet if you wet them you could re-use them! They come out in one piece and very clean :)

Swimming with cloth diapers

2009-05-12T14:12:00.000-07:00

I can only speak for BG's because that's all I use, but we have used them to swim with!

I just took the insert out and put the outside part on. It was perfect!

I read about it and what I found was that really swim diapers only catch the poop, but the pee sort of goes in the pool. So using a CD in the pool was the same as a swim diaper.

I was cautioned that the chlorine could fade the diaper so I set one aside to use for swimming, but it didn't fade at all.

I did get a pack of 25 swim diapers at a garage sale for $1 so I'll use those this summer, but just FYI you can use them for swimming :) Just take the insert out, or else it's H-E-A-V-Y! My dad make that mistake, lol.

Cloth wipes

2009-05-12T14:02:00.000-07:00

I admit I didn't use cloth wipes for about 3 months. I was intimidated because I didn't know what to do! Man I was a fool, they're the easiest part of the whole equation!

We use the thin little baby wash cloths:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5978536

They're $4 for a 12 pack. Cheapest thing you'll ever buy for the baby :)

All we do is fold them in half and put them in an empty wipes container. Pour enough water to make them wet and voila! Wipes! We use to use soap, but it didn't seem to make a difference so we don't even bother.

I use about 1 wipe per diaper change and when we're done, it goes in the diaper in the pail!

I have to say it's easier than using throw away wipes! Cuz with throw aways you have to walk to the trash can to discard the wipes and then put the diaper in the pail. Plus who wants poopy wipes in the trash?

We have about 24 total, but that's more than plenty! I never put them all in the container at once because they'll start to smell. Usually about 10 at a time is good.

I will admit I don't use them on my almost 3 year old foster son. His poop is too big and nasty, so I use the throw away ones!

But I have found it's SUPER easy to travel and go out with cloth wipes, all you do it bring them dry and run them under water before using!

Amazing :)

What detergent do I use?

2009-05-12T13:53:00.001-07:00

Thankfully I have very little to write on the subject, it's all been done before me!

Pinstripesandpolkadots.com

Above is a brilliant list with all the detergents you can and can't use (with pictures!). Be careful, you might not be able to use the same detergent as you do with your clothes!

As I mentioned earlier we use:

I get it at Walmart and the 50oz bottle is $3.76 and the 100oz bottle is about $7.50. So not too bad!

I only use it on my diapers, and I keep a bottle at my mom's house (who lives two states away) so I can use them when I go to her house. But to be honest, I've been in a bind before and used Tide (a no-no) and I don't think it killed my diapers just using it one time :)

Why are bum genius so great?

2009-05-12T13:39:00.000-07:00

The bum genius 3.0's are amazing! It's a one stop diaper in my opinion, which is why I didn't buy anything but them! They GROW with the baby! They work from 8lbs-35lbs, so hopefully the entire time your child is in diapers.

You don't need to mess with s/m/L/xL etc. You can just buy the diapers and use them until they are potty trained.

How do they grow?

They have a snap system that allows them to get bigger as your child does. Amazing! Genius I tell you (no pun intended!)

Here is a size small:

You can see no snaps are showing. My son was in these until he was about 2-3 months.

A size Medium:
You can see I've unsnapped them once to get them a little bigger. He was in these until about 4-5 months.

A size Large:

And all the snaps are showing, they're full size. He's been in these since, and even though they don't go bigger, they still fit my almost 3 year old foster son! (and no they don't weigh the same!)

So as you can imagine, having diapers that fit a child no matter what the age (as long as they weigh over 8lbs) and not having to buy different sizes for different is VERY convenient! I puffy puffy heart these diapers!

Ok, the washing of the diapers.

2009-05-12T12:19:00.000-07:00

This is truly NOT a daunting process, nor does it take long. But in order to BEST help you understand the process, I have taken pictures (many!), but don't be overwhelmed, it really doesn't take long!

-Storing the diapers:

We keep all our diapers in the top drawer of the dresser (with the changing table on top). Inside we keep diapers, cloth wipes (in wipe container) lotion, and newborn inserts for night times (more on inserts later).

Wearing:

Here is my 6 month old looking adorable in his bum genius diapers.

The diaper pail:

After the not-so-adorable part comes, you simply take the diaper off (exactly like a regular disposable) and put it in the pail.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10542216

There are many types of pails, but we opted for a large trash can for our pail. When we travel (by car) we use this pail:

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2527001

We started out using this pail but it only fits about 10-12 diapers and I have 28 so I wanted to go longer without washing.

Washing:

When the pail is full you take the diapers and dump them in the wash as is (if you use a liner for the pail, that goes in too):

WITHOUT USING detergent, you run a rinse cycle on COLD for 10 minutes

Then, without doing anything with the diapers, you pour in the detergent (more on kinds to use later, but here is the kind we use, sold at Walmart):

and run a full cycle on HOT. If for some reason your washer doesn't automatically run another rinse cycle at the end, you'll need to set it to do so (though I'm pretty sure they all do).

So each wash gets a rinse on COLD, a full cycle on HOT, a follow up rinse cycle on COLD

Drying diapers:

When the diapers are done you simply take them out and dry them. The inserts *should* come out while being washed, but every once in a while one gets stuck (especially the little newborn inserts). Don't worry they're still clean!

How do you dry them?

I line dry mine. I was told by friends who paved the way before me that dryers can be harsh on the outside of the diapers. And I have a line both in my basement and my backyard (was there when we moved in!) So I line dry them.

The bummer with winter is that it takes MUCH longer to dry them in the basement than outside. In the spring/summer/fall it's about 2-4 hours outside and in the winter/basement it's about 36 hours. Huge difference! So I love hanging them outside :)

However, the dryer is NOT the devil.

You paid for your diapers, you can certainly do what you want with them. When we travel, we don't feel the need to drape our diapers all over our friends/family members homes, so we just toss them in the dryer. It's not the end of the world :) And they're done faster!

Assembling them:

When they're dry I throw them all in a basket and assemble them while I'm watching TV!

Each diaper comes with three parts:

1. The outside:

This is what the poop/pee gets on, but it's thin and NOT absorbent. You never want to put this on a child without an insert in it, it won't hold anything

2.The insert. This is a full size insert. This is what absorbs the pee/poop and keeps it from leaking out.

3. Each diaper also comes with a newborn insert (that is much smaller). Those never worked on our son, but we do use them to make his diaper more absorbent at night time (we use a full size AND newborn in one diaper).

All you have to do is stuff the insert in the diaper through the pocket:

Fold the flap

and it's done!

Then I fold them to store them:

That's it :)

Isn't it really gross?

2009-05-12T12:11:00.000-07:00

Isn't all poop gross? :)

I don't personally find CD's more gross than disposables. With 1 niece and 6 nephews, I've changed a LOT of poopy diapers over the years and to me, it's really not much different.

I'll do a detailed post on washing them, but for now I'll just talk about the difference between my breast fed child (who isn't on any solids yet) and my almost 3 year old, who clearly eats normal food. Cuz YES it makes a difference!

When I change my 6 month old's diaper it's no big deal. His poop is runny and liquidy, kind of looks like mustard. There's not much I can do to rid the diaper of the poop as it's basically like urine, only a little thicker. So in his case, it hasn't been gross at all. I just take the diaper off and throw it in the pail.

When I change my 2.5 year old's diaper with poop in it, it's a bigger deal. Thankfully he only poops 1x a day!

The hope is that his poop will be solid (like adult poop) and he won't have smooshed it in his butt! Cuz when it's solid, it's super easy, you just dump the poop in the toilet and throw the diaper in the pail.

But when you don't catch it and it's smooshed, it's those times I wish he was wearing a sposie :)

But whatever, you deal with it. And it's gross but so is much of parenting little kids!

When the smooshing occurs, you take the diaper off, and with a wipe or toilet paper (others use a scraping tool like a spatula, but I couldn't stomach it!) you try to scrape off as much poop as possible and dump it in the toilet. You're not suppose to flush wipes, so I try to use toilet paper. Then when you get as much as you can, you throw it in the pail.

Yes some will be left behind, but trust me, it comes out! And no you won't find poop leftover in the washer! We've yet to have it happen.

These diaper are amazing, most the time they come out looking brand new!

What's so great about cloth diapering?

2009-05-12T11:06:00.000-07:00

***disclaimer*** I never claim to be an expert on anything, just sharing my personal experience/opinion.

From speaking with friends and family members who use disposable diapers, I have figured most people spend on average $40-80/month on diapers for one child. Taking the low end of that average and multiplying it by a year you will come out with $480/ year.

If you have a child in diapers until they're 3 years old, you will spend about $1500 on diapers. Yikes that's a lot! And that's not even including wipes!

If you have more than 1 child, we're talking a lot of mulah! For someone who has 4 kids, they will most likely spend about $5000-6000 on diapers in their diapering career, on diapers alone.

So cost alone was a good enough reason for me! I hope to have 4 kids, so the thought of spending that was a bit scary, let alone the environmental factors.

We have $476 worth of diapers (more than enough for our household) and that will last us our entire diapering careers! Plus we use cloth wipes (that's another post) so we don't have any monthly expenses to diaper our 2 children. Awesome!

I've really only shared the financial reasons to cloth diaper. I am not about bashing other people's choices to use disposables, so I will let you read more about the environmental factors on your own. But I will say after reading them, I was convinced that we needed to do this for more than just money.

Are they hard?

2009-05-12T10:56:00.000-07:00

In my personal opinion, not at all! However, I am a SAHM, so I cannot speak on behalf of those who work full time.

But I do have my hands full with our 6 month old, our 2.5 year old foster son and a part time business on the side. With all this, doing CD's has never been a nuisance!

Depending on how many diapers you have, will depend on the amount of work it will take. For me, it's just an extra 2-3 loads a week of laundry. It doesn't take more than a few minutes of my day to throw them in/hang them up etc.

So for me. I say it's easy!

I'd much prefer do a few extra loads of laundry than have to take out more garbage all throughout my house! A. I hate taking out garbage ( I make my husband do it, but he works 80+ hours a week!), B. I hate throwing diapers in multiple cans throughout the house and C. we try to throw out as little garbage as possible in our house (we're not pack rats, but we compost and use cloth for most things in our home).

If you cloth diaper and would like to share your experience, please feel free to post in the comment section below!

Where to buy diapers?

2009-05-12T10:34:00.001-07:00

There are many places you can purchase the diapers from. I have used a handful of places and I will give you the ups and downs of each one!

***disclaimer***these reviews are based on my personal opinion/experience only.

-Pinstripesandpolkadots.com
This site is great and has TONS of helpful information, however if you live in a state with sales tax (like me, 10%) you will get charged it. This might seem silly as you'd think all sites would do that, but I have found ones that don't! And when you're spending a hefty amount upfront for diapers, you don't want to have to add 10%.

has gift registry

-Cottonbabies
This is probably one of my favorites. They offer discounts on bulk buys (as most places do) and have free shipping on orders over $75. And for some reason the tax will NOT apply for this site! However they make you spend $4 on shipping insurance if you want to guarantee your order will arrive.

-Wildflowerdiapers.com
I haven't actually used this site, so I cannot make any comments.

has gift registry

-Nickisdiapers.com
I ordered diapers for a friend as a gift from this site. Overall I was very happy with their service.

has gift registry

-Thanksmama.com
Again I haven't actually used this site, so I cannot make any comments. Though their pricing is fair.

-Target.com
If you're paying out of pocket for diapers, Target is not the way to go. But if you have gift cards to Target or returns in exchange for store credit, this is the way to go! If you live in a state with sales tax, you will get charged (but I shipped all mine to my mom who lives in a state with no sales tax! Always a way to work around it).

However, the items are often back ordered and can take a while to receive. . I think mine took 4-6 weeks to get. However free diapers are free diapers!

We received many duplicates items as shower gifts and even a few larger items as gifts we were able to get hand me downs for, so we had $200 in Target gift cards to put towards diapers! Also many people shop at Target.com off registry's so it's a great place to register!

has gift registry

-Babycottonbottoms.com
This is a nice site, with fair pricing and a flat shipping rate of $5. However their order online hasn't been working for several months and they are not fast to reply to emails about orders (or I ended up in their junk box).

has gift registry

What are the best diapers to use?

2009-05-12T10:25:00.000-07:00

OK, I admit I'm definitely NOT an expert in this area (well really in any area for that matter), because we only use one kind of diapers, but we love the kind we use. Bum genius 3.0's.

However there are tons of great sites to share about other diapers that are out there.

To make it all a bit less overwhelming (cuz it can be overwhelming!) I love to share this great blog:

http://ourlittlefootprints.blogspot.com/2008/05/theyre-not-your-grannys-cloth-diapers.html

She lists (with pictures!) so many different options for diapers. It's a fantastic place to start.

Also if you want to try out different kinds I highly recommend this site:

http://jilliansdrawers.com/products/clothdiapers/tryclothfor10/tryclothfor10

They actually let you try out a bunch of different diapers for a 21 day period. For {get this} $10! There is a deposit fee, but when you get it back the ending cost to you is $10. So worth it.

So if you're just starting out and sorting out your options, I hope you'll find those sites useful!

Welcome!

2009-05-12T10:18:00.000-07:00

Through my other blog I get so many comments, questions and emails about cloth diapering. And since I LOVE cloth diapering and I pimp them to ANYONE who will listen, I thought I'd start a blog to share more info on it! I will list sites that sell them, sites that are helpful, pictures to correspond with how-to's and anything else that comes up along the way.

Hope you'll find it helpful!

Rachel