Before my first child was born I decided that I was going to use cloth diapers. It just made sense to use fewer disposable diapers and to save money in as many places as we could and still get good value. I had done a bit of shopping around, but ended up getting secondhand cloth diapers that needed plastic pants. Although they were still cheaper, I didn’t like how the covers tore easily in the washer, and they locked in moisture to my baby’s bottom.
When my second child was born we had all the baby things we needed so I asked our family to help us buy brand new cloth diapers. The ones we had before had been used by a few babies so they were getting very ragged and we still had the plastic pants issue. I found a couple good deals on All-In-One, One Size diapers and my family helped us buy them. Because they are One Size diapers I am able to use them for both my kids, ages 9 months and 2 1/2 years. I think I have 24 now, and I wash diapers every 2-4 days. We use disposables at night and when we take trips on the weekend, but we do often use the cloth diapers on short day trips.
I found the diapers online by searching for “cheap all-in-one diapers, one size”. You can find multiple stores with good prices this way, and oftentimes they have sales on certain brands or colors, or on bulk. packages.
A lot of people I have talked to about cloth diapers are under the impression that to clean cloth diapers you must dunk them in the toilet until you diapers are free of poop and your hands are not, and then store them in a pail of evermore stinky water until you wash them. If this was the case I would have avoided buying cloth diapers like the plague. LISTEN! You do NOT have to wash diapers in the toilet!!
It did take some figuring out, how to get the diapers washed in a simple and easy, non-messy way. This is the method that works best for us: When my baby (or toddler) does the duty, I simply let the poo fall into the toilet, remove the insert (without getting my hands dirty) and drop them both into a covered pail (with no water… and it’s actually a trash can) and every 2-4 days I dump the pail of diapers into the washer, put a little non-chlorine laundry detergent into the mix, fill it with water and when it is done, put it through an extra rinse cycle. To dry, I either put it in the dryer on low heat, or hang the load on my laundry line (as shown above). If the diapers are especially smelly, I put a 1/4 cup of white vinegar into the rinse and it helps to remove any soap scum or uriney smell residue. Hanging them on the line allows the sun to bleach any remaining stains.
And wa-la! You have a fresh load of soft cloth diapers for your baby’s bottom.
It’s cheap, it’s easy, they’re comfortable for your baby, and today they are a lot nicer and cuter than the cloth diapers your grandmother used on your parents!
Hi!
I’m embarking on my first cloth diaper experience with the birth of our baby in early July. Are they time consuming (both in washing and disposal of the waste), and did you find them bulky?
Just curious for feedback!
By: mynaturalbaby on June 8, 2009
at 9:08 pm
Congratulations on your baby! To be honest, using cloth diapers is a little more time consuming than using disposables. But I believe it is much easier than most people think, and after a short time it becomes just another household routine. The difference between the two is what you do with the diaper after you change your baby. If you figure you’ll change your newborn 10 times in one day, you might spend a total of 5 to 15 minutes dumping poop and putting the diapers in the pail, and then another 20 minutes switching loads of laundry and putting them in a drawer every couple days. Actually, newborn diapers are much easier than older babies because their poop is so liquid that you don’t even have to dump it in the toilet. Just take the diaper off the bum, remove the insert (if you have all-in-ones) and drop in the pail.
As for the cloth diapers being bulky, that depends on the opinion of the individual. Some people, after learning my kids are wearing cloth, notice that they are more bulky in the rear, while others say they are surprised how “non-bulky” they are. I find that most clothes fit just fine with cloth diapers, although some more restricting clothes like jeans might get tighter sooner than they would have with disposables. I think the bulkiness is most noticeable on newborns, when anything and everything looks big on them anyway.
Thanks for checking out my blog, I’m sure you’ll find other useful information on pregnancy, birth, and early parenting here as well. Let me know if you have any questions in particular.
By: Naomi on June 8, 2009
at 9:54 pm