Cloth Diapers!

Now that we have been using cloth diapers for 3 months I figured it was about time that I filled you in on all the details... The overall message is that CLOTH DIAPERS WORK FOR US!!!

I love them!

When I was pregnant I decided that I would give cloth diapers a try so I discussed with Matt and he said that if we invested the money we better follow through and that even if I hated it we would have to stick with it. That of course made me SUPER worried. What if I hated it... I don't want to be stuck doing something I hate... Poop makes me gag!  so i read a million reviews/blogs and ultimately took note from two people I fully trust... but don't know... John and Sherry P... from Young House Love. They both swore by the bumGenus All in One Diapers for their little one. So that is what I went with...

Knowing that it was all or nothing we jumped right in and purchased 24 of the Freetime bumGenius diapers from Cotton Babies. At $399.95 they were NOT cheap but in the long run I know that they will end up saving us a TON of money! We settled on the Freetime model because not only are they one-size fits all (w/ snaps that adjust as baby grows) but they are also "all-in-one" meaning that the "inserts" are permanently sewn in! One less step when it comes to cleaning and changing Hunter. We also settled on snaps and not the Velcro as we hope to use these diapers with other kiddos and I was worried that the Velcro would wear out. 24 was our magic number(18 seems to be the number that many other folks go with) because we wanted to always have 2 in each of the diaper bags, 1 emergency diaper in the car, and 3-4 at my mom's house and I wanted to be able to only wash every other night.

Again we love them, they’re no harder than disposables. Everyone asks about washing them but realistically it does not seem like more of a hassle. Every other night I throw all of our diapers into our WONDERFUL front loader and set on a special "urine/feces" cycle... YUP my amazing washer has a perfect cycle just for poop! This means I only have to run them through one 3-hour cycle (not the 2-3 that some people do). So before bed I start the washer and when I wake up the next morning I transfer the diapers to the dyer and set for a 40 minute tumble dry. I would say that my washing effort is equal to changing out a diaper gene and throwing away disposables...

**Note: occasionally one may come out of the wash with a slight orange tinge (very rarely, this isn’t an everyday thing). The good news is that it’s 100% clean and sanitized, sometimes one every few weeks is just a bit discolored from breastfeeding poop. As Sherry and John say "It’s kind of like how old Tupperware containers can get stained from tomato sauce and even if you run them through the dishwasher and they’re totally clean they can still have that tint." There are two ways to deal with this issue... you can run them through the wash again with your next load(what I typically do) or you can lay them out in the sun while they’re still moist from the washer and it will bleach them white again. I will likely transition to the sun bleaching method when it gets warmer out.

What does Hunter think??????

He seems to love them more than disposables too! I have found that he sleeps longer at night (we double fold the insert so that there is more material in the front and he wakes up nice and dry... before we figured out this trick we had a wet belly anytime Hunter would sleep over 6 hours). We also experience 95% fewer blow-outs  and zero diaper rash since trading up from disposables.

What does NaNa think?

My mom was NOT fond of the cloth diapering idea. In fact she offered to buy disposables at her house so that she would not have to use the cloth ones. But after having her watch us with the cloth diapers she quickly realized that they were the same ass putting on the disposables because we didn't have to worry/bother with separate incerts. All she had to do is toss the diapers in a bag and NOT the trash and I pick the diapers up when I get Hunter!!!

So all in all!!! I have much cloth diaper love and would HIGHLY recommend them to anyone!