Remember how I said I like to do hippie things? Cloth diapering is a major one. However, if I’m being totally honest, it wasn’t because it was greener that we decided to do it. It was because we saved a shitload (ha, get it?) of money. They’ve already paid for themselves, I think. (Read: math is not my strong suit.) But being green is a nice bonus. Plus I feel like they’re cute, and they’re nicer on his bum. Evidently, babies who wear cloth diapers are far less likely to get diaper rash, and are potty trained sooner.
When I was pregnant, I totally thought I’d go ahead and bite the bullet and spend the money for a fancy stash of BumGenius diapers. These ain’t your grandma’s cloth diapers, lemme tell ya. My friends that cloth diaper (and I have a few!) mostly use BG’s. And I have to say, they’re well made, soft and absorbent. But they are expensive. I considered buying used, as weird as that sounds. I have seven BG’s in my stash. I got two as a shower gift, and bought two on babiesrus.com with a 20% off coupon, and the other three I recently purchased on Diapers.com, they were on clearance, buy 2 get one free. These were justifiable purchases, because my mom babysits Xavier a lot, and with her Multiple Sclerosis, her dexterity isn’t all that hot. Snaps are tough, velcro is much easier for her. So the velcro ones are her stash.
Here’s some pictures of BumGenius:
I know, the whole thing seems intimidating, but it’s really not. They work almost like disposable diapers, only instead of throwing them in the garbage, I throw them in the pail. (Sometimes. Sometimes I leave them on the changing table and John puts them in the pail. Whatever.) The only extra step is pulling the liners out before throwing them in the pail, and then doing an extra load of laundry every other day. No big deal, I swear. Even the poop, since it was almost all breastmilk poop, (read: water soluble) just goes right in the pail. This wasn’t a problem because for awhile there, the boy seriously would go like 5-10 days without pooping. I KNOW. But totally normal for breastfed babies. Now that he’s on solids and pooping every day, we’re getting one of these and installing it:
And the idea is you just spray the poop into the toliet. Or sometimes, all over the wall, from what I’ve heard/read. Six months after having a baby, the thought of poo on the wall isn’t nearly as appalling as it once was, I am sad to report.
We also have one Rumparoo brand diaper we got as a gift. It went into my mom’s stash, because it’s also velcro. It seems to be holding up nicely, but we’ve only had it since Christmas.
Same principle as the BG’s.
But the bulk of my stash came from Sunbaby Diapers.
Which, as you can see, are almost the exact same design as the BG’s, at literally half the price. The quality is not AS good though, if I’m being honest. The inner and outer is less effective than the BG’s. They do leak sometimes, but to be fair, Xavier’s a serious super soaker. I don’t think anything could quite hold up. And for the price, you can’t beat it. $144 for 24 of them. Holla! One, the snap stuck together and therefore ripped off, but they have held up quite nicely.
http://www.sunbabydiapers.com/
I also have two Baby Beehindz brand. I ordered these from Totsy.com. I was dumb, and thought they were pocket diapers like the BG’s.
They are not. They’re hemp, with hemp inserts that snap in. Kinda weird, and when I got them I was like “Oh crap, these are useless.” But then I realized there’s no returns on Totsy. Shit!
They require a cover. I obviously didn’t have one, so I booked it over to Bellani Maternity, in Warwick RI, my local hippie baby store, and I was all “WTF Do I need here?” And they told me this cover would be a good idea:
It’s a one size, and it’s pretty cool, because it has fancy gussetted leg holes that don’t let the pee leak out. This is our bedtime diaper now, the baby beehindz hemp diaper, and the Blueberry brand cover. What’s cool about the cover is we don’t have to wash it every night, we just wash it every other day. So I only have the one, and that’s good, because it was as much as a diaper!
Worth it though, because the boy pees buckets. Any other diaper, the kid wakes up soaked in his own urine, and I can attest from my drinking days that that is no fun. (Kidding. It wasn’t my urine.)
As for laundry, obviously you don’t want to wash poo in the same load as your fancy clothes. Cloth diapers do have to be washed special, with special detergent. Standard detergents and fabric softeners contain oils to make your clothes soft. However, oil does what? Repels liquid. So your diapers will become less absorbent when you have these oil residues build up on them. So you gotta get diaper detergent. We use Rock N Green.
I don’t buy it online because it gives me an excuse to go to the hippie baby store. But the bag costs about $15, Xavier is 6 months old, we’ve been CDing for about 4 months, full time, and we’re on our second bag. So it lasts awhile, and they have fun smells like marshmallow.
I also will toss in a scoop of Oxyclean, and so far, my diapers are stain free. Lots of people dry them in the sun, and I did it a few times in the summer. But we’re kinda lazy and just usually throw them in the dryer.
So here’s a picture of my kiddo in his cloth diaper on NYE:
Aww look at his chubby little thighs, couldn’t you just eat them up? OH and one other thing, he has not had a diaper rash yet, at all. But you can’t use a lot of diaper rash creams with cloth either, so you gotta be careful. I’ve used California Baby Diaper Rash cream here and there if I spot some redness and it seems to clear it right up. I hear REALLY good things about CJ’s BUTTer too, but haven’t gotten around to ordering any.
So I’ll wrap this up with a list of links with more info than I gave you:
http://www.theecofriendlyfamily.com/2010/07/ive-never-looked-back.html
http://diaperpin.com/howto.asp
http://www.younghouselove.com/2010/08/the-much-requested-cloth-diaper-post/
http://www.jilliansdrawers.com/newtocloth
A Rich Tapestry 