Cloth diapering

Chris and I decided we wanted to cloth diaper our babies wayyyyy back when I was pregnant.  Babies who are cloth diapered have less diaper rash, are potty trained earlier, are MUCH less expensive (disposable diapers can cost as much as $100 a month!), and better for the environment (one diaper takes 550 years to decompose in a landfill).

It's a no-brainer.

But what ISN'T a no-brainer is which cloth diaper to choose.  If I had a dollar for every hour I spent researching every. single. kind of cloth diaper - which was most economical, best quality, best reviews, etc - I would have paid for our entire cloth diaper stash!  I researched gdiapers, BumGenius, Fuzzibunz, Happy Heinys, and more.  I learned about AIO (all-in-ones), doublers, prefolds, diaper covers, and more. 

However, my hours of research paid off, because I found THE MOST AMAZING cloth diapers out there.  I'm serious - I'm often tempted to stop strangers on the street to tell them how cool my son's diapers are.

After so much research, I decided we needed an all-in-one diaper.  The old-fashioned way of cloth diapering including using a prefold diaper (which looks like this):

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folding it, and securing it using pins or some other sort of clip.  Then, you would use waterproof pants over it.  I decided this was too difficult, time-intensive, and complicated for us, although it is the least-expensive cloth diapering option.

Which brought me to examine g diapers. I liked g diapers for several reasons.  They have the convenience of a disposable for out-and-about, with flushable/compostable liners that go in the waterproof outer layer, but they also have a washable hemp liner for at home.  However, g diapers come in 3 different sizes for a growing baby, which meant we would have to buy 3 sets - expensive!

So I tried to find a diapering option that allowed one set of diapers that could fit all through the diapering stages.  Fuzzibunz and BumGenius accomplish this - however, the one drawback of those two is that you stuff the absorbant inserts into pockets in the diapers.  While this works great, you need to have enough inserts AND outer shells to avoid doing laundry five million times a week, since both the insterts and outer shells need to be washed each diaper change.  And the outer shells can get expensive. Pocket diapers can be great for nap times and night time, especially for heavy-wetters (since you can adjust how many inserts you stuff in the pocket), but they wouldn't work for our full-time diapering needs.

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Enter Gro Via diapers.  The best of both worlds.  Gro via diapers have an outer shell that snaps to fit babies 7 lbs - 35 lbs, plus an absorbant liner that snaps into the shells.  I LOVE being able to simply unsnap a liner and snap in a new one if Cole's only wet, since the liners are much less expensive than the shells.  Sometimes, Cole only goes through two or three shells a day, which means less time doing laundry.  Since beginning cloth-diapering, I have only added two loads of laundry a week to my workload, which is totally doable. Gro via also has the option of purchasing disposable liners; however, I haven't used them so I'm not sure how awesome they are.

How it works:

First, many cloth diaper website will allow you to order a package of diapers, which can trim some of the costs.  We got a great deal on ours at the Gro-Via website (they sometimes have holiday sales).  While it's expensive to buy a whole set of diapers at once, just remember how much money is saved by not having to buy disposables!

When we got our diapers, we were told that they become more absorbant as they are washed, so before being able to use them we had to wash and dry them at least 3 times. 

I snap in liners into some of the outer shells, like this:

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and diaper Cole just as if I were using a disposable diaper - it's pretty much the same design.



Then when a liner is wet, I simply unsnap it and toss it into our diaper pail, which is lined with a wet bag (a special bag to prevent molding and smell).  If a liner/shell is poopy, we take the whole thing to our toilet, where Chris attached a handy-dandy diaper sprayer to spray any mess into the toilet.  After I make sure the tabs are folded down on the shells so the velcro doesn't get yucky, I toss everything into the diaper pail. 

If we happen to be out and about and in need of a diaper change, I put the dirty diaper liner in a small wet bag to take home and take care of there.

When wash day comes, I simply take the entire wet bag and dump everything into the washing machine, turn the wet bag inside out and wash it as well.  I've found it works best to do a cold rinse first, then a hot wash with extra rinse.

Since cloth diapers can lose their absorbancy if the wrong detergent/soap is used (same goes for diaper rash creams), we purchased Country Save soap to wash our diaper loads.  I liked Country Save best because it will not cause burns on a baby's sensitive skin like some other brands can. 

After washing, I take out the diaper shells and hang dry them so they last longer, even though they can be put in the dryer if needed.  I toss all the liners and wet bag into the dryer, although line drying the liners in the sun will remove any stains that likely will occur. 

And that's it!  While it seems daunting and confusing at first, once you get the hang of it, cloth diapering is super easy.  I love that we have cut our garbage output in half since starting to use cloth diapers.  I love how cute Cole's little bum looks in cloth diapers.  And I love knowing that our next little one will be able to use these diapers, saving us TONS of money.

Cloth diapering.  What's not to love?