Cloth Diapers: Easy and Inexpensive

You may or may not already have an opinion about cloth diapers. If you're not on board, either because you think that washing diapers is gross, too much extra work, or that they are too expensive, please hear me out. Because even though I was pretty sure well before our first daughter was born that I wanted to use cloth, I was admittedly intimidated. I knew that it was the “green” thing to do, but I had the same concerns as many others: Which kind of cloth diapers should I buy? How much do they cost? How do I wash them? And what do I do about the poop? Inspired by a former classmate and Facebook friend using cloth, I contacted her for advice before making the initial investment in diapers. She enthusiastically answered my questions and directed me to the Cotton Babies website for more information. My daughter is now three months old, we've probably got close to 1000 diaper changes under our belts, and I cannot say enough good things about cloth diapering. And while I'd love to say that it's been worth all of the extra effort, there hasn't been extra work – using the cloth diapers has been easier than I could have ever imagined. I hope that by sharing my personal experience it will encourage others to give cloth diapering a try.

The first part of our cloth diapering experience was building our stash of diapers. Before I had looked into it, I had concerned visions of folding diapers, pins, and the plastic pants used by generations past. Once I learned more about modern cloth diapering, I was amazed at the advances and improvements. In fact, I was almost overwhelmed by how many different options that were available. Per my friend's suggestion, I looked into getting the bumGenius 4.0 one-size diapers. The one-size means that they are adjustable to fit a baby from 7-35+ pounds, or in other words, from birth to potty training age. They are a pocket diaper with a waterproof layer on the outside, and a moisture wicking inner layer to keep wetness away from baby's skin. The pocket then gets stuffed with a moisture absorbing insert, and is held together onto baby with either snap or hook and loop (velcro) closures. I found out that these newfangled cloth diapers sell for $17.95 each.

Now, if you think that $17.95 for one diaper sounds crazy, keep reading. My husband and I decided after our daughter was born that I wouldn't return to work so that I could stay home with her full time. As we transitioned to a single income household, we became hypersensitive about our expenses. So trust me, if cloth diapers weren't cheaper, we probably wouldn't have done it. Since a newborn baby is expected to need up to 12 diaper changes in a day, I decided that I wanted to have 24 diapers on hand. I had been checking back to the Cotton Babies website, and noticed that the bumGenius diapers go on sale every few months: buy five, get one free. And they always have free economy shipping. Depending on how much you spend at their website, they even give you a free gift! Cotton Babies quickly became my favorite source of cloth diapers and cloth diaper information. When I was ready to make my big diaper purchase, I got a wide variety of colors, and even a few with patterns, and spent $357.60 total, or about $14.60 per diaper. (I just noticed today that some of the same diapers I got are on Clearance right now for $11.97 each if you buy three!) That still may seem like a lot of money, but that's a one time investment compared to buying disposable diapers week after week, year after year until baby is potty trained. Those 24 cloth diapers will not only last for all of this baby's diaper days, but potentially for future brothers and sisters. I found out that even used, there is a market for selling your old diapers and that they have a decent resale value in good condition. So, when you do the math, cloth diapering just makes sense. And if a penny saved is a penny earned, then cloth diapers make cents, too. Compared to buying disposables, cloth diapers can easily pay for themselves with one baby, and they can still be cheaper even if you don't start when your baby is brand new. It's not too late to consider making the switch to cloth.

Dorothy in bumGenius 4.0 at three months old.  12.26.11

Dorothy in bumGenius 4.0 at three days old.  9.15.11

In addition to saving you money, the modern cloth diaper is easy to use. Every time that I change a diaper, I simply pull the wet insert out of the pocket and toss the two soiled pieces into a large hanging wetbag, which we use in lieu of a diaper pail. For now, I don’t even have to rinse them since breastmilk poop is water soluble. When the babe starts eating solid food, we’ll get to use the diaper sprayer that my sister got us as a baby shower gift to rinse the solid poop into the toilet before they are laundered. Every other day, I wash a load of diapers in the evening, and hang them to dry on a small drying rack overnight. When the diapers are dry, I stuff the inserts back in and they are ready to use again. To reiterate: I do one load of wash, every other day, hang to dry, and stuff with inserts. That is it. We don’t have to make any special trips to town to buy diapers, or any extra trips to dumpster to take out the trash. Everyone assumes that I’d rather use disposables when we are away from home, but I’ve found the opposite to be true. A medium size wet bag contains the smell and contents of a dirty diaper until I can get them home to wash them, which I’d much rather do that than to drop a full, stinky, disposable diaper bomb in someone’s trash. And I feel like I may jinx myself whenever I say it, but we’ve yet to have a diaper blowout with cloth – one less thing to worry about when we’re out and about.

I love using our cloth diapers so much that I would have blogged about how easy they are to use sooner than later, but I was specifically motivated to write about them now because I am entering this post into a contest with the goal of raising awareness about cloth diapers. I have not received any form of compensation for the content of this post, but the winning blogger will receive a gift of 12 bumGenius One-Size Cloth Diapers, and gets to choose a person who commented on their post to also receive a gift of 12 bumGenius One-Size Cloth Diapers. I encourage you to comment on this post to share your own cloth diapering experiences.  I enjoy hearing from other people I know using cloth diapers with their own babies.  And please, ask questions if you have them - I love when people ask me about my baby's fluffy butt! I have so much more to say about cloth diapering, but for now, I hope that this post was just informative enough that it will inspire others to give cloth a try.