Cloth Diapering Update

I remember when I had friends who cloth diapered, and I really wanted to know how it was going for them. You see, for about two years before Israel came home I did research about cloth diapers and read blogs about how awesome they were. But even still, I was skeptical. Aren't disposables easier? Is it worth the investment? Is it really gross?

I already blogged about the reasons that we decided to cloth diaper- you can read that here. 

After being home for one week, we decided to go ahead and start using our cloth diapers. Originally I planned to wait until we knew that Israel didn't have parasites, but after doing some research (and seeing that the timing of lab work would take a few weeks) we decided to go ahead and start almost right away. I gave myself a week to get over jet lag (although I'm still in a constant sleepy state due to a cute kid that prefers to play instead of sleep) and to get caught up on laundry and other post-travel things.

Once we got started, both Will and I LOVED it! I can see why those who cloth diaper are enthusiasts. It's really, really easy. It saves money. The laundry isn't really that much more to do. I wash his diapers every other day. When we take his last diaper off before bath, I'll start the washing process (1 cold rinse, 1 hot with Charlies Soap, 1 hot rinse) then I machine dry the inserts and air dry the diapers. I'm able to do this and still go to bed by 8:30-9pm. There have been a few occasions that I forgot to wash them at night, and I was able to air dry the diapers outside in the sun in about 2 hours. In the mornings, I put the diapers together in about 5-10 minutes.

Hot wheels diaper!

I will say that we use disposables at night. I'm not sure why- but most bloggers that cloth diaper do this, and I think it is because you go longer between diaper changes. We have a lot of size 2 and 3 diapers that we bought along the way with coupons for almost nothing- so I feel like I can justify using disposables at night because we have them anyway. We also will use disposable diapers if we take trips. But if we are going to church or out in town, he still uses his cloth diapers and we just carry a wet bag in our diaper bag.

Diaper pail & liner

Things that have been SO great for us have: the diaper sprayer for the toilet (although typically his waste is solid so we can just open the diaper and drop the waste in the toilet- but about once a week he will have a messy #2 that requires the sprayer!) and the trash can (from Target) that has a foot pedal to lift up the lid, and Planet Wise liners for his trash can- we have 2 liners and we wash the liner with the diapers every time we wash.

We have been using disposable wipes because we have SO many of them! My couponing created quite the stockpile. We have several types of diapers - from Kawaii Baby, BumGenius (my fave), Fuzzibunz (Will's fave), Mon Petit Mardi, and others... It is nice to have a variety and all of them are pocket diapers, which means the insert goes inside.

So the verdict: we love them. They are soft, cute, and sometimes we just pair a shirt with his diaper when it is a really hot day! I'm glad we invested in the diapers and that we decided to start when we did. Since starting, one of my friends has just invested in diapers and she loves them too! I think if you know you will have more than one child you should totally do it too! Let me know if you have questions!