What It's Really Like to Cloth Diaper

I think I started cloth diapering about a month ago.  I've only been full-time* cloth diapering for a couple weeks now that I have enough diapers to last me two full days and then have a couple extra while those are in the washer & drying.

*By full time I mean all day & all night long unless we go out of the house.  I personally don't want to bother with carrying around those giant fluffy diapers--clean or dirty.  Plus I still have a giant stash of disposable diapers that I had already bought up, so I don't feel like I'm spending any extra money.

This is modern cloth diapering for those of you who still think that it means I am using plastic pants and Gerber prefolds.  I'm not.

1.  It's surprisingly not gross.  I really thought that facing my baby's poop would be a really disgusting experience.  Well, it's not.  He is a breast fed baby thus far so no rinsing in the toilet is required.  Breast milk is actually water soluble!

2.  I get an awesome warm, fuzzy feeling.  Something about being eco-friendly just makes you feel better about what you are doing.  I don't worry about what chemicals are being put next to my child's future baby making parts.  I even know what is going in the detergent used to clean them.

3.  My homemade laundry detergent works.  I posted the recipe for my cloth diapering laundry detergent a few weeks ago.  And it works!  I do find I use just over a TBSP of it per use.  I did the math, and it is about $0.90 per month vs $4.20 per month for the cheapest brand of detergent I was initially going to use that was cloth diaper friendly.  Every dollar counts when you're trying to get out of debt.

4.  The power of the sun is amazing!  It really gives me a true appreciation for the non-man-made things that God already put here in this universe for us!  If there are any "shadow stains," I just hang dry the covers or inserts or prefolds in my window and by the time the sun sets, they're all gone!  I did hang one prefold with the dirty side facing in and the clean side facing out once and those stains came out the second time around.

5.  People think I'm crazy.  This assures me that Financial Peace University has had an effect on me.  Thanks Dave Ramsey.  "If you live like no one else, later you can live like no one else."  I'm sure he wasn't thinking of handling baby poop in a new way, but it works!

6.  I don't really need to spend money on a wet bag pail liner.  I'm going to write a post about my DIY pail liner.  But I didn't think it needed to be waterproof.  And it worked.  And it's washable and dryable.  The other ones you see for sale are not able to be put in the dryer.  And you're supposed to remember to take them out before the final rinse cycle so it doesn't hold all the water in the bag.  Too much work for me.  I got a trash can with a flip top lid and put my DIY bag in it, and who knew--trash cans are waterproof too!

7.  My husband handles it so well!  Just an opportunity to brag about my husband.  In most blogs I read, the husbands were the ones who had problems with cloth diapering.  He was grossed out for the first poopy diaper he had, but after that he was pretty cool with it.  Once he figured out how to use a Snappi(R) he was good to go.  It was a steep learning curve, but he did well.  He actually says that he prefers the prefolds & covers over the pocket diapers.  I think he likes the Velcro on a couple of the covers vs all of the snaps on the pocket diapers.

Snappi in use

8.  Prefolds are working better than pocket diapers.  This might be related to the elastic in the front of our diaper covers that are not in our pocket diapers.  But the moral of the story is that they work just fine.  If you're on a budget, this is the way to go.  Econobum has a diaper kit of covers & prefolds that allow you to cloth diaper for about $50.  We got 2 Econobum covers and some of their prefolds as our first diapers to see if we could really do it.  And they work!  I actually really like the covers.  They are by the makers of BumGenius (the super expensive but supposedly awesome CD's).

9.  Coconut oil is a great diaper cream.  I bought a jar of coconut oil for a recipe of CD friendly diaper rash cream.  I still haven't made that yet, but the coconut oil works just fine, and is cheaper than the original recipe.  The only problem is that I think of eating popcorn every time I smear it on his bottom since that is the oil they use in movie theaters and apparently baseball stadiums.

10.  Baby C.J. doesn't care if I make mistakes.  He just patiently played with his toes and sucked on his fingers while I tried to figure out how to fold a prefold properly.  As long as I didn't chop of his fingers or toes, he was doing good.  You can do it, if you just try.  Your baby will never remember your mistakes.