Cloth Diapers

Some of you know that I'm using cloth diapers with Camille, and a couple people have asked how it's going, so I thought I would blog about it in case it is helpful for anyone else.

I started putting Camille in cloth diapers at about eight weeks. I waited till then on the advice of others because newborns poop often, and the diapers I had wouldn't fit our little seven pounder. I'm not a fanatic about cloth diaspers. We use disposable diapers occasionally.


Pros
-Saving money. I'm extremely cheap frugal. This is the biggest reason I decided to cloth diaper. I spent about $100 on cloth diapers and supplies, and Mom gave me a bunch of stuff. The kind of diapers I got are one-size, meaning they'll fit from 8-35 pounds. If I take care of them, they hopefully will last through another kid.

-No blow-outs. I hadn't expected this benefit, but every blow-out Camille has had was in a disposable diaper.

-In Peru I often saw dogs eating dirty diapers in the streets, and it made my stomach churn. (In Peru my stomach often churned.) I spent a lot of time thinking about how gross that was and how to stop it.

-Other people feel like they are saving the environment, or keeping their baby healthy by not putting chemical-filled diapers on their babies. Those weren't reasons for choosing to cloth diaper for me. I don't buy into the chemical argument, and the environment issue is just a nice added benefit.

Cons

-Laundry. Even if you have a huge stash of diapers, you still need to wash them every 2-3 days. I get a little tired of always doing laundry.

-Poop. Breastfed baby poop is water-soluble, so I just do a rinse before I wash the diapers. The problem will be when Camille starts solids. The options are to dunk the diaper in the toilet, use a sprayer or something to get the solids off, or use disposable liners where you can just lift out the liner and flush. I don't know what we'll do yet. If you think that's gross, did you know that even if you use disposable diapers, you're supposed to knock any solids into the toilet? I don't know anyone who does that except Mom. If you do, kudos to you. Water treatment plants are made to handle human waste. Landfills are not.

There are a couple other things I've had to figure out. One is what to do with the dirty diapers until laundry gets done. What I did was to make two big zippered bags made of pul, a waterproof fabric. Th dirty diapers go in, and when I do laundry, I just dump the diapers into the wash and wash the bag along with them. The other thing was what to do about wipes. For now we're using normal wet wipes, but what do you do with the dirty ones when there is no diaper to put them in to throw them away? We put them in a grocery bag that gets thrown out every few days. At some point we'll use cloth wipes that can be laundered with the diapers.

I was worried that Camille would always have to wear a size up in baby clothes since cloth diapers are inherently bigger than disposables. She doesn't.

This is what her cloth diapers look like on.

Here's how a pair of pants fits.

This is how a romper fits over the cloth diaper. I'm also a little worried about Camille's cannibalistic tendencies.

Overall, I'd recommend cloth diapers. Brian doesn't. He thinks it's too much work and too gross. Usually when he takes care of Camille she wears disposable diapers. There are cloth diapers that are easier, but they are also more expensive, so I didn't go with those.

So now you know.