Cloth Diapering...

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Shanna on May 14, 2009 at 6:01am

I don't know what works best but I have a few work at home fitteds with inserts that look amazing, are soft, not too bulky, etc.

I am also buying, because money is tight, some Coolababy and Babyland diapers off of ebay. They are cheaper, but I have heard great reviews. They are One Size pockets. They are great looking, no fancy designs but cute colors, etc. :)

I can't wait to get started on it!

Permalink Reply by Cherylyn on May 14, 2009 at 6:09am

I have 4 kids, and two of them are in diapers right now. I haven't tried cloth diapers yet, but I'm expecting some to arrive in the mail soon and we're going to try them for the first time. The major thing that's stopped me from trying them before is the idea of the clean-up and washing. I've always used disposables because they are so easy and relatively mess-free. The reason I'm trying cloth now is because I can't afford to keep buying disposables. The cost is insane, and I'm ready to try something else. I admit I'm not looking forward to the extra laundry, at all. It's nice to be able to just roll the diaper up and throw it away, and it could be a big adjustment for us. Any suggestions on handling the mess?

Permalink Reply by Bobbi Cantrell on May 14, 2009 at 6:35pm

I'm going to cd my baby girl who is due in 10 weeks. I have 12 bumgenius one size pocket diapers that I just got a few days ago. I can't tell you whether or not they work well because right now they're sitting in a bin just waiting to be used. But they sure are cute! I love all the bright colors. Today I was at a pretty big baby store and bought a dozen prefolds, 2 pair of vinyl covers and a package of 3 inserts. We'll see in a few months how I feel about them!

There were a couple factors that made us decide to cd. They are much better for the environment for one thing and also better for the baby. I've also heard that it's easier to transition to potty training. The BIG catch for my budget conscious husband was the price difference. The bumgenius diapers were about $200 for 12 diapers but she should be able to wear them for quite a while and it wouldn't take long to spend that kind of cash on disposables!

I never in a million years imagined myself as a cloth diapering, breast feeding, natural birth kind of gal but here I am! :D

Permalink Reply by Candice on May 14, 2009 at 8:00pm

We have five children and I have cloth diapered the last three.. I started in 2005 and have been ever since..

We use all types.. For the newborn stage I prefer prefolds and covers mostly but use some fitteds too.. On the go and for the older ones I love the pockets, we use mostly fuzzi bunz and bum genius now days.. I am not a fan of the AIO's..


Candice

Permalink Reply by Kate Holt on May 14, 2009 at 11:12pm

Well, the thing is that even with sposies, you are *suppose* to dump the waste into the toilet before tossing them. I do not know *anyone* who's done this, but it says on the package to do so. Basically, diapers are messy no matter what, they are a chore no matter what. There are times we use sposies, and now that Huggies has a natural brand, I may try them when I need a pack. We CD for the last idk...14 months or so and while there are perks to sposies, there are, in my opinion, more perks to CDs...like cost and cuteness lol/

I was concerned at first about the "mess" associated with CDs, but really, there isn't a mess. The "hardest" part for me is putting diapers in the laundry, but if you have taken care of any poop when it happened (right away, like you should tisk tisk to me) then it's really no big deal. If you want to go to "extremes" you can always buy some gloves and wear a mask when doing the dipes. lol But really, it wouldn't be a bad idea, because then you would have all positives regarding cloth diapering. Best of luck!

Cherylyn Douglas said:

I have 4 kids, and two of them are in diapers right now. I haven't tried cloth diapers yet, but I'm expecting some to arrive in the mail soon and we're going to try them for the first time. The major thing that's stopped me from trying them before is the idea of the clean-up and washing. I've always used disposables because they are so easy and relatively mess-free. The reason I'm trying cloth now is because I can't afford to keep buying disposables. The cost is insane, and I'm ready to try something else. I admit I'm not looking forward to the extra laundry, at all. It's nice to be able to just roll the diaper up and throw it away, and it could be a big adjustment for us. Any suggestions on handling the mess?

Permalink Reply by Genevieve Overy on May 17, 2009 at 2:22pm

The mess isn't too bad really.. I have a huge bucket with a net inside so I can just pick up the net and stuff the whole lot ion the washing machine... I have so many nappies that I only need to wash them every 5 days or so anyway which is very helpful... for the poo... I use paperliners from little green earthlets (not sure if that's UK based though ) and Tots Bots Bamboozles (UK based bamboo nappies) .. you just take out the liner which is containing the poo and flush it... the liners I use are pretty tough as well so I usually wash the ones that are jsut wet and use them again until they disintegrate!

Permalink Reply by Bonnie P on July 24, 2009 at 11:40am

I love CDing! I started when my little guy was a month old and I use them all the time except if we're going to be out for an entire day, then I put him in sposies, just so I don't have to tote around used diapers (although I've done that too, and it's not that bad). I DID NOT like cleaning the poop out of the diapers while he was exclusively breastfed (and had poop the consistency of pea soup), but (luckily for me) he only had a BM every 4 - 10 days (every 4 days starting at one month and then slowly stretched out to 10 days by the time he was 4 months). So poopy diapers did not happen that often! (But when they did, was there ever a ton of it!) Once he turned 6 months and I started giving him solid food, he started getting formed poops and I began sitting him on the toilet when I knew he was about to poop. Now he goes on the toilet an average of twice a day, and I hardly ever have to deal with poop in his diapers! Yay! Last weekend we had visitors staying with us and his schedule got thrown off and I wasn't able to predict when he was going to have a BM, so for almost a week he was pooping in his diaper again. I tell you, if that happened all the time, I don't know that I would keep up with the cloth diapering. His BMs were pretty soft and I had to SCRAPE them out of the diaper, which I found to be soooo gross! Thankfully, this morning when I put him on the toilet, he went right away, so hopefully he's back on schedule and I won't have to mess with that mess for a while again! Sorry if all of that was way too much information!
Now I have a few questions (we use Bum Genius 3.0 one size pocket diapers)
1) If my son is wearing a CD without a onesie or a pair of pants/shorts on, the velcro tends to scratch either his tummy or his legs. He's 10 months, so he moves around lots (crawling and cruising) and they've been used for 9 months, so the velcro is a little curly. Has anyone else experienced this? Is there anyway to make the velcro softer or not curl so that it won't scratch?
2) Is there a specific tool out there that is helpful when you need to scrape the poop out of CDs? I just use either a wet wipe or toilet paper and it doesn't work very well. I do have a sprayer, but I've found that then it gets everywhere and isn't that effective either.
3) Where do you find bleach that is safe for CDs?
4) Everyone talks about "stripping" diapers. What is this exactly? What are the steps involved? Is it just rinsing them in hot water a few times?
5) My diapers tell me that they should fit up to 35 lbs. Well, my son is 23 lbs now, and although they fit well now, I can't see them fitting once he gains even a few more lbs. Has anyone used BG 3.0 on bigger babies? Have they fit okay? I really don't want to start buying sposies - I plan to use my CDs until he's potty trained!
Well, that's it for now, thanks for reading and for any input you ladies are able to give!

Permalink Reply by Kaiya on July 31, 2009 at 5:33am

1)I am not sure. Are your tabs coming unstitched? You can order replacement tabs if want to try and fix them yourself. I didn't really have that problem and we used some bG.

2) I just use TP or dunk and swish if it's really bad. I do a prewash on my dipes so any yucky stuff that might still be in there gets spun out before I actually wash them. I have never tried the sprayer, but many people swear by them. Maybe you just have to experiment with less pressure?

3) As far as I know, no bleach is good for dipes. It breaks down the fibers. The sun is a great way to get rid of "organic" stains. You can even put some lemon juice on stubborn stains before you hang them in the sun. I just do it w/out the lemon and it works pretty good.

4) There are lots of ways to "strip" diapers. Basically you don't need to do this unless you are having issues from built up detergent or stink and the diapers are not coming clean in your normal wash routine. You can wash with a few drops of Dawn Dishsoap and HOT water or like you said, wash on hot a few times with no detergent.

5) Once he starts walking he will probably thin out. That is what happened to my son. He looked like he was out growing his dipes, but then he got slimmer and taller and they fit for awhile longer. So as long as the rise is long enough you should be ok. We have some 2.0's and he is just now getting too big for them at 3yo.

Permalink Reply by Bonnie P on July 31, 2009 at 10:51am

Kaiya,
Thanks so much for your post! Congratulations on your pregnancy and I hope the summer doesn't get too hot for you. I was also due in September and hadissues with swelling in the heat. Best of luck!

Permalink Reply by Midwifemomma on July 26, 2009 at 4:03pm

We use fitted and wool at night and then pockets during the day currently.. my older daughter just used prefolds and covers because she had such skinny little legs we just couldnt find fitteds that didnt leak - dont have that problem at all with chubba boy :)

Permalink Reply by Kaiya on July 31, 2009 at 5:23am

I CDed my son pretty much from the beginning. He is 3 now and working on potty learning. We have used some 'sposies here and there. Mostly for travel and sometimes for overnights. I tried to buy the 7th Generation dipes, but often wound up with store brand since they are the cheapest.

I did use the hospital 'sposies for the first few days home, but then we moved on to fitteds (Kissaluvs 0) and pro-wrap style covers. He was only in the newborn wraps for like a month and then we moved up to smalls. Since he did grow so fast, I think that it's debatable that cloth was cheaper for the first couple months, but after that I know I've saved tons of money. I am expecting in September and we plan to use cloth again.

I have tried almost everything... fitteds, pockets, all-in-ones, prefolds, PUL covers, fleece covers, wool pants... I have to say that each system has it's advantages and disadvantages. I have decided that my favorite system is fitteds for newborns with either a PUL or wool cover. The extra elastic keeps those runny poos in place. I had far more blowouts the times I used 'sposies.
Then I like prefolds from there on out with either a PUL, fleece or wool cover. PF are cheap, easy to clean and dry and are adjustable as baby grows. PFs are a real work horse diaper. I also liked having some pockets on hand for trips and babysitters. They also worked well for overnight when double stuffed.

Permalink Reply by Bobbi Cantrell on August 13, 2009 at 8:14am

I want to cloth diaper and have a few but we got so many disposables as shower gifts that we're using those first. Plus I didn't want to try to start something else new while still trying to figure out the breastfeeding thing. Now that we've got that down I'd like to start cding. It's all so overwhelming though. I did use cloth one day last week because she had a really bad diaper rash. The one thing I don't like is that they're so incredibly bulky.

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