Tuesday, February 11, 2014

My Obligatory Cloth Diaper Post: Part 1

Okay, so I know what you're thinking: You're crazy. And maybe I am. But if saving hundreds of dollars on diapers every year makes me crazy, then I don't want to be sane. I did a lot of research before making the decision to cloth diaper. Marcos and I even took a cloth diapering class, which answered a lot of our questions. I highly recommend checking to see if there's one in your area if you're considering cloth diapering. There are lots of benefits to going cloth, including cost, environmental impact, all-natural fibers, and most importantly, cuteness. Despite these benefits, I still had some major concerns before fully committing to cloth diapering.

My biggest concerns were:
1. The high upfront cost
2. The yuck factor
3. The time factor

Turns out, if you do it right, none of these issues are a real concern. Well, not enough of a concern to deter me from joining the cloth diapering cult, anyway.


The Cost

It's true that cloth diapering saves you money in the long run, but it can also be quite costly upfront. Plus, there are several different types of cloth diapers, and you never know which kind you'll prefer. I didn't want to waste money on diapers that I wouldn't use. The thought of buying used diapers was a little unsettling to me, but I scoured Craigslist for deals on cloth diapers, and saw several postings from people selling unused cloth diapers for much cheaper than retail. (I skipped right over ads with the words "light staining".) I also used gift cards that I received from my shower and bought a few on sale from Zulilly and Cottonbabies.com. I probably spent $150 of my own money for our entire diaper stash. I quickly discovered that using prefolds and covers is the cheapest option, so these make-up the majority of our collection.

The Yuck
Honestly, the yuck factor doesn't bother me too much. Whether or not I use disposables or cloth, I'm still going to have to deal with poop. I may as well save some money in the process. Each time I change Rory's diaper I put a biodegradable liner in the diaper. This catches the solids and can be easily flushed down the toilet or thrown in the trashcan. These cost about $7 for 200, and now that Rory's bowels are on more of a schedule, I can predict when I'll need them and when I can skip them all together. I also used one of my gift cards to buy a BumGenius diaper sprayer. So any solids that happen to escape the liner can be easily sprayed off the diaper and into the toilet. This means that I never have to actually touch any poop. Hooray!


The Time
I'm fortunate enough to stay at home, but even if I was working, cloth diapering doesn't require much more time than using disposables, especially if you're OCD organized. Actually changing a cloth diaper is easy and fast. Even if I'm using a prefold, it only takes a few minutes to put on a new diaper. If it's just a wet diaper, I throw it into the diaper pail and we're on our way. If it's dirty, I simply flush the liner and quickly spray any poop remnants into the toilet using the diaper sprayer. This takes a max of three minutes. The wash routine takes the most time, but it's just like doing any other load of laundry. Every three days I simply dump the soiled diapers from the wetbag into the washer. I press a few buttons, and voila! Clean diapers!



I decided to use a disposable at nights and if I know we'll be out of the house for awhile. (Which doesn't happen too often these days.) Nighttime disposables are just easier for us at this point since Rory still sleeps in our room and the cloth diapering supplies are kept in her nursery alllllll the way down the hall. (What? I like my sleep.) This just seemed to work best for us, but I know lots of people who use cloth all day everyday with no problems. Now that we've been cloth diapering for the past month or so, I'm so glad we decided to do it. Even my husband has come around and admitted that it's not nearly as gross or time-consuming as he originally thought.



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