"Cloth" is Not a Four Letter Word (as in diapers), part 4

Daily Use and Care

I mentioned some of the daily use and care in part 3, but I thought I'd elaborate a little.
I wash the diapers every day. Most people wash every other day (beyond that and you get a lot of problems with stink and stains), but I wash every day because I don't have enough diapers to last for two!

To further reduce the cost, I hang dry them in our room on a drying rack.

For my wash routine:
1) In the even of a poopy diaper, I just shake the stuff into the toilet, no spraying or dunking here.
2)Every evening when I wash the diapers: dump diaper pail contents into washing machine
3)Put a little water in pail and swish around to get anything out of there, then dump that water in the washing machine (a lot of people have a washable pail liner in a lidded garbage can, which works great, I'm just using what I have)
4) Do a cold rinse to remove poo still on the diapers
5) Do a hot wash with about 1/4 the recommended amount of detergent
6) Do an extra cold rinse, chicking on the agitation to see if there are a lot of bubbles (indicating that I added too much laundry detergent before) and if there are a lot of suds I'll do another rinse.
7) Hand diapers, covers and wipes up to dry on drying rack.  In the morning is they're still wet I'll put them in the dryer for a few minutes (NO DRYER SHEETS!) and they're ready to go!

So that's what's been working for us.  Sometimes it would be nice to have enough diapers to wash every other day, but we're building up to that and I can use swagbucks to slowly build up a few more.

This is the only picture that's not blurry from him running around, as you can see, the best bottom diapers are very trim for a cloth diaper!

part 1 journey into cloth diapers
part 2 choosing a style and brand
part 3 frugally building up a stash
part 4 daily use and care

"Cloth" is Not a Four Letter Word (as in diapers), part 3

Frugally Building Up A Stash

Since I used swagbucks I only paid bout $14 for the first four cloth diapers, whereas if I had not used swagbucks it would have been about $50!  Figuring that each disposable (of the generic variety) is about $0.19 (at least) and using four cloth diapers a day in replacement of disposables, my purchase paid for itself in about 18 and a half days.

For detergent I got the generic free and clear detergent from Albertson's because every other kind of free and clear had brighteners or enzymes, which can cause rashes (another thing I didn't know the first time around).

For wipes I use the flats, moistened.  I have been cutting them into fourths and hand stitching over the loose edges so they don't fray.  This size is a little more manageable. On rare occasions, I may use disposable wipes, but only if it's REALLY nasty!

I cleaned it out really well first so it doesn't get residue on the diapers

For a diaper pail I have a bucket for laundry detergent (the regular kind) that has been used up.

My grandma sent us some money for Christmas, and I talked to my husband about building up the rest of our stash with that.  He said since it was from my grandma, do whatever I want with it.  Don't have to tell me twice.  So I went online and bought two more Best Bottom diaper shells and six more inserts (that came to about $57.84 so it will pay for itself in a little over a month and a half).  A few days later I had enough from swagbucks to get another bumgenius diaper and some wetbags.  If you're wondering what wetbags are, let me explain: When you're out and about with cloth diapers and your little one needs a diaper change, you need somewhere to put said diaper so it doesn't smear diaper contents all over everything else in your diaper bag.  And it needs to be water proof so wet diapers don't saturate anything else.  Hence the need for a wetbag!

Wetbags

Closed with drawstring closure

closed next to a baby foot

In a pinch, I have also put a folded flat diaper and just laid it in the cover.  It does scrunch, but it's better than nothing!

part 1 journey into cloth diapers
part 2 choosing a style and brand
part 3 frugally building up a stash
part 4 daily use and care

"Cloth" is Not a Four Letter Word (as in diapers), part 2

Choosing a style and brand

Once I started really looking into cloth diapers I started to get overwhelmed.  It makes me think of when my daughter was a newborn (she's the oldest grand baby on my side) my parents, uncles and grandma commented several times "Wow, disposables sure have come a long way!"  I secretly thought to myself that this was further proof that disposables were better than cloth because cloth was still just flats and prefolds with pins and plastic pants.

How wrong I was.....

Anyone who's looked into the more modern cloth diapers has likely had their head spin from all the choices!  Disposables may have come a long way but man, I think cloth has come even farther!  There are still flats and prefolds and pins and plastic pants, and I'd seen a friend use a snappi, but there are also pocket diapers, and all in twos and all in ones, and hybrids, and stay dry inserts, and flush-able inserts, and hybrid diapers, and snap closures and hook and loop closures, and sized and one size and.......and.....and....oh it just makes my head spin!
The most economic way to go is still a prefold with a cover, but now they have covers that look more like disposables with either snap or hook and look closure, and a snappi is a stretchy band with hooks on it, kind of like the old ace bandages so you don't have to use pins.  I thought about doing that again, and it's a great way to get started, but I also knew that I wouldn't want to stick with it very long since we had done flats before, and I wanted to get something that I wouldn't have to soon replace with something I liked better, if that makes any sense.  So I needed something EASY.
All in ones are easy, they're just like a disposable, only you wash them.  The downside is that they are hard to get all the way clean, and the take a long time to dry, plus they are the most expensive kind (at least $25 per diaper!).  So I kept looking.  I needed some thing easy AND affordable AND that would get all the way clean!
Another thing I wanted was something that didn't hold moisture against by baby's skin.  All in ones had a ticking feature, but so did many other kinds.
Hybrids don't make any sense to me.  It's like a cloth diaper but with a disposable insert instead of cloth.  The inserts can get quite pricey, so it didn't make sense as an economical option.  Although some people use the term hybrid and all in two interchangeably, it's my understanding that hybrid is meant to mean a combination of disposables and cloth.  Though you could say it's a hybrid of prefolds and pockets, but that's really not the point.

So my search led me to either pockets of all in twos.  A pocket diaper has a waterproof outside and fleece or suede moisture wicking layer on the inside.

Pocket diaper and insert

Opening

Stuffing the insert into the diaper

Insert in the diaper, I keep the tag in the back so I can grab it to remove the insert and not touch too much yucky stuff.

This pocket opening folds down so the insert doesn't work it's way loose

Ready for a baby!

There is an opening (or pocket) in either the front or back or both for you to slide an absorbent insert.  You can customize the absorbency, you take the insert out to wash it so it gets nice an clean and dries in a reasonable amount of time.

All in twos are very similar, but instead of a pocket, and all in two has the moisture wicking part sewn on top of the absorbent part into one insert that lays or snaps into a cover.

All in two insert and cover

You can barely see the snap in the back of the insert.

Snap it in on one end

Then snap in the other end

All it needs now is a baby!

Then you just change the insert during a diaper change, unless it's a tyrannosaurus poopy that gets everywhere, then you wash the shell too.
So you can see how this would save money since you only need a few shells and then lots of inserts.  I really like this, but I figured that if I left the baby with my hubby, he would want something that was exactly like a disposable, and if we left him (the baby, not the hubby) with a babysitter, we would definitely need something that did not require much explaining.  So I decided on all in twos for most of the time, and pockets for when he's with someone besides me, or when I run out of all in two covers.  Possible overnight too, since I can more easily add more absorbent layers, until I get the overnight inserts for the all in twos.


*side note: my husband turned out to like the all-in-twos better, go figure!*

Even narrowing things down that much still left me overwhelmed.  But here's how I decided:

All in twos: I knew my baby is a busy active little guy, so the inserts that just lay in might not be the best idea, which means I needed a snap in insert, and I wanted a cover that was wipe-able and could contain messes, despite the fact that he's a little on the skinny side. I came across the Best Bottom Diaper and fell in love.  Wipeable cover, easy to snap in, double leg gussets to contain all the mess, works well with skinny babies or chubbier babies, stay dry inserts, really cute covers, one size covers so we can use them whenever we have another baby!  Yep, that looks like the one for me.

Really small setting and large setting (it gets even wider but this is what he's on right now)

Double leg gussets to hold in the mess!

Pockets: Again I wanted one size, and I wanted something that was simple to change between sizes, snaps to adjust the size are good (also in the Best Bottoms)...but there are a lot of diapers that meet those criteria, how do I decide?  I read lots of reviews and looked at diagrams of the diapers, many of the pockets just have an opening in the back to put the insert into, and many reviews reported that these inserts would work their way up out of the diaper a little on active babies, causing moisture wicking onto their clothes, so I went with the Bumgenius 4.0 pocket diaper.  The pocket opening has a little flap that keeps the insert in, it had great reviews, and of the diapers with awesome reviews, it was the most affordable (though still a little hefty in the price tag).

micro-suede folds over to keep insert in

I also knew that I needed to try them out before buying too many, in case they didn't meet my expectations.  I used swagbucks for amazon gift cards and a mom4life gift card, plus a coupon code at mom4life to get one best bottom cover and three inserts and one bumgenius pocket diaper (about $50 worth of stuff) for $14!

I'm happy to say that I have not been disappointed!  Not only are they cute and contain the messes that disposables didn't always, but my son had been getting diaper rash regularly with disposables, at least once or twice a week.  Since we've replaced 4 diapers a day with cloth, he hasn't gotten any diaper rash!  Yay for exceeding expectations!


Tip:  If you're looking for more information about the Best Bottom diapers and you want to do an internet search of a search on youtube for video reviews, make sure you type "best bottom diaper" not just "best bottom" or you may get something less than family friendly, I with that I didn't know this from experience!


part 1 journey into cloth diapers
part 2 choosing a style and brand
part 3 frugally building up a stash
part 4 daily use and care

"Cloth" is not a four letter word (as in diapers), part 1

Journey to Cloth Diapering:

It may be nerdy, but I'm the kind of person who perks up and my eyes widen and I may start to salivate when someone mentions a method of truly saving money on necessities! However, when I was pregnant with my first and someone would mention saving money, my interest only peeked until they said those yucky words: cloth diapers!  Eww, I don't want to wash poop! I would think.  Turns out even mothers of disposable diapered babies wash a fair amount of poop out of their babies' clothes and of the mommy's clothes, babies just explode sometimes!  My siblings and I were all cloth diapered and we all survived to adulthood, but the thought of folding and pinning and touching the wet stuff and finagling the plastic pants just did not sound fun to me in any way shape, or form.

Fast forward a few years: my husband had been laid off from a job that provided us with housing, so we moved in with my parents.  My husband got another job for a few months and then was laid off from that job too.  We had two kids in diapers, we had long since exhausted any emergency fund, and it was almost a month before my husband found work again, then two more weeks before he got paid.  So during this time we came to a crossroad, we needed diapers for two kids, for and indeterminate amount of time, and only had $10 to put towards it.  So we knew we had to cloth diaper for a while.  We had lots of flats that we'd received when my oldest was born to use and burp clothes, and my mom had some extra flats that she hadn't used that she had gotten for the moulage class she teaches, and she donated that to the cause.

A flat cloth diaper, just a square of fabric that you fold and fasten to the baby and then cover with something waterproof.

We just needed pins, diaper covers and something to wash them.  It's amazing how hard it is to find cloth diapers sometimes!  We found borax, which is what my mom had used when we were babies, though I cringed at spending $3 of our $10 budget! At one store my dad noticed and pointed out that there was a cloth diaper that was just like a disposable, you just wash it.  Wow, cool concept, but one diaper was well over our budget.  We went for the vinyl pants and diaper pins at babies R us, and I think my parents even had to help us with that.  My mom had an old bucket with a lit that she said we could use as a diaper pail and we were ready to go.  Diaper changes took a lot longer when we were folding and trying to get it just right, and my little baby boy....something about too much fresh air made a lot of little fountains.
After about a month it really didn't seem that bad to be using cloth, and the whole time my husband helped out and changed cloth diapers, complete with pins, what a trooper.  I made sure I did the laundry though, and stayed on top of it.  It was still a lot more work to be using cloth and both kids were getting diaper rash.  I had been told long before my oldest was born that babies in cloth get more diaper rash.  I later learned that sometimes this is due to the moisture against their skin, or soap build up on the diapers.
So when we had steady income for a while we went back to full time disposables.  To my surprise, my husband had some hesitation, because he liked not having to fork over an arm and a leg for diapers every week!  I saved the cloth diapers when we moved, hoping we would never have to go back to using them.  We went through many hard times, but no longer had access to a washer and dryer, and were often doing what laundry we could with our bare hands, and neither my husband nor I wanted to wash cloth diapers by hand.  By then we only had one in diapers and were getting a good amount of people donating diapers to us, so we didn't go back to cloth, even after our third baby was born and we were diapering two again.  While we were living in our last apartment (with no washer of dryer) I started researching more modern cloth diapers.  I needed to find something more convenient and still cost effective.  I inwardly told myself that once we had a washer and dryer I would use cloth diapers again to save money.  Well I forgot about that when we moved, until a few months later I started researching it again.  I had briefly mentioned it to my husband, but for whatever reason, he didn't like the idea. As time went on I would research pocket diapers and leave the info and diagram up when he got on the computer, to which he said "That'd be cool, then it'd be just like a disposable." So I knew that I was on the right track.  When I found some pockets on sale I asked him what he thought about buying them and he didn't like the idea of spending over  $150 in one big chunk, and didn't think it made much sense to get just one.  I asked him what he thought if I could get them for free or almost free, with swagbucks, and he gave a non-commital head nod/bob.  So I started my money-saving mission to get free or almost free diapers.  I researched and read and did all I could to use swagbucks, and eventually talked him into trying it, as long as we started small and didn't spend much more than $20 right out the gate.
I got a best bottom cover and three inserts and one bum genius pocket diaper with swagbucks and started using those during and day and doing a load every day after the baby had gone through those.

By the way, remember those rashed my kids had been getting? I "stripped" the flat diapers, meaning I did a hot wash without adding any soap, and even after two years there were suds from detergent residue like you wouldn't believe!  Oops.

part 1 journey into cloth diapers
part 2 choosing a style and brand
part 3 frugally building up a stash
part 4 daily use and care