(Somewhat) Serious About Cloth

Sporting a cloth diaper at home.

I don't remember if I ever thought about cloth diapering before I got pregnant with Alexis. I don't recall knowing anyone who used cloth and though I never had anything against it, it just wasn't how I saw diapering done. I think with each kid I considered cloth diapering at one point or another. But there was always a reason not to; initial cost too high, using coin-operated laundry/ not having our own washer, feeling like it would be too much work to add to my already heavy workload. We had several reasons NOT to cloth diaper, but I still always wanted to. I guess I always felt like it was a better option but didn't feel like I could really make it work. Then, that changed. We are pregnant with our fourth and our third is still in diapers. We had enough "extra" money for the initial cost of buying cloth (we found a great deal on craigslist). We had just purchased a large box of disposables to get us through any difficulty in transitioning. We had our own washer and dryer (and my husband hung a clothesline for me). I was not going to work or in school so I had plenty of time to devote to learning to use cloth. We had run out of reasons not to use cloth. And so, our cloth diapering journey began.

We bought a variety of diaper types off of craigslist. We kept our disposables handy and we began to learn to use cloth diapers. I read a ton on the internet about cloth diapering and felt ready. We began slowly- using cloth when we were home and the boy was awake (so about 40% of the time). Then we hit our first real obstacle. The boy got a yeast infection. I wasn't even sure how to get it out of the diapers- so he went back into disposables until I could figure it out and until his rash cleared. We started over with cloth slowly. After his rash had been clear for more than 24 hours, I put one cloth diaper on him. I watched to see if it would cause the rash to come back. It didn't so I tried a few more random cloth diaperings. His bum stayed free of yeast so I trusted that his diapers were clean.


I got excited about cloth again. I found some cheap fleece and decided to make my own diaper covers. (We had originally bought the fleece to make liners for the diapers because the moisture was bothering his skin) I experimented with liners, cutting about 5 different patterns and trying them out. Some designs worked pretty well. Others didn't work at all (think T shaped diaper- ended up looking like a sumo diaper). Most of the covers I made worked nicely except for being too narrow for his bum (see the cute cheek peeking out in the picture). I took stock and realized that most of the covers I made would work just fine for at home diapering and between those and what we had, we could diaper for a week between washes. Even though I want to buy more and more cloth diaper supplies, we have all we need for the boy (I should be able to convince Philip that I need money to get more stuff for the new baby). After two weeks of not buying disposables, we will have met our investment cost in diapers. Everything is working out nicely.

One of the covers I made. See how it isn't quite wide enough?

But I still don't use the cloth as often as I should. I am up to using them about 70% of the time- but I get lazy and disposable seems easier. I decided last week that it was time to get serious about using cloth and figured I would only use disposables at night and when we were going to be gone for more than 2 hours. That hasn't happened. We are getting there, getting to be serious about cloth- but we are still somewhere in the middle. I hope to reach about 90% cloth diapering before the baby is born. We'll see how it works.

By the way, the boy seems to LOVE his cloth diapers. He can tell when they are wet and either takes them off himself or pulls at the front of his diaper. He usually wants a clean diaper to poop in and will bring me a diaper, allow me to change him, and then commence pooping. He likes to pick his own diaper and seems to prefer the pink leopard print cover over the others. He likes that he can remove most of the diapers (velcro) himself, but he does a good job keeping the clean ones on.


And, in case you were wondering, we prefer using prefolds with a fleece liner and a diaper cover. We change the prefold and liner with each change and put the cover in the diaper pail at the end of the day or if it gets soiled. We do a pre-rinse, a regular wash with dye/fragrance free detergent, an additional spin, and then line dry if possible. I wash diapers about once a week (I could sometimes go longer in between washes, but I don't like to let them sit that long). Our diaper pail is a trash can with a fabric bag liner that sits right outside the back door and is covered. I put the liner in with the diapers so it all gets clean on the same day. So far, we have done disposables on laundry day- so I haven't used a second liner. I hope to change that soon though. We don't usually bother with any dumping or rinsing the diapers (unless the poop is solid enough to easily come off the diaper liner- then I will dump it in the toilet).