The Cloth Diaper Post (Longest Post Ever, and Edited Already!)

You probably already know that we are a little odd, or unusual, or whatever, because we use cloth diapers. I have read that only 5% of babies in the U.S. are cloth diapered. Since most people don't cloth diaper, I get a lot of questions about it when friends realize that's what we do. I have intended for a very long time to post about this, and I'm finally getting around to it! (And if you don't want to read about poop or diapers, you can skip this post. :) ) Although it's not for everyone, cloth diapering has been very easy and not a big deal, at least for us.

My purpose in posting is not to persuade you that you should do this but just to answer questions about what we do. I'm sure I'll come back and edit my mistakes, so please bear with me. There are lots of moms more qualified to write about this, like Jamie, or Dana, or Leslie, or Dorothy, or Michele, or Aleasia, or...the list goes on. And, there are lots of easier and fancier and cuter ways to cloth diaper, but this is how I started, and it worked and was cheap, so I stuck with it.

Something I should mention, before I get into the details, is that technically, we're all supposed to empty solid waste from all diapers into the toilet, not the trash. I believe it's even illegal to put the solids in the trash, and disposable diaper packages used to include these instructions anyway. So, to me, since I needed to do the dumping no matter what, it wasn't that much more trouble to jump to cloth from disposables.

While I was expecting Jonathan, my friend Jamie, who had cloth diapered her three girls, gave me half a dozen Chinese prefold diapers, some liners, and a couple of Snappis. This is all I had when we got started. I was very nervous, and Jeff was very skeptical. When Jonathan was about six months old, I decided to give cloth diapering a try. I used cloth only in the daytime and washed my tiny stash of diapers each night. After a week or so, I realized it wasn't that bad! I bought a couple of dozen Chinese prefold (standard size) diapers on eBay as well as some more reusable liners, and I bought some vinyl pants at Wal-Mart, and off we went.

As Jeff says, "The liners are KEY!" I think these may be discontinued, but here's what I use. These are up against baby's skin. They look something like a dryer sheet, but they're very soft. They're washable. They keep the solid waste from sticking to the diaper. I never, ever swish a poopy diaper in the toilet like my mom had to. The contents dump easily into the toilet.

Here's what I lay down before diapering baby: a clean diaper and a clean liner.

Yes, this is a teddy bear. A much more willing model than my squirmy daughter. So I pull up the liner...

then fold the front of the diaper into thirds...

and bring it up to her tummy...

stretch out the corners...

The three ends of the Snappi have grippy teeth on them. I use the snappi to grip the diaper from one hip...

to the other.

Then pull the bottom of the Snappi down and grip, changing the "T" shape to a "Y."

Here's another fold that I have used a lot when the diapers are just a bit too big. It's called the bikini fold. I am not kidding. Pull up the liner, then twist the diaper once and pull it up to baby's tummy.

Snappi the same way. Easy.

Vinyl pants, or the cover of your choice, can go on top. The cover's job is not to contain drips, but to stop the diaper from touching baby's clothes. If a little of the diaper sticks out and touches clothing, the clothing will wick the moisture and you'll have a leak on your hands. I rarely have had this happen. Disposables leak for me all the time, but cloth hardly ever.

And here's how the diaper looks on a real baby bum, with big thanks to the bear.

We cloth diaper at night, too, but we need a doubler to make it all night. I just fold another diaper in thirds and lay it long-way in the middle of the diaper.

You might wonder about washing. There is a great article about it here. I have a five-gallon bucket in the nursery, and I put wet/soiled diapers in there until it's time to wash. My bucket holds about 20 diapers, and when it gets full, I wash.

First, I put everything except Snappis in the machine and run a rinse cycle. Then I wash the load in hot water using our regular detergent, with an extra rinse cycle at the end. Afterwards, I air-dry the liners and plastic pants but machine-dry the diapers. And that's it!

Also, I didn't start Jonathan on cloth until he was almost six months old, but I started Grace much earlier, when she was just a few weeks old. I bought infant size Chinese prefolds for that age. The only two sizes I have used are infant and standard.

And, I do use disposables sometimes. When we travel, it's not practical to bring cloth diapers, especially on flights. It is just too bulky for us to use up baggage space on cloth diapers, and if we're making a long road trip, our car doesn't have a ton of cargo space for that type of thing, either. But, we use cloth as much as we can, and we have the option to use disposables in a pinch.

I haven't started using cloth wipes because I have a big stash of disposable wipes that I got for nearly nothing. But, I have been considering making some cloth wipes out of Jeff's old undershirts. There is a good article on making your own liners and wipes here.

So, if you're still reading, I'm amazed, but I thought I'd write out the list of pros and cons to cloth diapers, as I see them:

Pros:

Cheap!

You can still supplement with disposables as needed

One purchase of 2-3 dozen standard diapers took Jonathan from age 6 mos. to potty training, and I'm using them again on Grace

Hardly ever leak

No guilt about landfills, chemicals, etc.

Cost is not a motivation for when to potty train

No midnight runs to the store

Minimal problems with diaper rash

Baby's pants never fall down :)

No worries about cost when I have a baby who poops 4-6 times daily (sorry, I tried to warn you about the poop factor)

Cons:

Diapers have to be changed a little more often

Some baby pants won't fit over cloth diapers (especially girl pants!)

They take slightly longer to change

A little tricky to teach other people to use

People think you're odd ;)

Please let me know if you have questions on cloth diapers you'd like me to post about!

Edit #1: If you do get curious about trying cloth sometime, I highly recommend finding a friend and borrowing a bit of her stuff to give it a try. Then you can try it without the financial commitment. If you don't have a nearby friend who uses cloth diapers, I would recommend buying just a very few items and washing them often until you're sure you want to go for it. And if you do decide to use cloth diapers, it's very easy to do so for under $100.