I have been wanting to write this post for quite some time. I even had the pictures taken before baby was born in anticipation of writing a before baby cloth diaper post and an after baby was here diaper post. I ended up going into labor and never getting to write such post. So now here we are four weeks in with a brand new baby girl and I thought I would talk about how we are doing with the cloth diapering.
For starters, cloth diapering is definitely a lifestyle. You AND your husband or partner have to be willing to put in the extra work and preparation involved with cloth. Luckily my husband seems to be enjoying cloth and I don’t mind doing laundry, in fact, it’s kind of meditative (ask me again when baby is two, if I still find laundry meditative, I’m sure my answer will be quite different). 🙂
I’ll start out with my cloth diaper stash. When I was preparing to cloth diaper I read, read, read and even took a cloth diapering class. I was still confused. There are just so many types of cloth diapers these days. I thought with all my research we would be cloth diapering from day one and I thought for sure fitteds would be my favorite. I ended up not cloth diapering from day one and fitteds are definitely not my favorite.
I didn’t want to buy the popular brands out there, I wanted to support more local and handmade products. I bought part of my newborn stash on etsy and the rest of it was thankfully given to me by my wonderful cloth diapering sister-in-law. We started out with seven prefolds, about 14 fitteds, 2 G-diapers and 1 Soft Bums. We also had about six covers and 1 wool cover.
Starting from day one was out of the question already when we found out our hospital wouldn’t allow it. So we vowed to start right after we got home. We did manage to put her in cloth when we got home but only sporadically. We were still trying to figure out which diapers fit her and which we needed to save for later. After seeing the doctor a few days in, she advised us to put her in disposables until her cord fell off. (We did buy fitteds with umbilical cord snap downs too but they were still too big). So for the next week or so we had her in disposables. As soon as that cord fell off (and if came off pretty quick) we tried cloth again. Jeff really liked prefolds with a cover. I had a hard time with prefolds and still do. I liked some of the fitteds but most of them were so bulky, I felt like they would be uncomfortable for her to wear. I had picked up some G-diapers from Babies R Us that I didn’t have high hopes for, but as soon as I put them on her they were my favorite. They were easy to use, easy to clean and so trim. Her onesies actually snapped around them! I went out and bought two more. However, we are finding that she has outgrown them already after only two weeks. My next favorite is actually the soft bums diapers. They fit pretty trim as well and are easy to wash. They can also be adjusted in the leg so we are hoping she will wear these longer. I ended up adding four more Soft Bums to our stash and I’m so glad I did. She’s already wearing a few of what I thought was going to be the next size up in a few months, but she’s already in these great All In Ones from my sister-in-law called Precious Coverings. She’s had a few blow outs in these but there are so many of them and they are easy to use so we are going to continue to use them blow outs or not.
The fuzzibunz and bumgenius (that you see pictured above) are too big as of now, but I’m sure the way she’s growing we will start trying those out soon. Some of them are new but most of them are from my sister-in-law and a good friend who gave me all of her little girls stash too. We are very thankful we didn’t have to spend as much money as some people do but even if we had, I think we are still saving a handful by not using disposables.
As for organization of E’s diaper stash, we are in a very tight space right now so all the diapers are being stored wherever there is room. I have our newborn stash in one basket close to the changing table and so far that is working out.
Here are a few links to where I purchased my fitteds and others in case any one is interested. I really like some of them and I didn’t like others as much. But the care and handiwork it took to make each one of these diapers is quite something.
Brown Cow Cotton – these are great organic cotton covers with PUL inside. Love these except the fact that they get dirty easily because cotton covers the PUL so you can’t just wipe it down like others, you have to wash it. The fabric is lovely and soft though and the prints she uses are darling. They also fit for quite sometime because of the snap downs. We will get a lot of use out of these.
OneLoveDiaperCo. – This was the most expensive diaper I purchased. It has a wool cover and organic cotton insert. It also has lovely fabrics that are handmade. I’m not too sure how wool works yet and I did have problems with pee coming right through with this diaper that I thought was supposed to hold more in? I’m still very new at this so I’m not giving up yet, I may not have lanolized it properly?
BananaBottoms – this is an adorable fitted which we are still using. I love the fit, it’s not too bulky and its super soft organic cotton.
BabyCoonDesigns– this is one of our teeny tiny ones that only fit the first couple weeks. I did take out the insert which gave it a few more days of life for us, but its just too small now. I did like how it fit her. It was one of the very first diapers we put on her.
AprilsBaby– We really liked these covers. I think they are handmade in Canada but they worked great with prefolds and fitteds under them. They are just now at four weeks getting a tad bit too small for her.
31Rubies– this was another teeny tiny diaper that she only used during the first week or so. It was very soft and cuddly but I didn’t like the way the legs fit, a little too snug.
Sustainable Babyish– I had read about these diapers and so I bought one to give it a try. They were really nice, good fit and not too bulky, but she outgrew this one pretty quickly too. Check out their website. They not only have diapers but all sorts of neat baby and kid things!
we also have SoftBums, Fuzzibunz and BumGenius in the mix that you can google and usually find at your local cloth diapering store. I personally shop at Granola Babies and Rosie Posie Baby.
So there’s my first cloth diapering post. I will try to do one regularly, letting you know how we are doing with our cloth diapering adventure. It’s been interesting and a lot to learn and even a little fun. Hoping it will get more fun once we really get the hang of it.
It has been quite a wonderful, busy three years. We had an incredible honeymoon in Europe, moved, completed a masters degree, added a french bulldog to the family, travelled to Boston a handful of times to see Jeff’s family, added a rescue dog to the family and our most exciting endeavour, adding our baby Ellie to the family this year. I have enjoyed every minute of these three years with Jeff and I really can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with him. So, with this third year, came a different way of celebrating. Usually we would have gone to a fancy dinner or out to a show but this year with baby in tow and nursing still under construction, we decided to relax and enjoy what we had right in front of us.
summerplayshouse 