About a year ago, I took the dive into crunchdom & purchased my first few cloth diapers to put on Harrison’s wee bum.  After too many nights of changing sheets & jammies because curses! Pampers failed me again! I decided to bite the bullet & try cloth.  Cloth diapering can seem so GRANDMA & so OVERWHELMING, which are two things that are not usually in the same sentence together, unless you’re talking about that overwhelming grandma smell that pervades retirement communities.

But I promise you, these ain’t your grandma’s cloth diapers.

I’m not a cloth diapering guru or genius, but I know enough to give hope that even the flakiest of us mommas can do it.   Consider this Cloth Diapering 101 for Dummies by a Dummy.

Disposable Diaper Routine:

1. Take off diaper.
2. Shake poop into toilet & flush.  (unless you’re a lazy, horrible, depraved person like me who throws away poop.)
3. Put diaper in pail.
4. Put fresh diaper on baby.

Cloth Diaper Routine:

1. Take off diaper.
2. Shake poop into toilet & flush.
3. Put diaper in pail. 
4. Put fresh diaper on baby.

See?  Just like a disposable.  The ONLY difference is that instead of taking out the trash every few days, I toss in a load of laundry & then re-stuff them.

Anatomy of a cloth diaper:

In short?  Cloth sewn.   Poop go there.  Cloth hold poop good.

(p.s. look at wee tiny harry in blue fluff!)

What diapers do I use?

I had NO CLUE where to start but thankfully, my good friends, trusty Twitter pals, & a local baby boutique knew where to guide me.

I chose to start with pocket diapers (like Rumparooz & BumGenuis & Applecheeks), since wetness was our main issue.  I could stuff the pockets with 2-3 inserts for extra absorbency & even pull out the big guns, like a hemp insert.  Good-to-know trivia:  hemp absorbs more.

I snagged a few all-in-ones (AIO) by BumGenius & loved them for daytime (but not for a 12-hour run at night) because they’re a slimmer fit under pants.

Then I moved into hybrid diapers (like gDiapers) where I could put in a cloth insert when we were home, but use a disposable insert for the road.  If it’s just pee, you can simply dump the insert, wipe the liner clean, & pop in a new one instead of using an entirely different diaper, which is why I love these for errands because I simply bring inserts rather than several diapers, but they’re definitely not sleeping diapers in our house.

Then I got brave last summer & went into swim diapers (we use the Swimmis brand) & pretty much fell in love with not buying those disintegrating Huggies diapers.  Beach goers, the reusable swim diapers also don’t seem to trap sand like the disposables, which is so nice.  If you’ve ever changed a sand + poop diaper, you know what I’m talking about.  NASTY TOWN.

I got a little braver & moved into fitted diapers, which are so fantastically soft that I kind of want to put them on my bum.  Super-absorbent but require a cover (like Thirsties).  So far, I have only used these for the super-absorbency we need at night since they can be bulky under clothing.

While I have yet to do pre-folds + covers on my kiddo, I have changed a few on a special set of triplets!

How I wash cloth diapers:

1. One cold rinse without detergent.
2. Add detergent, wash on hot with a pre-soak.
3. Extra rinse.
4. Line dry in the sun when I have time (it helps remove stains & funk!) or just toss in the dryer.

The basics of what you need:

• A willing spouse.
• Diapers. (duh)
• Cloth-diaper friendly detergent, like Charlie’s Soap or Rockin’ Green.
• A place for dirty diapers.  (we use a Planet Wise wet bag that hangs on his closet door & a smaller Planet Wise wet bag for the diaper bag.)

• Sprayer attached to your toilet to remove poop.  (I don’t have one, I just dunk it in the toilet or use toilet paper to scrape it off)
• cloth wipes.  (we don’t use ‘em)
• liners.  (good for easy dumping of poop & protecting diapers from diaper rash cream)
• smell-good stuff for your diaper pail or wet bag.  (I swear by the Rockin’ Green Shake it Up! freshener.)
• ummm….& pretty much anything else you could possibly imagine.

The brands we own:
FuzziBunz
BumGenius
Rumparooz
Applecheeks
gDiaper
Happy Heiny’s
Swimmis
Monkey Snuggles
Thirsties
Charlie Banana
BumEssentials
Babykicks
Go Green Diapers
Bitti Tutto

(I highlighted our favorites as green!)

So…how much are these shit-catchers gonna run me?

We’ve been lucky & done it on the cheap by slooooowly building stash.  As in, I enter every. single. diaper giveaway known to man & have thankfully won a few.  I refuse to buy a diaper unless I have a code to get a free one on Diaper Shops (go ahead & subscribe to their newsletter so you’ll get these codes!).  I bought my gDiapers with a 20% off coupon from Babies R Us.

What I paid:  $237.66 for 23 diapers
What they retail:  $472.43

The moral of my story?  If you’re patient & keep your eye on deals, you can do well.  Consider it prep for your audition on Extreme Couponing, minus the coupons & need to store 40 bottles of Heinz ketchup.

Here’s the wonderful thing about mothering & cloth diapering – you can do it your own way.  Full-on, part-time, or HELL NO I’M NOT DOING THAT.  I have girlfriends that even travel with cloth, God bless them.   I have gals that cloth full-time except on the road.  I have parents that are still confused by my desire to cloth diaper but will happily swaddle his bum when they babysit.  & then part-timers that cloth diaper at night & on weekends, but buy boxes of Pampers for daycare’s request.  My friends that gag every time I mention cloth diapering?  Still love ‘em.

*coming soon because this post is getting too long:  where we stand right now with diapering Harry’s bum, plus an AppleCheeks giveaway so one of you can try fluff!