July 24, 2012

The beginning of our journey into cloth diapering...

We made the decision as soon as this baby was conceived that we'd be cloth diapering.  For the first 6 months of the pregnancy, I'd do a teeny bit of research every now and again but generally, I just figured I'd wait until the baby got a little closer.  I should have started early!  Not that it's a big deal now, but budgeting for this would be easier spread out over the entire pregnancy...  And now the majority of my day is spent researching cloth diapering stuff, as well as pinning good tutorials for stuff on Pinterest.  (Follow me HERE!)

That being said, we decided to do a combination of traditional cloth diapers with PUL covers and pocket diapers.  I went out to our local cloth diaper/organic baby rearing store, Little Padded Seats, and bought two white soft IMSE VIMSE diaper covers in small.  These are very soft and have nice gusseted leg holes for baby, which could accommodate both chunky thighs and chicken legs.  Since I didn't want to have to buy these every time the baby grew, I also bought two Rump-a-Roos covers that are one size fits all.  I got a cute little celery color and a stormy sort of gray.  To go under these, I bought two 10 packs of premium prefold diapers from Gerber, which I will eventually end up buying more.  These are nice because not only can I use them solo with a cover, but I can also use them to stuff my pocket diapers - SCORE.  For closure when going solo, I plan to use Snappis, which are pretty awesome because I can't poke baby with sharp pins in the middle of the night.

Now on to the pocket diapers.  For these, we are going to try two different brands, FLIP by bumGenius and gDiapers.  Both of these are a pocket diaper/cover combo, meaning that the diaper itself is a PUL shell with two pocket flaps on the front and back of the inside to hold inserts or cloth diapers.  So far, we have only bought the FLIP diapers but I am diggin' them already.  The shells are pretty easy to adjust, they are a one size with plastic snaps, and the stay-dry inserts that come in the daypacks are pretty thick.  They are in the wash now but I will test absorbancy soon and get back to you...  I got two Day Packs in Noodle and Butternut, which come with 2 shells and 6 stay-dry inserts each for $50 a box.  Considering that I will be able to use the inserts or the cloth diapers, these were a pretty good investment.  In the long run, I think we'll have at least 6 of the shells, possibly up to 10 because we'll be able to use them for the whole diapering experience up to potty training, and potentially for the next kid.

The gDiapers that we are going to try are SO FREAKING CUTE.  Seriously, those little things are precious even though the kid will poop in them.  We are going to end up trying four of the gDiapers in Small to start and see how it goes from there.  gDiapers are sized, which will probably make it a better fit for growing baby but we'll have to buy more as baby thickens up... Unfortunately, the gDiapers don't come with inserts, you have to buy them separately and they run $30 for a 6 pack, which ends up being $5 an insert!  YIKES.  I am already planning to make my own inserts for at least the gDiapers, probably the FLIP ones as well.  Tutorial in the future, possibly? 

Anyway, that is the beginning of my diaper stash, more to come I am sure.  I will calculate up my costs eventually as well, so that I can see how much we are saving versus disposable diapers.

Any of my cloth diaper mamas that want to comment with advice would be MUCH appreciated!  We need all the help we can get...

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