Walking with the Cooks: Cloth Diapering

Dave, Sarah, and I have embarked on a new adventure- cloth diapering. We did not ever consider cloth diapers when we were expecting Sarah, as we were paying for laundry by the load. Sometimes it seemed too expensive to just wash our clothes!

Here are our two big reasons for making the switch:

1. Long term savings- We had great success with BJ's brand diapers. They came at a low cost, in bulk, and often had a coupon. Diapering sites often talk about how going with cloth saves you middle of the night diapers runs and the thousands of dollars you spend diapering a child. Honestly, their argument didn't sway me as much as it put me on guard for deceitful advertising.

We bought diapers about once a month and spent about $26 a pack. It wasn't breaking the bank by any means, but looking ahead to our baby boy on the way and any other children the Lord may have for us, we wanted to carefully consider the long term costs. Our investment in cloth was hefty, probably the equivalent of just over a year of using disposable diapers. Since we hope to have little ones in diapers for many years to come, we decided it was a worthwhile investment.

Now our monthly costs come in the form of water for washing, oil for water heating, and the time it takes to wash, dry, stuff, and change more frequently. These are significant costs, but ones that we (maybe mostly I) decided could be handled.

2. A friend in the business- There is so much on the internet about cloth diapering. So much of it seemed contradictory to me. As I have studied the product and grown in knowledge, it has become somewhat more clear. But the most influential and encouraging figure was my friend, Meghan, who has been using cloth diapers for a number of months now. Meghan was very honest with me and able to very accurately help me count the costs. She let me drill her with difficult and probably repetitive questions as I tired to figure out if we could really live the cloth diapering lifestyle.

She has also been very influential in problem solving since our diapers arrived. (Think me leaving her a frantic message the day we received our diapers in mail. She called me back that evening- that was Thursday and she had delivered her second child the Saturday before. Yep, she is a best friend.) Sarah is definitely at the large of end of things at this stage and it has taken some work to accurately size the diapers and learn the timing of when to change her. Initially, we were changing pants and sheets quite often. A week into things we are settling into a pretty great system. I am so thankful for Meghan's encouragement!

The method to our madness:

The diaper system we choose is a pocket style. The pocket is made of a waterproof outer layer and quick dry fleece inner layer. An absorbent insert goes inside and can be layered to fit a specific soaking need. (Aka, we put extra layers in at night.) Our diapers are "one size" and can be adjusted through the leg and waist elastics and snap options in the front to fit a child for the majority of their diapering life. We also invested in some biodegradable liners. They go on top of the fleece and mean that a dirty diaper just gets the liner plopped in the toilet. What is left on the diaper is not enough to worry over.

From top to bottom: biodegradable liner, insert, and diaper.

We seem to use 10-12 diapers every two days. My goal is to do laundry every other night. With the 18 diapers we have, this seems to work out perfectly. We now have two baskets next to Sarah's changing table. A small one has a grocery bag liner and holds used wipes and other trash. The diaper pail now holds a waterproof diaper bag. When taking a diaper off Sarah, we shake the insert(s) and liner out/off of the pocket and all the separate pieces are dropped in the pail. On laundry day the whole bag comes out and everything gets dumped in the washer, bag and all.

For laundering, our current method is to start with a cold rinse, then a hot wash with detergent followed by a cold rinse, and one more cold rinse for good measure. (Sarah has gotten a few rashes on her legs and tummy, so I like to make sure all the detergent is out.) I then hang-dry the diapers, liners, and diaper bag. They can all go in the drier, but we want to get as much life as possible out of these guys. If time allows, I do throw the inserts into the drier since a warm dry can help them become more absorbent at this point. At Meghan's recommendation I am using one tablespoon of a cloth diaper detergent that came as part of our package plus one tablespoon of Arm & Hammer Free.