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Monday, 21 January 2013

Cloth Diapers


While pregnant with Quinn, Simon and I were told about the wonders of cloth diapers from Simon’s cousin so we decided to do some research. We scoured the internet and read just about every review of every product, and in the end we decided to give cloth diapering a try. 

After using them for 15 months, here is my honest review of cloth diapers:



Pros

- They are safer (no chemicals or absorbent agents)
- They are WAY cuter that disposables
- Cloth diaper kids ‘apparently’ potty train sooner than disposable diaper kids
- Less diaper rash
- They are cheaper in the long run
- No running to the store for diapers
- Less diapers in the landfill


 Cons

- More money up front
- More laundry
- More handling of baby poo
- You have to carry around dirty diapers when you are out and about
- They are bulkier than disposables
 

I’m not going to lie; they are more work than disposables. They are more money up front. They require cleaning. They require lugging around more stuff (wetbag, extra liners, and extra covers). You may have to touch poop. They make your baby’s butt look HUGE (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing). But while cloth diapers have their cons, I still believe their benefits outweigh the negatives. I cannot yet attest to the ‘potty training early’ statement, but I’ll report back when Quinn shows serious signs of wanting to start potty training. 

I'm going to be honest. As wonderful as cloth diapers are, we do use disposables some of the time. At night we use overnight disposable diapers because we found she was peeing a lot. Like A LOT a lot. And since Simon and I would like to sleep through the night (as would Quinn), we opted to use the disposables to keep everyone happy. We also use disposables if we are heading out somewhere for a long stretch of time or travelling.

When we started researching cloth diapers it would be an understatement if I said we were overwhelmed. There are SO many options on the market from pocket to All-In-One (AIO) to bamboo and hemp that it was a confusing process to choose what was right for us. I’m not going to go into each type because frankly I am no expert on the subject. There are plenty of blogs on the internet that explain your options so today I’ll just talk about what we used and how we used them.
 
In the end we chose ‘prefolds’ which consist of thick pieces of cotton that you line in waterproof covers or shells. With the prefolds option you can reuse the cover/shell and simply change out the liner when the baby does his/her business. We thought this was probably the most economical option as we wouldn’t have to buy as many diapers. To start off we bought 7 covers and two packs of Bummis Organic Prefold Inserts. Over time we bought a few more so I think now we are up to 12 covers. 
 
Three week old Miss Quinn in her new diaper
With cloth diapers you need somewhere to throw the dirty diapers and liners. You can use a diaper pail but trust me when I say the diapers get SMELLY so the easiest option is to purchase a wetbag. When it’s full enough to justify a load of laundry you simple turn the bag inside out into the wash and throw it all in – bag and all. We bought 2 medium wetbags for home use and 1 small travel wetbag.
Here’s our (partial) arsenal of cloth diapers:


 
We chose the brand Fuzzibunz for the covers and Bummis for the liners and have been very happy with our decision, granted we have nothing to compare them to.
 
I bet you are wondering how we clean these bad boys..
It was the number one question I had when looking into cloth diapers.
Do I need to touch poop? Do I need to rinse them?
etc.etc.etc.
 
Its really quite easy but this is just the way WE do it, not necessarily how we SHOULD do it.
 
 1) Throw dirty liner / cover in wetbag
 
2) If there is solid poop we flick that into the toilet
 
NOTE: We use flushable liners that we put on top of the cloth liner. When she poops we just take the liner and throw that in the toilet. Makes 'messy' poops a lot easier to get off.
 
3) When the wetbag fills up, the bag gets turned inside out in the wash including the contents
 
4) We add a half scoop of Country Save detergent
 
5) Turn the washer to 'Deep Clean' cycle
 
6) When the washer has done its job we throw the liners into the dryer on the 'Extra Dry' cycle and hang the covers to air dry on a laundry stand.
 
7) Repeat as necessary
 
Again, there are certainly better instructions out there on the internet but this system has been working for us so we are just going to keep at it. Sometimes when the liners start to look really stained I'll put them in sun but otherwise that is all we do.
The honest to goodness truth.
 
 Well I think that's all I can say about cloth diapers because the bottom line is that diapering, along with every other parenting decision, is a personal choice. I’m glad we chose to use cloth diapers, but I completely understand why people use disposables.
Whatever works for you is the best option.
Whether it be cloth, disposable or like us, both,  they all do the job.
 
xo, Vicky
 

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