All about the diapers

Eww! Cloth diapers!!!!

Really, you wanna know the truth?

It's AWESOME!

Well, ok, I still haven't got the ones I ordered yet, but the 3 I have are awesome! If you can get past washing them every 3rd diaper (haha).

But I will bet that some of you out there would also have never considered cloth diapers. I don't blame you. Obviously I didn't. Well, a couple of months ago I saw them for the first time....(alright, I've seen cloth diapers before, but not like this).

It was also around this time that my friend Allison did a post on cloth diapers. I thought it sounded a little extreme, but it did have me thinking more about it.

So this last couple of weeks, we were talking about things we could do to save money. Mostly because we really want to work towards getting to the point of moving back home. Undoubtedly, it will be impossible with our current situation with the house. We bought just before the market dropped. Nice.

I cancelled our home phone and our cable tv. That should hopefully help us all be more productive, as well as saving around $60 a month. I also cut my grocery budget....drastically. We've been eating out way too much, and it shows. And then it came time to buy diapers again. Oh how I hate shelling out the money for diapers. I get mine from Costco, and even after trying different brands I had found them to be the best value for the money. When I switched to Luvs it seemed like even though were cheaper I was changing her more often, which pretty much cancelled out the savings. I also usually buy the cheapest diapers to take to daycare, because they change them on the hour if they are wet. So when I calculated my savings with cloth diapers I only took into account the box of diapers we use at home. $40 a month, plus wipes. I usually go through a box of wipes every other month, so that puts it around $50, I think.

In my research I found that you can make your own wipes out of flannel material, which would cost you roughly $2.50, and that would give you 35 or so wipes. You just cut your material into 8x8 squares with pinking shears and that's it. I think most people fold theirs in half and use an old wipes container, and some people make a solution to keep them moist, some use a wipes warmer, and other's make a spray solution to spray either the baby or the wipe. You can also buy cloth wipes and solutions from most places. I am going to make my own, since I already have some material in my closet.

I e-mailed Allison, and asked her how it's going. She said great, and gave me some tips (like making your own wipes). I also had seen a recent post on Rocks In My Dryer asking if anyone had tips for cloth diapering. She's got tons of readers so it was really helpful to me. At last check she has 80 comments on that post. I found it extremely helpful.

Basically I found out this:

*It's not as bad as you would think...we are in the 21st century here, and everything is easier and prettier then it was back in the day.

*If I can stick to breastfeeding for 6 and 9 months (which I never thought I would do but did it to save money) I can do cloth diapers just as long or longer. That was hard to stick it out, the toe curling pinch for the first 6 weeks... perseverance, I tell ya.

*They make a sprayer that attaches to your toilet, or even flushable liners to get rid of the poop easily. I've touched my share of poop, been puked on and everything else. I can handle this (I'll have to do without the sprayer...I would probably find Hunter "cleaning" the bathroom with it).

*My daycare may even be willing and able to deal with the cloth diapers there (if the laws allow), which would save me even more money than I figured. I'm still waiting to find out, but it would be great if it was possible.

*There is so much out there to read, and I'm a reader. Almost everyone has said they love(d) it. The only negatives I saw were from people who have not, and would not, try it themselves. I don't think you can review something that you haven't tried for at least a month.

Here's what I'm going to do for you: I'm going to post the links of the places I found helpful information, and if you're interested, go see for yourself.

Cotton Babies - Online store- they have a "Try it kit" for $30, and instructions and information. Plus free shipping on orders over $74.95.

The Cloth Diaper Diary- I think she covers pretty much every question you could have.

Gohn Crazy- A great post about the different types, and a breakdown of the basics.

Traveling With Baby- There's another great post, reviews of several different styles and brands complete with pictures and ratings in different categories. Very informative.

I think I'll stop there. You could spend an entire day just reading all of that information.

I hope this helps if you have thought of cloth diapering and just needed a little push.