Cloth Diapering

Disclaimer: I know that cloth is not for everyone. It takes some planning sometimes, a learning curve at first, asking a lot of questions AND a husband who does the laundry at your house. :) It's not always easy and I know it's not a good fit for everyone and I'm not judging anyone for not using them - I just happen to be a big fan and think they're a good answer for us.

I've had a lot of people ask me how the cloth diapering is going so I thought I'd do a post about it. Let me just say right up front, I am by no means an expert on this matter. I learn something new nearly every day. But, for now, here's what I know.

There are about a gazillion different variations of cloth diapers (and that's not really much of an exaggeration). Below is a pic of three of the kinds we use. From L to R: all in one (AIO), one size pocket diaper, fitted.

• AIO - exactly what it sounds like. One piece, nothing to take apart, no cover required. Pretty easy. Down side to these is that they can take a lot longer to dry, but not a big enough deal to discourage me from using them.
• One size pocket diaper - this diaper (which is what we have the most of) will fit from birth to potty training. They have snaps that adjust the size so they fit even little babies. The pocket part is where you put an insert, which is the part of the diaper that soaks up the fluids. Has to be taken apart for washing.
• Fitted diapers usually (I think) come in a couple of different sizes so you have to have new ones as the baby gets bigger. These also require a water proof cover (the equivalent of the old school "plastic pants" that went over diapers...they're MUCH cuter these days).
• Prefolds - these are the ones that used to be the only kind of cloth diaper, required diaper pins, and you see more commonly used for burp cloths these days. Pins are no longer required. I just recently started using these and they're much easier than I thought they'd be, plus they're a very cheap option to increase the number of diapers you have (and thus decrease the number of times per week you have to do laundry)!

Laundry. We do a lot of it. We were doing it about every three days and then in the course of a week Milo outgrew 12 diapers and now we're doing it every other day. You do have to use special soap - the kind we use we've actually started using on all of our laundry. The good thing is (and this is what a lot of people ask about) as long as he's nursing, there's no dunking or rinsing required. If he dirties a diaper, it comes off and goes straight in the pail just like the wet ones. The diaper pail is just a large kitchen trash can with a lid that we put a large wet bag (pail liner) in. Here's what laundry day looks like at our house:


The finished product:



OK - I'm not going to lie. Part (or maybe all) of my original motivation for using cloth was how cute they are. I mean really, how handsome is he??



Another benefit of cloth, besides the cuteness, is that we have had almost no diaper rash. You do have to use a special kind of diaper rash cream if you use cloth because some creams can affect the absorbency of the diaper. We have a GroVia Magic Stick and it truly lives up to its name. Works like a charm. The other thing that is rare with the cloth diapers is blowouts. We've had three and I can trace two of them to operator error (not getting the diaper on tight enough or using a diaper that was a little too small). We used disposables for the first 2-3 weeks we were home from the hospital because people had given us some so we thought we'd use them up and put off the laundry for a little while. I can't even count how many blowouts we had with those!

I think that's pretty much the extent of my knowledge. I would like to take this opportunity to give a big shout out to my friend Katie who cloth diapers her kiddo and has been a great source of help/information - thanks Katie!