I realize how lacking I've been on this blog!! We've been cloth diapering for two months now! Since we started I have only put the girls in disposables once (because their fluffy diapers wouldn't fit in the newborn sized clothing!!)
Now that we've been doing this for a while I feel I have a much better handle and knowledge of what I'm doing. I've given reviews on all of my hybrid diapers, and while they're great... nothing beats prefolds. Prefolds are, hands down, without a doubt my favorite choice. They're cheaper, easier to clean and require much less work in terms of laundry.
Hybrids cost about $20 per diaper (sometimes going upwards of $75 for a GoodMama) whereas a prefold costs around $2 per diaper. You have to add waterproof covers to use prefolds, but I've gotten Flip covers on sale for $10 each, I have around 8 covers total. Hybrids have to be stuffed and unstuffed in order to do laundry... which means you have to take out the pee-soaked insert and unsnap them before you place them into the diaper pail. Sometimes it's pretty gross, dirty diapers sometimes need extra coaxing to get the insert out, which isn't my favorite thing to do with a wiggly, naked baby on the changing table. On top of that, hybrid diapers have to be stuffed before you put them on, so after every load of laundry I'm sorting through the inserts, matching up the right ones and then stuffing them neatly into the diaper shells. It's a pain in the butt. I can't tell you how many times I'm stuffing diapers right before I'm putting them on because I didn't want to deal with all the inserts fresh out of the dryer.
Prefolds are a piece of cake... Wet diapers go directly in the diaper pail, no fuss no muss. With dirty diapers you can actually use the diaper itself to wipe excess poo off the baby. They go in the washer without having to do any unsnapping or unstuffing. Once washed and dried (you can dry them on high heat without risking damage because there is no waterproof layer) you just stack them up and they're ready for use! This is my go-to diaper during the day, I change every 2-3 hours or more often if they're fussy. I have 3 dozen small Green Mountain Diaper prefolds and I can get by with doing laundry every other day.
In a few months I'm going to sell these prefolds and buy the larger size. I've seen used GMD prefolds sell for about $18/dozen, which means I'll only have spent $10 for 4 months worth of cloth diapering. So far I've spent a total of $470 on all cloth diapering products. This includes the Snappi's, diaper pail, wet bag, wipes, wipe solution (which is free because I use water and a tiny squirt of baby wash), diaper sprayer and all diapers. Doing the math, based on 10 diapers per day per baby, I'll even out in cost in just 2 more months (actually less because I calculated diapers only, not wipes). That figure doesn't include selling back used diapers!
I'm using my hybrid diapers as my nighttime solution, because they absorb more (and the inner fabric has a sty-dry property so the babies don't wake up in the middle of the night because they feel wet). I'm not a huge fan of microfiber, as I've read over and over that natural fibers like bamboo and hemp absorb more. I bought 2 yards of bamboo fleece that I'm going to use to make my own inserts for nighttime. I'll post another blog to let you know how that goes...
And for those friends who still think cloth diapering is gross... I STILL haven't had any poop leak out of a diaper and get onto clothing. Nothing is worse than a poopy blowout while you're out in public. Not only do you have a full and heavy diaper to throw away, you also have poopy clothes that you're probably not prepared to transport. When traveling I have my travel wet bag, but I only use that for wet diapers. If I get a poopy diaper while we're out in public I keep a few gallon size ziplock bags in my diaper bag; poopy diaper and all the smells get zipped right up and go directly into the diaper pail when I get home (that will obviously change once we start solid foods).
I hope, hope, hope that this blog and all my ramblings about cloth diapers will maybe change someone's mind about cloth diapering. And for friends who are expecting, adding a cloth diaper just three times a day can change the environmental impact of disposables. While this wasn't the driving force for me to choose cloth, I can't help but share how big of an impact it actually makes. Just a thought to leave you with: the diapers that YOU were in as a baby are still in a landfill somewhere...
Now that we've been doing this for a while I feel I have a much better handle and knowledge of what I'm doing. I've given reviews on all of my hybrid diapers, and while they're great... nothing beats prefolds. Prefolds are, hands down, without a doubt my favorite choice. They're cheaper, easier to clean and require much less work in terms of laundry.
Hybrids cost about $20 per diaper (sometimes going upwards of $75 for a GoodMama) whereas a prefold costs around $2 per diaper. You have to add waterproof covers to use prefolds, but I've gotten Flip covers on sale for $10 each, I have around 8 covers total. Hybrids have to be stuffed and unstuffed in order to do laundry... which means you have to take out the pee-soaked insert and unsnap them before you place them into the diaper pail. Sometimes it's pretty gross, dirty diapers sometimes need extra coaxing to get the insert out, which isn't my favorite thing to do with a wiggly, naked baby on the changing table. On top of that, hybrid diapers have to be stuffed before you put them on, so after every load of laundry I'm sorting through the inserts, matching up the right ones and then stuffing them neatly into the diaper shells. It's a pain in the butt. I can't tell you how many times I'm stuffing diapers right before I'm putting them on because I didn't want to deal with all the inserts fresh out of the dryer.
Prefolds are a piece of cake... Wet diapers go directly in the diaper pail, no fuss no muss. With dirty diapers you can actually use the diaper itself to wipe excess poo off the baby. They go in the washer without having to do any unsnapping or unstuffing. Once washed and dried (you can dry them on high heat without risking damage because there is no waterproof layer) you just stack them up and they're ready for use! This is my go-to diaper during the day, I change every 2-3 hours or more often if they're fussy. I have 3 dozen small Green Mountain Diaper prefolds and I can get by with doing laundry every other day.
In a few months I'm going to sell these prefolds and buy the larger size. I've seen used GMD prefolds sell for about $18/dozen, which means I'll only have spent $10 for 4 months worth of cloth diapering. So far I've spent a total of $470 on all cloth diapering products. This includes the Snappi's, diaper pail, wet bag, wipes, wipe solution (which is free because I use water and a tiny squirt of baby wash), diaper sprayer and all diapers. Doing the math, based on 10 diapers per day per baby, I'll even out in cost in just 2 more months (actually less because I calculated diapers only, not wipes). That figure doesn't include selling back used diapers!
I'm using my hybrid diapers as my nighttime solution, because they absorb more (and the inner fabric has a sty-dry property so the babies don't wake up in the middle of the night because they feel wet). I'm not a huge fan of microfiber, as I've read over and over that natural fibers like bamboo and hemp absorb more. I bought 2 yards of bamboo fleece that I'm going to use to make my own inserts for nighttime. I'll post another blog to let you know how that goes...
And for those friends who still think cloth diapering is gross... I STILL haven't had any poop leak out of a diaper and get onto clothing. Nothing is worse than a poopy blowout while you're out in public. Not only do you have a full and heavy diaper to throw away, you also have poopy clothes that you're probably not prepared to transport. When traveling I have my travel wet bag, but I only use that for wet diapers. If I get a poopy diaper while we're out in public I keep a few gallon size ziplock bags in my diaper bag; poopy diaper and all the smells get zipped right up and go directly into the diaper pail when I get home (that will obviously change once we start solid foods).
I hope, hope, hope that this blog and all my ramblings about cloth diapers will maybe change someone's mind about cloth diapering. And for friends who are expecting, adding a cloth diaper just three times a day can change the environmental impact of disposables. While this wasn't the driving force for me to choose cloth, I can't help but share how big of an impact it actually makes. Just a thought to leave you with: the diapers that YOU were in as a baby are still in a landfill somewhere...
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