Cloth Diapers, A Follow Up

Once upon a time I wrote about our decision to use cloth diapers and I reviewed the brands of cloth diapers we were using. Jack was 2 months old at the time.  Jack is now 18.5 months old and we are still rocking the cloth diapers so I thought an update would be good for those who may be curious.

PROS

We have saved a ton of money. We own 30 one-size-fits-all cloth diapers and spent about $300 upfront on our diapers. We did end up purchasing 3 additional BumGenious 4.0 for nighttime (our boy pees a lot) and they seemed to do better than the cheaper Kawaii's and Just Simply Baby brands that we originally purchased. This brought us to a cost of about $360 not including the cost of washing said diapers (which is about $2/mo for water and $15/every other month or so for detergent).

We have never experienced a blow out. Maybe we just got lucky here, but I think that cloth diapers do a better job of containing messes.

I don't have a real point of reference on this since Jack is my only kid, but he definitely knows when he is wet or dirty (in a good way). Around 16 months I started asking him if he needed a diaper and he would jump up from playing and head to the changing table. At 18 months, he could say "bi-per" (aka diaper) and will still run for the changing table. We have purchased a potty (he knows to call it potty) and he practices sitting there. We are not necessarily ready to potty train, but I like that he is aware of things and we are exploring this next step.

This is more of a personal preference, but I like that cloth diapers don't have a smell to them. When we put him in disposable diapers (we use them on trips that will be more than 4 days), the smell of disposables kind of grosses me out. They smell strongly of plastic, which I am not a huge fan of.

Laundry is really easy. I must admit that once Jack started solids, I was worried about the laundry situation. 90% of the time, I can just dump the poop directly into the toilet. The other 10% of the time is not so pleasant. If you are considering cloth diapers and are concerned about poop getting into your washing machine, the truth is that even with disposables you will still probably put dirty clothes into your machine (if your kid has blowouts, yeah). It happens. I do an extra rinse and I have never experienced any smell or found anything extra left in my washing machine.

CONS

Our diapers take up a bit more space than disposables and you have to carry around the dirty ones after they have been used. We have a wet sack that will easily hold 4 diapers, so this isn't really that big of a deal, you just need to plan for this.

Laundry. While laundry is not harder, if you hate doing laundry, this could be a deal breaker for you. I do a load of diapers about every 3 days or so. And you have to stuff all of the clean inserts into the diaper shells, which seems to work better with small hands so Daniel gets a pass on this job. This isn't a big deal to me, but if laundry isn't your thing or you are already doing a lot of laundry, this could certainly be seen as a con.

Velcro. We only have one diaper that uses Velcro and I am not a fan. Jack likes to pull open the Velcro while I'm changing him. The diaper is a Rumparooz and while I like the extra gussets in its design I am not a fan of Velcro as a closure. Also this particular diaper is a bit more bulky than our others.

That's about it. I really can't think of anything else good or bad. We have been really pleased with our experience. Cloth diapering is not for everyone but it has worked for us.

Cloth Diapers

When Daniel and I first learned that we were expecting, one of our primary concerns was how much this kid was going to cost us and how we could combat any of these costs. Since I am currently a SAHM {who sometimes freelances from home} I thought that using cloth diapers would be a great way that I could help save us money.

About the time we started to consider CD, I had a friend write a great post about how she decided to use CD. I also came across in-depth posts about CD on Bower Power and Young House Love. All of these first-person accounts got me excited.

After much research, Daniel and I agreed that we were definitely going to give cloth diapers a try. We loved the idea of saving money and the green factor was also nice. We weren't sold on buying the most expensive diapers but wanted to try a couple of options before we fully committed. 

To start out we tried the Kawaii, Just Simply Baby and Rumparooz brands {we have one-size-fits-all in all three brands}. Below is a recap of our experience with each.

Kawaii are by far the cheapest you can buy {$6-$12 per diaper} and they work well. However we found that the quality isn't quite as good as the other two brands and they seem to take longer to dry {especially the Minkys}.

The majority of our diapers we bought were from Just Simply Baby. They are fairly cheap {$10-$14 per diaper} and a good quality. We started out buying the Halfway In package – it is $80 for 8 diapers {you reference boy or girl but you don't get to pick your diaper patterns... we ended up with some crazy patterns}.

Just Simply Baby also sells the detergent we use (but we found it cheaper on Amazon) – Rockin Green Detergent. It seems to work great. More on washing below...

Also, Just Simply Baby's return policy is the best by far, which is why we started with them:

Returns - If you are not satisfied with your diaper purchase, you may return them at any time within 30 days of invoice date. Diapers returned in 30 days do not have to be new in package, and can be used, washed, etcetera. Any packages received after 30 days of order date will NOT be refunded, so please take shipping time into consideration.

And finally, some friends gave us a Rumparooz – they are about $24 per diaper. This is our only diaper that has velcro instead of snaps. It is fairly easy to adjust the size and it has a double gusset to prevent leaks. I am not a huge fan of the velcro because my baby likes to pull it open while I am changing him. Snaps have been better for us.

If you are curious as to how modern cloth diapers work {like we were}, here is a brief overview:

Each diaper has two liners {inserts} that you stuff into it. The inside of the diaper is soft and absorbent. The outside is also soft, but is backed by a waterproof layer that prevents leaking. Come wash day, you pull out  the inserts out and throw them, along with the diaper cover, into the washer. You soak the diapers for an hour in cold water, wash them in warm water, then do an extra rinse in cold water. You don't even have to touch the poopy part. It is all really easy.
 
When the poop gets more solid (once you introduce food), then you have to knock the poop off into the toilet or a trash can. *I will probably write an update on washing when we reach this stage with Jack.

We currently have about 30 diapers so we do about one load of diapers every other day {this way there is time for them to hang dry}.

The different kinds of inserts are microfiber {this comes with the diaper and works well, but is bulky}, hemp {this insert is very thin, but costs extra and takes longer to dry}, and bamboo {this insert is thin, costs extra and takes longer to dry}. We have a few of all of these inserts. We actually like the microfiber the best even though it is bulkier.

The covers come in Minky and Regular. We have some of each. The Minky's are very soft. We don't really have a preference between the Minky and Regular. We have a variety of patterns and solid color diapers. Daniel's favorite are the Just Simply Baby Spider Man pattern and I really like the Just Simply Baby Moo pattern.

 

Blow outs have been almost non-existent, and definitely less than disposables, and diaper rash has rarely happened with CD. When Jack has had a diaper rash from disposables, we temporarily left him in disposables and use Desitin until the rash clears up, then swap back to cloth. *Note that Desitin can not be used with cloth diapers as it ruins the absorbency.

We received a couple of diaper cakes from baby showers that kept us going on disposables for the first few weeks until Jack reached the minimum 8lb weight required for the CD to fit properly. We tried the diapers a couple times before he reached 8 lbs, but his legs were too small to fill out the holes so they leaked out the sides.

In terms of savings: we have spent $300 upfront on our cloth diapers. Our water bill is up ~$2 per month {no sewer charges since we are on septic, so that keeps it cheaper}. According to some friends who have a one year old, they spent $1000 in the first year on disposable diapers, or about $83/month on average. So unless Jack is potty trained at age 4 months or less, the cloth diapers will save us a lot of money.