If you are like me 12 months ago and the thought of cloth diapers makes you roll your eyes, hear me out. I am not worried about landfills filling up with used disposable diapers nor do the possible chemicals that make a disposable diaper work bother me. However, mention saving almost $1200 a year and you have my attention. I admit, this fact was my main motivation for choosing to use cloth diapers with the Spud.
This post is for those that want to save some money during that crazy expensive first year of your precious baby's life.
Purchasing Cloth Diapers
We got all of our cloth diapers from Zulilly or babysteals.com. The most we spent on one diaper was $13, which is pretty good considering they can cost up to $25. This takes some advanced planning, but well worth the saved money. The total inital cost for 16 diapers (which has been PLENTY) was $250. Seems like a lot to fork out at once, but when you look at how much you spend in disposable diapers, $250 is EASILY reached within the first few months. We did not start using the cloth until the Spud was 3 months old, so we know how expensive those disposables get!
Pocket vs Snap in
I was completely in the dark when it came to this choice as I was purchasing our diapers. Honestly, I had no clue the difference. So, I got both. Both have advantages and disadvantages.
Pocket
advantages
- flexible
- soft
- easily cleaned
- cheaper
disadvantages
- leak easier
- a little more work to assemble/disassmble (you have to actually put the diaper liner in and take it out)
Snap in
advantages
- easy to assemble and disassemble (snap in, snap out)
- absorb well
- rarely leak
- can get stiff
- more expensive
Really, either one you get works if you make it work. We experimented with two types of pocket, Cloud and Jungle
Roos. We like the fit of the Jungle Roos better, but both work fine.
For the snap in, we got Bonnibuns and they work great. Did not fit as well at first, but now that he has gotten a little bigger, they are awesome.
Cleaning
There are some pretty extensive blog posts out there about the washing and care of cloth diapers. It can be overwhelming. Here is what we do, and it has worked supremely:
- Get a 5 gallon all purpose bucket from home depot
- When removing diaper, if wet, just pull out the liner or unsnap the insert. If poopy, dump the dump into the toilet, pull out liner or unsnap insert (if exclusively breast fed, no need to dump the dump. Breastmilk waste is water soluble).
- toss in bucket
- When clean diapers are used up, or about every 2-3 days, throw diapers into washing machine
- Wash on a quick cold water cycle
- Put in detergent, we use tide, a little vinegar and wash on sanitary cycle
- Line dry or throw into the dryer. Whatever works best for you. Sun drying will remove stains and stinch if your diapers develop any. We have dried ours in the dryer for months and don't have a problem with either.
That's it. No special detergents. No special hypoallergenic, double lined, absorbent hamper. No toilet sprayer. Just clean diapers, on the cheap.
The "ICK" Factor
My husband was really concerned about having to deal with more poop and nastiness by using cloth. To be honest, you really don't deal with that much more than disposable. You're already in there wiping the goop off your kid's bum, what more is taking it to the bathroom to wipe it into the toilet? As I mentioned before, when they are solely breastfed, there is no need to scrape off that yumminess. It will all loosen in the wash on the cold cycle, then the sanitary cycle with super hot water will sanitize everything. Both my husband and I have not really had complaints about this step.
There you have it. The non-hippie, just want to save some big pennies guide to cloth diapers. Easy peasy. It is worth it. We have saved SO much money over the past 6 months. We do use disposable on trips, at night or when the Spud is staying with a sitter, for ease and comfort. Other than that, we use the cloth and really have not had many complaints.
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