Adventures in Cloth Diapering

Diapers, a totally boring subject, but because diapering occupies a large part of my day, I think about it a lot. For the past 2 weeks I have been using mainly cloth diapers. I'll use a disposable here and there out of laziness, but I mainly stick to cloth.

We had been spending $12 every 3 days because the only diapers that fit the lad were the Seventh Generation diapers. $120 each month on diapers is pretty insane. I've spent about $65 on cloth diaper products so far just to see what I like. I've tried all the main types: the basic prefold, the hybrid, and the pocket diaper. Most frequently I use the prefold with a diaper fastener and a cover or the pocket diaper(which i plan to buy more of, because I love them.) But I use all these different types because, truthfully, I think they are all great.

I was a bit ambivalent about the change to cloth diapers because I thought it would be gross as well as time consuming, I've found the opposite to be true. As for the grossness, I just keep a waterproof washable bag next to the changing table and when it's full (every other day) I toss the whole thing in the wash.

So what about the poop? I line each diaper with 1/2 of a biodegradable liner and toss it in the toilet and flush. Almost no mess! Unless... Yesterday Hunter had a huge blowout, which I hadn't experienced yet. So I took the whole diaper off and held it in the toilet stream and flushed. Not so bad, but I did do the wash immediately.

The change to cloth has gone so smoothly I've started making reusable cloth wipes too. I figured if I'm doing the wash anyway, I might as well reduce this extra amount of waste. These are so easy I even use them when I use the disposable diapers. And it's really easy to make your own. I cut up an old t-shirt of Adam's and made my own wipe solution that I store in a travel squeeze bottle. You can search for diaper wipe solution but most of them seemed too oily. Here's my recipe:

1/2 c water

1 T baby wash (I use Burt's Bees)

2 t baby oil (I had a sample of Burt's Bees apricot baby oil, but olive oil will work too)

1/2 t alcohol (leave this out if there is a diaper rash)

You can vary this recipe using different washes, oils (like vitamin e) and you can add in aloe or tea tree oil. Just remember the basic solution is water, cleanser, moisturizer and sanitizer. I've been using it for a week and it doesn't bother the boy a bit. He hasn't had a rash yet but he did have a little redness before I started making my own wipes, and he hasn't had redness since.

xoxo,

Lauren