TeamDavis

I did a very controversial thing — I chose to cloth diaper! Gasp.  I know, many people think I’m crazy.  And maybe I just am!  Ha.  It’s amazing because the first three months with an extremely colicky child, you’d think I was insane to add more difficulty to being a diapering mom.  But, I have actually found the system to work for us, and keep experimenting along the way trying new things. I’ve had some room in my life to research and refine this for our family. Who knows what it will be like for any future children. But Josiah is a cloth-diapered child most of the time.

My journey began with a few people suggesting it and I thought they were crazy, and after several conversations like this on topics of childbirth and family, I realize we’re all pseudo crazy to take on this amazingly wonderful journey of parenthood. So why not give it a go?!  Hey, I mean I did deliver Josiah in a bathtub!Now there are different types of cloth diapering philosophies, and you can find blogs upon blogs upon websites upon articles upon message boards with people sharing all their ideas an opinions.  You can find high-tech made expensive diapers, you can find pre-made moderately priced diapers.  You can use old fashioned pre-folds, or you can do some combination of these high tech and the old style.  You can buy all-in-ones, pocket diapers, fitted and a cover; you can do all kinds of things.  Snaps or aplix/velcro, cotton or hemp; flannel or sherpa; wool or PUL — and you don’t even have to know what PUL means!  My point is, there are tons of choices out there.  It can be completely fascinating in it’s own right, or just plain overwhelming.

For the frugal minded, here are some things I found while learning about all this. They are sites for deals on diapers, and other diapering and baby needs.  This is not exhaustive, but some of what I found to be helpful.

• You can find “gently used” diapers (Try Jillian’s Drawers’s “Try Cloth for $10″,
• You can find diapers in various conditions of course on ebay and craigslist at times, but also at Cloth Diaper Exchange, Diaper Swapper, Under My Crib, and this site, as well (these last three I can not vouch for as I did not use them; I will also say I tried looking at Diaper Swappers and it overwhelmed me; never did figure it out!)
• Some stores sell seconds or clearance items.  Jillian’s “Try Cloth” program returns are now “gently used”. then there are sites like Nicki’s Diapers’ Cloth Diaper Clearance section, Lil Bunz, and MyUsedDiapers.com.  KidSurplus.com also has some good deals at times on swim diapers, diaper covers and maybe diapers, too.

One amazingly confusing thing about cloth diapering is the “lingo”.  And as I’ve seen moms get into it, I think they’re pretty excited when they start using the terminology and forget that some of us who’ve spent a lot of time researching still don’t know what some things mean.  I picked up “CDing” pretty quickly to be “cloth diapering”, but “DD” Is still a mystery — designated diaper? I don’t know.  I don’t want to know. I’ve figured out what I needed to! ha.  One acronymn I have learned well is “WAHM” which is “work at home mom.”  And I like supporting them! There are lots of them out there selling “dipes” as some say, and I think that they are probably right up there with the professionally made ones, and often cuter and more unique and fun.  Etsy has a lot of them, and then there is this WAHM Mall, but I haven’t really spent much time here.

My dear friend Laura Beth helped me continue my adventures by offering me her used Fuzzi Bunz diapers that she loved with her three kids.  I thought these were great pocket diapers.  I’ve had some other people give me recommendations on the path that they chose.  I found my way and managed to find some things that worked for us, so I just thought I’d share a little of that.

For the first couple of weeks, we just did disposables.  Anything new seemed like too much. I hadn’t practiced on a stuffed animal or doll, and so I would be starting new on this tiny delicate child, and felt it just wasn’t worth it.  We did disposables for those couple of weeks.  Then I began the adventure of trying the new diapers I had gotten.

Prefold with snappi

Actually after a lot of research, deciding I wasn’t really ready to invest a whole lot of upfront money on cloth diapers to begin with, I actually ended up choosing to do prefolds and diaper wraps (or covers).  I had found Green Mountain Diapers to be a great resource for understanding about cloth diapering, particularly with lots of photos of using prefolds with snappis (a nifty, stretchy device that spares you from using scary diaper pins). Here’s a snappi on a baby.

We happened to use some wraps that a couple friends gave me, and then used the Bummis Super Whisper Wrap and a Pro-wrap classic. I actually was able to get small prefold diapers (I chose unbleached) from Little Lions diapers in seconds so they were actually really cheap by the dozen.  I found no issues with them being seconds, except sometimes I noticed their dimensions might be slightly different.  One thing I did a couple times was just laying the prefold, tri-folded, in the diaper wrap.  I always was nervous that leaky infant bm would leak out, so I did the snappi and wrapped the baby with the prefold.  There are tons of photos and video tutorials online (sample). There are several folds that people use…you just try what’s easiest for you!

I think I did the Angel fold or something. Anyway, it worked for us for a while.  The prefold thing is probably a love or hate thing.  Many people think they’re too difficult; many people think they’re easier than anything else.  They can be bulky or trim fitting depending on your child and also how you work with them.  So you make it what you want. I liked using the fuzzi bunz pocket diapers when we go out.  They are definitely a trim fit, and work well under clothes.  I was often able to put onesies over the prefold/wrap combination, but often the fuzzi bunz being a package in itself was easier and smaller to take with me.  Now the pocket diaper thing — I had received these pocket diapers and had to choose my own inserts. I went ahead with the Rainforest Babies inserts that are kind of “made for” Fuzzi Bunz, or at least sold along with them. I also got some hemp “doublers” to try.  Doublers are an additional layer of absorption on top of the insert.  I just had to try the combination that would work for us.

What I find kind of ironic is many people say their child is a “heavy wetter”, and yet I have nothing to compare Josiah to.  I just think sometimes he wets heavy, sometimes I let his diaper go too long without changing it, and sometimes he’s lighter in his load. So I don’t know.  He can really put some major fluid out, and sometimes not so much.  He can also poop with the best of them.

One really cool trick I learned, speaking of poop, is for anything that gets stained with bf poo (that is breast-fed baby poo) is after cleaning the diaper (or the sheets, or the outfit that is stained), you simply lay it out in the sun, and the sun naturally bleaches the poo stain right out.  I had some residual on the sheets that got pooped on, but for the most part it came out. I may be able to set it out longer.  No cleaning product, no special treatment — just the good ole natural sunlight works.

In addition to Green Mountain Diapers being a great informational website, there are several others I will highlight, and there are about a bijillion out there between blogs, stores that carry cloth diapers, and a bunch of other sites.

For details and information about diapering, a great starting place is the Diaper Pin website, featuring real parents’ reviews and lots of general info about cloth diapering (how many to buy, how to care for, etc).  Also check these sites out … Nappy network, Diaper Hyena, and Diaper Jungle.