Our Experience With Cloth Diapering

When I first found out I was pregnant, I spent months researching baby gear and how to prepare. At no point in those first few months did I consider cloth diapering. I knew other people did it, but I was so overwhelmed by baby stuff, I thought no way was it for us. It wasn’t until a couple of months before Penelope was born that I really started getting into it.

What got me into it? I’m not going to lie – it wasn’t the earth-saving factor, it was the cost-saving factor. I was really interested in saving lots of money. Other things I like about it are that it’s better for the environment and makes less trash for our tiny living space, and the prints make your baby’s butt look so cute! I also think it’s softer on her skin and is less likely to cause diaper rash.

There are lots of ways to cloth diaper, and it can be overwhelming deciding what you need. We are still figuring out what works for us, but we’ve had a good experience so far and I wanted to share what we’ve been doing.

What we use:
– Green Mountain Diapers Cloth-eez prefolds*
– Blueberry Capri covers
– Thirsties Duo Wrap covers
– Diaper sprayer
– Diaper wet bag

*This is their website, where we bought everything except for the diaper sprayer. They have pics of the diapers on babies so you can see how they fit (click “see this on a baby” on a diaper page; here’s one example) – it’s really helpful.

Why we use prefolds:
There are different types of cloth diapers, which you can find explanations of on sites like Fluff Love University. We went with prefolds after I did some research. They are basically a thick absorbent cloth that you place inside a diaper cover. They are cost-effective, because most times you only need to change the diaper and can reuse the diaper cover. So instead of buying a lot of pocket diapers or similar ones, which could be slightly costly and have to be washed after every change, we bought 24 prefolds and 5 covers from Green Mountain Diapers.

Here’s a pic of how we set up our diapers to explain what I mean. It’s super easy! There are other folds you can do, but this one is simple. We might have to change it up soon since she’s getting a bit bigger.

I change out the white fabric in the middle, and unless she’s had an explosive poo, I reuse the cover.

The prefolds are also great to use for other things like burp cloths. We leave one on the changing table for when she pees/poops between changes.

Our routine:
Our current routine looks something like this:

• Change diaper, put old diaper in wet bag if just pee.

• If there’s poo, we put the diaper in a plastic bin on our changing table, and as soon as we get a chance take it to spray it off in the toilet (we sometimes collect a few in the bin before we spray it off).

• Wash diapers once a day, usually when wet bag starts filling up. Our wash routine is: wash once on cold with no soap, wash on hot with soap, and then throw them in the dryer.

And that is basically it. We do laundry daily, and for us that is okay.

I have recently started using disposables at night since she’s been soaking her newborn diapers and I haven’t moved her up to the smalls yet. The disposables keep her a bit drier for extended times.

I dug around and watched YouTube videos and read things here and there about cloth diapering before deciding what to use. You can find lots and I love looking at the different kinds of diapers. I would still like to try pocket diapers and other kinds once we have a little more expendable cash. This system works for our small budget right now, and I am a fan. I would also like to get some more covers once she sizes up – I am crazy about prints.

One other good thing about cloth diapers is that they retain some value. If you don’t want to keep them for if you have more kids later, you can resell them to get some of your money back.

We started using them around week two, and I’m glad because although it was scary to start, we are now comfortable with them (until she changes her routine up on us or grows, of course – then we have to adjust, but that’s baby life). I think with either disposables or cloth, you get used to what works for you. Every baby has a different fit/brand that works better for them.

I have also heard the advice that when starting with cloth to buy a few different kinds to see what you like before buying an entire set. I think that’s definitely a good idea, too, although we went ahead and bought a small set of what we wanted.