Adventures in Cloth Diapering

Ever since I read about how much money cloth diapering saves and how easy it was, I figured why not give it a try? After running the numbers and talking to my cousin, Sarah, who cloth diapered her two children and soon to be third, we went for it. We bought a 24 diaper set from SmartiPants and received 2 as a gift so we have a total of 26 diapers on rotation. On their website it's about $280 plus tax and shipping for 24 diapers. We spent $120 on two packs of newborn diapers and three packs of size one diapers in the first month of Scarlett's life. I can't imagine continuing that trend.

So far I've received lots of questions regarding cloth diapers so I thought I would share. First of all, these aren't the diapers that your parents may have used to diaper you growing up (or that you diapered your children with, trying to cover all ages). We bought what are called pocket diapers. There is an insert and the shell as you can see below in the top right corner. The size of the diaper is one size fits all. It is supposed to fit from 8lbs to 35lbs (typically). Scarlett's little thighs were too thin for them at first, hence the need for disposable diapers. But she's chubbed up just enough now and though we've had some minor leaks due to that, I don't blame the diaper. It will be great once she's chubbed up even more! After they're washed and dried, you just put them back together again (bottom left) and reuse

I rigged up a line drying system using door handles, sweet huh?

 Cleaning is also a snap (ha, get it?). At each changing station in our house and in the diaper bag there are things called wet bags. These are the bags we put the used diapers in until they are cleaned. I should've snapped a photo because I love the pattern on the one set. Every other day or so, I take the wet bags and empty them directly into the washing machine. That's right, I don't take apart the diapers and I don't have to scrape any poo from them (at least not yet, this will come when Scarlett starts eating solid foods). I wash them on HOT with regular Tide powder with an extra rinse and what our washer calls power boost (or something like that). They come apart in the washer and I remove them to hang dry (or at the least, hang dry the shell, the insert takes longer to dry so if i'm short on time or diapers, I put those in the dryer). Simple as that!

And our model, Scarlett showing off her cloth diaper!

Check out these links for more info.

Jillians Drawers - Huge resource. Lots of different types of cloth diapers. Great explanations of each. They also sell lots of good nursing bras and accessories. Not to mention they have super fast shipping, esp if you're anywhere close to NY, where they ship from.
SmartiPants - We bought our diapers directly from the website instead of through Jillian's Drawers. Mostly because they had all the colors and Jillian's Drawers were out of stock on most of them. They also had a discount for buying larger quantities and we got a small wet bag for free.
PlanetWise - Wet bags in so many patterns. They have other things for sale on the site as well and this brand is on Jillian's Drawers too. Sometimes it's just easier to go direct though, so that's what we did.