Wednesday, June 16, 2010

the cloth diapering report

Ahoy from the land of non-disposable diapers! A few of you asked how we were going with our diaper program, and I'm happy to report that we are doing most well indeed. They are so easy, you guys. So so easy. They are the same as disposable diapers, but you don't have to throw them out! And you have to wash them. So as long as you're up for doing extra wash, they are no big deal at all. And depending on how many diapers you have, you will wash more or less.



Here's what we've been doing:

We have prefolds, but to be honest, we've been using them less and less. We're pretty much 90% fuzzi bunz-ers and we love them. Now, I should also note that I am not a hardcore cloth diapering mom. Before Dashiell was born I mistakenly thought that you had to be either a die hard cloth diaper-er, or just give up and use disposables. Obviously not. We use disposables at night, (which is usually just one diaper), and I feel pretty okay with it. Anything to get the little love bug to sleep longer. "Through the night" is a phrase that we've stopped using around here because it seems sooooo far away. But longer. Longer is always good.

Also, when we go out of town (like last weekend), we bring disposables. We have taken cloth with us to my parents' house for the weekend, but I can't really deal with a bag full of poopy diapers at a nice resort for three nights. My rationale... I'm doing my part, people. And I think that's pretty good.

We ordered all of our prefolds and covers and extra supplies from Green Mountain. They have everything and anything (except Fuzzi Bunz) that you could need in terms of cloth diapering. And they have detailed reviews of every product which is nice when you know nothing.

Our Fuzzi Bunz came from BabyEarth.com, but you can really order them anywhere. Last week I saw them on sale at Diapers.com, which is amazing because I feel like they are NEVER on sale.

For those of you just starting, here's what we started with:

2 dozen newborn prefolds
3 covers (this, this, and this). The Imse Visme organic cotton being my favorite.
12 Small Fuzzi Bunz

Plus I bought 3 dozen cloth wipes, wool wash, 2 snappis, 2 diaper pail liners and a diaper sprayer toilet attachment thing.

The cloth wipes didn't work for us. Dashiell's butt is only happy with Seventh Generation wipes. I tried to go cloth, I did, but disposable worked better for us. Now we use them for other things around the changing table, like blocking mid-change pee from hitting the wall, etc.

Eucalan wool wash is great and super easy. Plus I have 2 sets of wool nursing pads that I wash with my wool covers. Highly recommend them! I wash them like once every 3 or 4 weeks, and they are nice and big, which is good because they look less obvious in clothes. Plus they'll last your entire nursing career.

The toilet sprayer was good in the beginning, but now I'm too lazy to actually spray poopy diapers off. I just toss them into the bin and the "solids" (not that there's anything solid about breastmilk poop), come off in the initial rinse cycle.

I've since added a few more Fuzzi Bunz and the next size prefolds. Not totally sure if we'll keep buying prefolds actually, though they might be nice for summer since they breathe much better than the 'Bunz, especially with a wool cover.

If anyone is curious about how we wash our diapers, here's the drill:

Cold rinse
Hot wash with 1 scoop of Charlie's soap
Cold rinse

So that's 3 wash cycles per load, but I actually looked at our water bill and it's only like $25 more per month. Which is much less than the number of disposables you'll go through.

Hmm. Is there anything else you all want to know?

The main thing is, cloth diapering is so easy! It saves sooooooo much room in landfills and it's so cute seeing your little baby in his big diaper and a T-shirt. There aren't any eco-friendly diapers, as much as you want to believe there are. Even the "biodegradable" ones would only biodegrade if they were exposed to light and air in a huge diaper compost pile. But as well all know, they get wrapped up into air tight diaper genie bags and tossed into the dark recesses of a landfill, where they have about as much of a chance to biodegrade as your old laptop battery.

And ask Jora! It's never to late to start. She started Little E on cloth when she was 5 months old.

One final note... if you do cloth diaper, keep in mind that bigger diapers = less room in clothes so don't forget to pull out your cute stuff early so you don't miss wearing it altogether. Dashiell has some 3-6 month things that barely fit with a Fuzzi Bunz, and he's not even 4 months old yet. But actually, baby clothes sizing is a whole different post. It's wildly unreliable. Dashiell can wear a 0-3 m sweatshirt from Gap and a 12 m onesie from Petit Bateau.

Okay, veering off topic. Please ask if you have any more questions!

14 comments:

Meg said...

Um, clearly I'm not there yet, and I puzzled over the terms a bit. But! It's funny, since we (I?) think of cloth diapers as sort of trendy and cutting edge. But looking at the pictures? I grew up only seeing pre-folds at our house (which, for the record, we also used for burping babies, and then much later as our dusting rags and wood polishing rags (Very absorbant).

Anyway. So. It takes me back. My mom must have used disposables on trips, because she's not nuts. But I don't remember them. Maybe because we didn't take very many trips then.

Clearly I'm the oldest.

Anyway. So trendy and cutting edge, but also not.

kristina said...

Megs - Totally. My dad was still using our old prefolds to wax his car when we were in high school. I've gotta say though, the advancements that have been made in the world of cloth diapering since 1978 are quite welcome.

Sealicious said...

Also not expecting, but was curious how it was going with the cloth diapers.

Glad it's working out!

courtney said...

wow, thanks for the info. i'm just over 6 months pregnant and going through the cloth vs. disposable dilemma myself... and your post was super helpful and encouraging. thanks for sharing!

maisie said...

Clicked on the link for the Charlie's Soap and it looks like an awesome product! Do you use it for your grown-up clothes, too? Do you have to "pre-treat" stains with either the Charlie's or something else?

Meghan said...

Check out Good Mamas you'll fall in love with them. Also I found Crunchy Clean on Etsy as a great diapering wash (smells great too)

Cassi said...

Really great post! Thanks for not leaving anything out, as I (a non-mom-yet) am clueless. I've read many a good thing on the toilet sprayer, and am convinced I will need one, and I've been seeing brand new fuzzi bunz all over my local craigslist, which is a score! The hubs and I have always said we'd go cloth for sure, but I like your idea of taking disposables on trips--it makes a lot of sense if you're not going to a family member's home or camping where you could get away with cloth dealings...
Good work, mama! :)

Anonymous said...

I used to work for a baby store and we sold Tushies, a biodegradable disposable diaper option. They aren't made with a gel, so they are more breathable. If your worried with leaking you can get additional pads for night time or put a diaper cover over them.

Britt said...

Hi Kristina, I love your blog! Congrats on your new baby! I had to comment about the cloth diapers because I have been using them too! My baby boy is 5 months now and we have used cloth since the get go and have LOVED every minute of it! I wanted to make some suggestions to you...(I am in no way affiliated with any diaper companies, I'm just a mom that loves the ones that work the best on my babe).

First of all, I do like FB's but their definitely not at the top of the list for us. For us our go to's are the BumGenius Organic all in ones (with snaps) and the new GroVia hybrids! GroVia especially because it's less bulky diaper for fitting over tight clothes...and it is a problem fitting the clothes over the diapers sometimes! The BumGenius are all is ones, so there is no inserts or anything, just take them off and wash them as is...no stuffing like the FB's. The GroVia's have snap in soakers, so ideally, (and as long as the shell has not been soiled, and it will sometimes) you can just snap the soiled soaker out and snap a clean on in! Therefore you can use the same shell, usually, at least 3 times before it needs to be washed. Also, I love how stretchy the side tabs are, it really makes for a nice fit. Both of these diapers are one size fits all because the rise is adjustable. That way, you don't have to buy different sizes as your baby gets bigger. Both these diapers are very leak proof and Luca sleeps in them, without a leak for 8hrs plus during the night.

That's just my two cents on the diapers that we love. And on a different note, I never wash off the diaper before I put them in the washing machine...my baby is still breastfed and I don't plan on doing that until the poop is solid and it can just be shaken off into the toilet=) I'm not looking forward to those days though!

Here's a couple of resources:
Where we got our GroVia Diapers: www.http://thegreennursery.com/grovia-grovia-starter-mini.html

About GroVia diapers: http://www.gro-via.com/media.php

We get our BumGenius from the same place as GroVia or here: http://www.cottonbabies.com/product_info.php?cPath=98&products_id=1825

Cottonbabies is a WONDERFUL website...it's a great reference on cloth diapers and they have so many great products too! And FREE SHIPPING! I love that website!

I hope this info helps! Happy diapering=)

kristina said...

Hey Britt!

Whoa, thanks so much for the awesome tips! We might need to check out some of your suggestions for sure.

xx

Mary said...

Yay! So glad I found this. I have TWO MORE MONTHS TO GO.... AAAhhh... and I am feeling SO overwhelmed by the whole cloth diaper things! I was thinking gro-via or fuzzibunz since everyone I talked to like those best. I heard G-diapers are awful.

Thank you, thank you for the list!

I can't wait to try everything. ANd good luck with mommyhood! :-)

mimi said...

thank you for posting that! i am 24 weeks pregnant and in my research frenzy i have asked all of my friends with babies under 2 and.... they all use disposables. i was really surprised. wondered if it's really all that hard to use cloth.

christina said...

thanks for this post & your sweet emails! such a thorough post!

i ended up going fro the diaper service...i'll keep you posted on how they work out!

Eva / Sycamore Street Press said...

Thanks for this great post. It's my first time to your blog, and I'm really enjoying it already. I have a 3 month old. We've been doing disposables, but I would really like to change over to cloth. It's just so hard to decide how to go about doing it! So many choices out there... but your post and the comments here do help. Thanks!