Welcome to our new forum! All existing NW Cryobank forum users will need to reset their passwords. Click forgot password and enter your email address to receive the link. Email us at info@nwcryobank.com with any questions.
NW Cryobank community boards and sibling connect groups will no longer be available after December 20th, 2023.
Options
I need Cloth Diapering 101
GaBeekeeper
Posts: 916
We had always talked about doing cloth diapering. Now that we are having twins, I still want to do it, but not sure what all we will need.
I looked at some sites and I just got confused. There are so many to choose from!!
What do you need to start off with? What is the most absorbent?
Is there somewhere I can go online and learn all about the diapers?
thanks so much!
I looked at some sites and I just got confused. There are so many to choose from!!
What do you need to start off with? What is the most absorbent?
Is there somewhere I can go online and learn all about the diapers?
thanks so much!
0
Comments
When we started the process we went to a 'diaper seminar' at the
Diaper Lab in Cambridge, MA. I'm not sure if they have them other
places, but not knowing anything to begin with, we have no friends who
have successfully/continuously cloth diapered ahead of us, it was
pretty helpful.
What I learned at the diaper class.
There are so many different types of diapers, but most can be
categorized into two types, more or less-
- all in ones or pocket diapers, these have a cover that you stuff the
absorbent part into then put onto your baby's bottom just like a
disposable diaper.
- cover and 'insert'
an 'insert' can be just about ANYTHING. it can be a prefold [the flat
ones that make great burp cloths], it can be a 'fitted' - there are a
gazillion types. snap sides that just hug your baby's bottom & absorb
liquids.
When we took the class, they threw a lot of info at us, it was
overwhelming and I wasn't sure I'd learned anything. I thought we
should totally go with the pocket diapers/all in ones because they'd
be the easiest. The down side was that the ones we wanted were
'one-size' so that our baby would only need one type of diaper -
except as a newborn. They aren't small enough for newborns. So we
bought two covers and a few fitteds.
Yeah, I fell in love. The fitteds rock. I love them. Of course we'd
already bought about 25 all in ones so we use those most often, but if
I had my dream stash [as people call their cloth diaper supply] I'd
have fitters and covers.
Alright, if your head isn't reeling yet, there's more.
The absorbent pieces of diapers come in different materials. People
get all crazy about them, the best thing I can tell you is that
everything absorbs. In a bind you could stuff paper towels in there
and buy yourself some time. They say hemp & bamboo are most absorbent,
also, most expensive.
My experience with absorbent pieces -
- hemp is so much thinner than other options & I think cloth diapers
can be bulky at times, so I'd buy more hemp from the beginning if I
knew then what I know now.
- microfleece is cheap and most diapers that come with inserts are
stuffed with this. it's bulky but absorbent. it takes quite a few
washes to reach full absorbency potential - ours leaked initially but
now work perfectly.
- bamboo is awesome, even those cheap liners from babies'r'us.
Finally - liners make my life so much easier! No one told me this
initially. They said, you can buy disposable liners to throw the solid
waste out, but I thought - isn't that the same as using disposables
essentially? all the bleach and bad chemicals are there in smaller
quantity, right? I don't know if that is the case or not, but we use
hemp and bamboo liners, when we're out, microfleece liners. They do
catch the solids and we take them and dump them into the toilet. We
don't even use one of those sprayers that people say you need.
We use baby wash cloths as wipes. We just wet them as we need them,
it's super easy and works for us. Initially I thought we'd use
disposable wipes, but then we'd have to separate things all the time.
And I didn't want all those chemicals on her tushie. Everyone says to
make wipes solution and keep wipes wet, it seemed confusing to us and
with her little newborn bottom, we didn't want anything other than
water on it, so we went with water. She eats food and makes plenty of
solid waste now and water is still great. She gets baths where we wash
her tushie. She never gets rashes and her bottom looks great - so
we're happy with that choice.
There's a lot here to think about. I can try to think of more and you can ask any
questions this might bring up.
ds1 started when he was a little over 2yo - he was our guinea pig to see if it was something we wanted to do. i was completely clueless and bought 6 sposoeasy (aio) to begin with, then a happy heiny (aio pocket), fuzzibuns (aio pocket), rumparoos (aio pocket), goodmama (aio) and bsrb (fitted). the sposoeasy were a specific size and worked ok but not super absorbent. the happy heiny was good, fuzzibuns not good (maybe not a good fit for a boy?), rumparoos great, goodmama great and bsrb great (used for nighttime only with a cover).
so we ended up using mostly the rumparoos and goodmamas with ds1. daycare compromised with us and allowed the teacher to put on a cloth diaper (we used the sposoeasy for this because it had velcro) as his last diaper of the day. the bsrb we coupled with some dancing bear nighttime soakers - ds1 is big for his age and peed.a.lot at night - and this combo kept his jammies and the bed dry. we tried other covers and they all failed.
we also use cloth wipes with a spray made from water and monkey butt soap bits.
for ds2 we decided to go all out. we got daycare to agree to allow us to cloth diaper and stocked up accordingly. for him we had:
newborn muttaquin aio
newborn lil joey (same company that makes rumparoos)
newborn muttaqin fitted
newborn goodmama fitted
newborn nanipoo fitted
fleece and pul covers for the fitted diapers
bumgenius one size aio
goodmama one aio one size (note that these are not being made anymore due to a lack of laminator)
goodmama fitted one size
cloth wipes (a ton!)
large wet bags for storing soiled diapers in the nursery and for daycare
large pail bags for storing soiled diapers in the bucket in the basement
smaller wet bag for the diaper bag
several small wet bags for daycare (daycare rules are diaper into small wet bag with zipper, then that gets put in a bigger wet bag also with a zipper)
cloth diaper friendly rash creams and sprays - you can't use stuff like desitin directly on cloth, it will mess them up
fleece liners for those times when you have to use meds on diaper rashes (thankfully not very often for us!)
cloth diaper friendly laundry detergent - charlie's soap or rocking green
grapeseed extract for combating yeast infections
cloth diaper friendly bleach (not really bleach uses oxygen, can't remember the name) for combating yeast infections
monkey butt organic soap bits and a couple of spray bottles for wipe solution
sprayer for the toilet and a potty pail (i'm sure others would say not necessary but we use ours and love it)
it seems like a lot when you list everything out. it's easy to think you'll just need the cloth diapers but there are a lot of other items that are required!!
and you should not mind rinsing poop into the toilet. it's a stinky job. breastfed baby poop doesn't have to be rinsed but as soon as they start solids...
there is a website called diaperswappers.com where you can often times pick up secondhand diapers for a great deal. i have used this site myself.
i hope that helps some!
g
I figure if we get a few different kinds, we can try them out and see what we like best before investing a lot of money into them.
As I was washing/prepping diapers, I realized I much preferred pocket diapers. All in ones take FOREVER to dry. I sold my AIO stash already. Now I have mostly pockets, but I also have around 8 countoured/fitted diapers in size small and medium each, and multiple fitted covers to go with them. I went with Bum Genius 3.0 on the pockets, along with some diapers I had gotton from China.
Regarding the Chinese ones, Sunbaby brand runs smaller than Bum Genius - you can definitely start these earlier than the BG. The flip side of that is, of course, they won't last quite as long. The other brand from China (the name escapes me at the moment), run slightly larger than the Bum Genius, but clearly you can use these starting at the same time as the BG's - I am guessing they'll last slightly longer. I mention the chinese pocket diapers, because they are a good value, and they appear to be every bit as quality made as the BG's. They all come with microfiber inserts.
And I would TOTALLY recommend disposable diaper liners for solid waste (once they start eating food and not just milk). I have read that if they are just peed on, you can wash them twice, and get potentially 3 uses out of them. Of course, they are disposed of with the solid waste, but overall, it makes it a pretty good value!
Good luck to you!
We also have one diaper that's all bamboo, off ebay.. the Bububibi or something like that. It is our clear favorite diaper of them all.. We keep meaning to buy some more.. but as we have a sufficient number of diapers at the moment and they all work.. eh, maybe someday..
So, it is OK to buy used cloth diapers? I wasn't too sure b/c it kinda sounded like buying used underwear? But maybe not?