Is anyone considering/have you done cloth diapering?

[Kit]

Am I ridiculous for even considering this?

I wouldn't even know where to start.

I do know that:
-Our DCP needs disposables
-I wouldn't expect any babysitters (ahem, grandparents) to deal with cloth.
-I probably wouldn't deal with cloth if we were out and about

But, while we are home with him, I'd like to maybe try it.  So, we'd be doing a mix of cloth and disposable. 

Thoughts?

[liverandonions]

I've heard it's expensive and only cost effective if you have multiple kids that you cloth diaper. I personally have no interest in doing it, but i have friends that have and have liked it. They like Bum Genius and G Diapers.

[boiler717]

I am planning but can't speak to the is it worth it aspect of PT cloth diapering. I will be WFH and have child care, so I hope the laundry aspect is easy. It seems like my friends prefer AIOs (BumGenius elementals are most recommended to me), but they are most expensive. I would think grandparents could use them, they are pretty easy! I've had friends who had good luck getting the DCP to use because they are so easy. However, if you are doing PT CDing, it may be better to do something more economical like prefolds and a cover. There's a good CD ebook for an overview.
I'm planning to register for some CDs, wet bags (travel and home), diaper sprayer, and spray guard.

[Susie]

Our top choice daycare does cloth if parents choose. If we get a spot there, I may consider doing cloth full time. If we don't, pretty much everywhere else is disposables-only at daycare. If that is the route we go, I'm not sure we'll bother doing cloth at home. Adjusting to working full time + full time daycare, etc. is going to be hectic enough. I don't think I want the dual logistics of cloth diaper laundry (and the investment) plus disposables for M-F.

Cloth diapering is one of my "yes, in a perfect world..." things, but I know I need to pick and choose the "perfect world" things that I will do. If my kid is easy on me with nursing, great. If I find myself EPing, which seems to me to be the most time intensive way to feed, well mama's gonna have to cut some corners elsewhere to make it all fit.

[thejackpot]

I have cloth diapered all of my children and plan to cd this one as well. I haven't had any issues with cding except when the babysitter used the wrong creme on them. There are many to choose from and it can be overwhelming but you can make it as easy or as hard as you want. If you have any questions, I love cd talk

[brandienee]

I plan on it. I will be working from home, so daycare isn't a thing, yet.

My In-Laws and dad and sister will learn if they want to watch the kid for more than an hour. (Sorry, not sorry) And I don't see an issue with day traveling. The one thing that might be an issue is cross country traveling, and who knows when that is going to happen for us. If I am visiting family, I don't mind spending some time at the laundromat if they're grossed out by having diapers in their washing machine. I don't think it will come to that though.

The health/environmental/economical benefits outweigh any icky feelings someone might have towards poop. (In my mind anyway)

I am registered for a variety of diapers, to see what works and what not.

[jennistarr1]

So I do it.

Actually, I believe daycares have to do it...but up to you whether you want to force that issue.
I also try to get the buy-in from the grandparents
Cloth isn't that much harder out and about (just carry a wet bag to throw them in)

That said, my parents are my daycare and I give them cloth and disposables to use and let them do what they want.

I love cloth diapers. I'm not a purist, I always have sposies on hand.  I started off about 60/40 and slowly I've become probably 80/20

I've invested roughly 400 in cloth diapers so far...so it's a lot in the beginning (though I've built my stash slowly) but this stash can last me for years with baby 1 and then all over again with baby 2

There is lots of info out there to help you if you decide to do it. I'm happy to answer any questions.

[Kit]

Also...we are only having one kid. Do I want the expense of the diapers for only one kid? I mean, I guess I could sell them if they were in good condition, and it would STILL save us money in the long run. Oh, and the environment too, I guess. lol

Decisions, decisons!

[Cicero]

We did part time with M until he started eating solids and it became more complicated. I will say that even just doing it part time for 6 months it wasn't any more expensive than disposables. I kept track of how many I washed and calculated what the same number of sponsors would have cost and we hit even by the time we stopped. We'll probably do it part time with kid #2.

Our stash consists of about two dozen Bum Genius Freetimes and 4.0 seconds, a dozen prefolds, and four covers.

If you want to go the AIO or pocket route my advice would be to get on Cotton Babies email list. They make Bum Genius and have seconds sales a couple of times a year. They have some small defect but are guarenteed to be usable and TBH for about 80% of our diapers I couldn't tell you what the problem was. For the rest it was something like a pen mark that washed out.

[Muddled]

I would do it if I had a washer.
We are considering a service.

[dana86]

I have done it for 2 kids so far. I usually don't start it until they are a few months old so they fit into the one-size-fits-all sized diapers to cut the cost. Its saved us the money and it works. I stay at home though so no need to worry about daycares. And as the kid gets older its much easier to do cloth while out and about since they don't go through them as quickly.

[brandienee]

Ideally you would spend 400-600 dollars on your stash, and that's it. Besides washing. You can cut that by buying used stashes too.

Disposables can cost up to 1500 for one child during their diapering time.

It's definitely more cost effective if you only have one. Even more so if you choose to have another.

[fashionx]

I have zero interest in it. My dad offered to get us a cloth diaper service, where they take your dirty diapers and clean them for you and bring you new fresh ones each week. We already have a pretty good stock pile of disposable ones though, and neither DH nor I want to deal with cloth even with the diaper service. When we take the baby out with us I would rather be able to throw away the diaper than carry around a gross used one with us all day to bring back home. Or we would end up using disposables in that case and not using as many of the cloth, so I don't think it would be worthwhile.

I know it saves money and it's environmentally friendly and all, but it doesn't work for our lifestyle.

[Blackout81]

I clothed my first for 2 years (from the day I came home from the hospital to when we potty trained). I loved it, I had no issues.

This time around I'm planning on CDing for 6 months - no need to
Spray or dump poops or anything - and then take it from there.

[Kit]

Thanks for the input, we are still undecided but all of this information is good to know!

[aprilsails]

I'm looking into the Flip system from Cotton Babies as I've read good reviews and I also think it is cheaper and easier to manage than the AIO's or the pocket diapers since you don't have to invest in as many covers. They also have a disposable (compostable) insert that would be easy for grandparents to use or for on the go and isn't any more expensive than a standard disposable.

I'm allergic to everything Huggies brand and also the Kirkland (Costco) brand diapers, so going this route makes much more sense to us and will save money. I'll also be off on a 1 year maternity leave. I'm planning on using Pamper's swaddlers until the baby is big enough to go into the one-size cloth diapers.

[achi]

We're going to CD full time, and DCP up here are more open to CDs than it seems American ones are so that is not an issue for us.

Ditto what everyone else has already said re: costs, washing, etc. You might want to look into G-diapers as well. They have bio-friendly absorbant inserts that you flush or throw out (I've only looked into them briefly myself so I can't remember which it is) and a lot of DCPs that are not super CD friendly are more open to a system like that.

[Cicero]

I do want to say that CDing is only as expensive as you make it. Prefold and covers are cheap. I found that I didn't really like prefolds except tri folded in a cover, but my whole stash (like I said, mostly Bum Genius Freetime and 4.0 seconds) was like $250.

I've not used Kawaii, Alva, or Sunbaby but those are really inexpensive and I've heard good things.

[ginkgoleaf]

We CD'd part time with DS - not at daycare and not for travel. We may be crazy, but we're planning to with the twins too. I'm a SAHM this time around so I think I'll be able to keep up with the laundry alright. Should be a huge cost savings, though we will need to buy more to cover twice the kids.

[pooh8402]

I considered it for like a day, then realized I'm too lazy for that. I realize this is not helpful in the least.

[Blackout81]

I will add that you don't realize how awesome it is to not worry about having/buying diapers. It's a hue plus that I think is very underrated. When we potty trained (a week before her 2nd birthday) I initial tries the cloth version of pull-ups and quite honestly, they sucked - and I was a die-hard CDer. We switched to buying pull-ups just for naps and overnight and I despised having to spend the money on them every few weeks and keeping track on how many we had and worrying at like 5pm if having would be enough to get us through the night since sometimes she'd wake up with poops multiple times. I just felt like every time I went to Target I was paying $15 or whatever for a bag of garbage.

Granted, to me the extra load of laundry every 2-3 days was NBD at all, so I could see how if someone is in the groove of buying diapers it just becomes NBD to them, but that was my perspective. We did do disposables 3 times - during the two hurricanes we were hit with (Irene in 2011 and Sandy in 2012) and then traveling to TX to visit my sister, who also CD, but all that laundry would have been too much for a "vacation".

[Blackout81]

One more thing - my childcare was my mom and aunt, and both of them gave me a hard time about it at first. My mom CD'd me (1981 - disposables were new and expensive) and I think she thought it was going to be like that. It ended up being no problem, there are so many types and styles, I found ones that were easiest for them (for us it was TotsBots, yes a little pricer but I LOVE them) and made sure to send enough of those on days they had her. MH was also very unsure about it, but unlike most things in our marriage where we usually discuss big decisions, I just told him this is what we're doing, period. He had the hang of it very quickly - I think it helped that he didn't have anything to compare it to.

To get started, the most helpful thing for me was to meet with a local mom & pop shop to let me feel and try different types of diapers and ask a ton of questions. Obviously the Internet is full of awesome information, but having the hands on experience made it far less overwhelming.

[meltoine]

I have used cloth with all of my kids. I bought 24 BumGenius 4.0s when I was pregnant with my. First and they still look and work like new 4.5 years (of continuous use) later. I also bought a set of 48 newborn prefolds and 10 covers, used, for $100. Rounding it out with cloth wipes and wet bags, I spent $500 to diaper three children from birth to potty training. Well worth it IMO.

I used to use CDs when we traveled, but they take up so much suitcase space that I can't do it anymore. It was fine when it was only me and one kid, but MH rarely travels with us and I can't manage carrying an extra suitcase for diapers anymore now that I'm wrangling two kids by myself.

None of our parents or babysitters ever had a problem figuring out how to use them. I keep them stuffed and folded in the changing table so the only difference between them and disposables is they have snaps instead of stickies. They leave them on the changing table and I deal with putting them in the diaper pail when I get back.

[stackingtens]

We did it with DS1 and will do it again with this baby... only difference is that we switched daycares and our new daycare will only do it if it's for an allergy issue or something. We'll cross that bridge in the fall, I guess.

Anyway, it was super cost effective for us because we got a lot of the supplies as shower gifts, etc., so we didn't pay a ton out of pocket.

Also, I think it's totally easy for babysitters/grandparents to do it as long as you use alll in one or pocket diapers-they go on just like normal diapers do, but instead of putting the diaper in the trash, you just put it in the wet bag. Our family all kinda laughed at us but no one minded them at all in the long run. We do prefolds with covers when it is just us changing, but we wouldn't ask someone else to do those without experience.

Leaving the house in cloth was also fine, IMO. Just had a wetbag in the diaper bag to put the diapers in to bring home.

For me, if you have to do disposables at daycare/with babysitters/out of the house, then you are not going to get your $$ worth, esp for only one kid. If you are using them all the time, you get in a routine of washing and what not, and it just becomes part of the process... and then the cost savings is worthwhile.

[Muddled]

Jul 1, 2015 20:33:36 GMT -5 aprilsails said:

I'm looking into the Flip system from Cotton Babies as I've read good reviews and I also think it is cheaper and easier to manage than the AIO's or the pocket diapers since you don't have to invest in as many covers. They also have a disposable (compostable) insert that would be easy for grandparents to use or for on the go and isn't any more expensive than a standard disposable.

I'm allergic to everything Huggies brand and also the Kirkland (Costco) brand diapers, so going this route makes much more sense to us and will save money. I'll also be off on a 1 year maternity leave. I'm planning on using Pamper's swaddlers until the baby is big enough to go into the one-size cloth diapers.

Have you looked into g diapers? 

[aprilsails]

Jul 2, 2015 10:25:19 GMT -5 Muddled said:

Jul 1, 2015 20:33:36 GMT -5 aprilsails said:

I'm looking into the Flip system from Cotton Babies as I've read good reviews and I also think it is cheaper and easier to manage than the AIO's or the pocket diapers since you don't have to invest in as many covers. They also have a disposable (compostable) insert that would be easy for grandparents to use or for on the go and isn't any more expensive than a standard disposable.

I'm allergic to everything Huggies brand and also the Kirkland (Costco) brand diapers, so going this route makes much more sense to us and will save money. I'll also be off on a 1 year maternity leave. I'm planning on using Pamper's swaddlers until the baby is big enough to go into the one-size cloth diapers.

Have you looked into g diapers? 

There is no local cloth diaper supply store that carries gdiapers, which would make using them much more expensive as I would have to order the disposable inserts online and have them shipped.  Particularly since I am in Canada options are somewhat limited in this respect.

I've heard good things about them and the Flip system is pretty comparable, although it doesn't have the same double gusset. Flip is also a little bit cheaper for new diapers. I haven't had any luck finding used gdiapers for sale in my area either.  It seems as though they haven't really gotten into the local market. 

[jennistarr1]

I was going to also say...don't worry too much about investing the $$$ into it...if you decide you don't like it, you'll get a good chunk of your investment back, they have awesome resale value!