What I've Learned: Cloth Diapers

When I first started blogging back in July 2010 shortly after my daughter was born, a lot of what I started blogging about was my journey of switching to cloth diapers.

The decision we made to cloth diaper was extremely fast. Miss K was just two months old we decided that we wanted to get her in cloth as soon as possible so I just started ordering diapers that we could afford rather than what "the best ones" out there were. If you weren't following my blog back then, here are all my posts about cloth diapering if you wanted to see what my entire first experience was like OR if you're considering cloth diapering for your household, I have SO many posts with awesome info too! :-) I have my post listed below, in order (including cloth diaper reviews I did):

*If you don't want to read these posts, just skip down to "Lesson Learned #1: Research More About Cloth Diaper Brands*

My Journey of Switching to Cloth Diapers

Cloth Diaper Update #1

Cloth Diapers: Let's Get Started!

Cloth Diapers - Day 1

Sustainable Hemp Products Cloth Diaper Review

Cloth Diaper Update #2

Leg Warmers....Cloth Diaper's Favorite Accessory

Banana Bottoms Cloth Diaper Review and Giveaway
*Giveaway is CLOSED

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{Lesson Learned #1: Research More About Cloth Diaper Brands}

I don't 100% regret not taking the time to do more research on different brands, but this time we've definitely taken more time and care into researching.

The first time around, a huge portion of our stash were Nubunz diapers.

At the time, these diapers were the most appealing because they were only $8.00 each brand new or about $5.00 for "seconds" diapers and we loved the different color options. I ordered about 20 of them since the price was so reasonable. Unfortunately, these diapers maybe last a year. Maybe they fell apart because I did something wrong (after all, we WERE newbies at cloth diapering) but I strictly followed the care instructions and the PUL material in almost all of them started to get holes, leak, or detach from the outside fabric of the diaper making it almost impossible to put the terrycloth inserts in them. If it wasn't the PUL material falling apart, the next issue we had was, what I like to call, the "perma-stink" issue. When you use cloth diapers, after some time some of the diapers tend to start smelling and this is usually when the diapers need to be "stripped" to help get rid of the excess soap build up and what not. I stripped the diapers a few times and the smell remained. Sometimes switching cloth diaper detergent helps, but even after I did that, and received tons of help from the customer service reps at Rockin' Green Cloth Diaper Detergent (which to this very day is still my all time favorite CD detergent and you serious CANNOT beat the service you get from this company)...I couldn't get rid of the smell.

The reason I don't 100% regret purchasing Nubunz diapers is because even though they didn't last the entire time we cloth diapered Miss K, we still felt we got our money's worth out of $8.00 diapers. To only spend around $190 for a year's worth of cloth diapers vs spending WAY more for disposables for a 3 month old....I'd do it again tomorrow! haha!

The cloth diaper brands that I purchased that I still love more than ever to this day are the ones from Sustainable Hemp Products, Banana Bottoms, and Thirsties Duo Wraps.

Brands that we're interested in trying out that we've done more research on: Fuzzibunz, Charlie Banana, Rumparooz Lil' Joey Diapers, GroVia, and bumGenius diapers.

{Lesson Learned #2: One Size Diapers Aren't Really Newborn Friendly}

Miss K has really skinny legs from when she was a newborn until she was about 6 months old when she FINALLY started to fill into her one size diapers. We had quite a few leaky days and nights before her little thighs got big enough :-) I had a few friends and other cloth diaper Mama's tell me about newborn diapers. The biggest complaint I found about newborn diapers was the investment people were making in newborn diapers when kiddos weren't in them for very long, however it's still a much easier purchase to make because newborns go through the most diapers. Most newborn cloth diapers only go up to 12lbs and with the rapid weight gain the little ones have during that age, it doesn't leave much time to use newborn diapers.

{Lesson Learned #3: Purchase TWO Sets of Wetbags}

I had only purchased one hanging wet bag to store dirty diapers in at home and only one travel wetbag. The problem I faced immediately was that every time I had to wash the wetbags, I had nothing to put dirty diapers in for hours while I waited for the bags to dry :-( So I'm definitely going to be purchasing a second set so that this doesn't happen again. My hubby and I weren't too pleased about dealing with the smell of dirty diapers when we didn't have a wetbag to put them in ;-) 

.::What We're Doing Differently Next Time Around::.

#1 - Cloth Diapering From Birth

Since we had never thought about possibly using cloth diapers, we didn't get to start cloth diapering until Miss K was a little over 3 months old. For us, cloth diapering was not only about saving money but about not wanting the chemicals in disposable diapers to touch Miss K's bum. She ended up getting the WORST rashes frequently when she was in disposables and when we put her in cloth, they drastically dropped in frequency.

#2 - Trying Out Different Types Of Cloth

The only two types of diapers we used with Miss K were a large amount of pocket diapers and fitted diapers that required covers. Diapers we want to try out are newborn diapers, prefold diapers, all in ones, and we want to add more one size and fitted diapers to our stash.

#3 - Line Drying Outside/Sunning Diapers More Often

Since we've lived in apartments all of Miss K's life, we didn't really have the luxury of being able to line dry or sun our diapers as often as we wanted. We tried to do it once off our TINY back deck....but it was more work than we wanted to put into it so we never tried it again.

We ended up having to put our diapers in the dryer if we ran out of clean ones, which is okay, but only if your dryer has a low heat setting...and ours didn't so we tried out best to keep an eye on our diapers by putting them on the "cool down" setting on our dryer to make sure they didn't get too hot. It was definitely a lot more work than we hoped for but didn't have much of a choice because we didn't even think to check if our dryer had the low heat setting and if cloth diapers with PUL material get too hot, the PUL melts :-(

#4 - Buying More Diapers Second Hand

I know some of you might not like the idea of buying cloth diapers second hand, but if the previous owners really took the time to take care of their stash before selling, then there's no reason not to buy second hand. Owners that really take care of their diapers make sure that they're washed in cloth diaper safe detergent, use cloth diaper safe rash cream and sun/line dry their diapers to maintain the quality of them along with sunning out any stains they may get from being soiled.

I mostly began looking for newborn second hand diapers when the number one complaint I saw was that it seemed crazy to invest in brand new ones when kiddos weren't being in them for too long. A friend of mine told about cloth diaper "buy, sell and trade" groups on Facebook and that I should join a few to see what I could find. I joined a lot of brand specific cloth diapers groups such as Fuzzibunz, GroVia, Charlie Banaba, etc and started to keep an eye one what people were trying to sell. While monitoring those groups I did some research on reviews for different kinds of newborn cloth diapers and found that GroVia was one of the top 5 brands that had great cloth diapers for newborns.

Since we're having to practically rebuild our stash from scratch my hubby and I both thought it would be a great idea to buy a diaper here and there starting now, that way we won't have to worry about making a huge purchase for the rest of the diapers up front. We're spending the same amount either way, but it seems less harsh buying one diaper at a time :-)

We may have jumped the gun a little since we have no idea when we'll be having another kiddo, but we wanted to start working on our stash now for newborn diapers and GroVia's seem to be the brand I have loved the most. Here's the little stash we have right now...

How stinkin' cute are those?!?!

More often then not in these cloth diaper groups, people are selling brand new diapers still in their packaging or diapers that they only prepped for their kiddo but never ended up using so they're basically brand new. Now that we're taking the time to do more research on different styles/brands, I've been trying to buy a diaper from each of the ones I like or have heard great things about. I purchased this brand new Perfect Size Fuzzibunz diaper from a gal who's hubby didn't get the exact one she wanted and he didn't get a receipt so her loss was my gain! :-)

Yesterday I just purchased two All In One (AIO) One Size bumGenius diapers from a friend that didn't end up feeling that cloth diapering was for her family along with two Thirsties Duo Wraps (which I love). I don't have picture of those but I'm so excited to get them!!! :-)

#5 - Attempt to Make Some Diapers Myself

If you want to cloth diaper and do NOT want to have to wash diaper EVERYDAY, the best amount of diapers to have for washing every other day is to have about 24+ diapers in your stash. I squeaked by with 21 diapers in our stash, but I definitely want more next time.

Whenever we do have our next kiddo (which at this point we have no clue when that will happen LOL!), if we don't have the amount of diapers that we'd like to have for our stash, I really want to attempt to make a few. A couple months ago I invested in this pattern book...

All the supplies needed to make your own diapers are a bit of an investment as well, but the idea of being able to make or fix any diapers that I purchase makes it seems well worth giving it a try.

Even though Miss K has been out of cloth diapers for about 6+ months or so, it's fun to get back into the research and think about how we'll get to do it again next time and be more prepared to do it. I think I'm most excited about cloth diapering from birth. It was a pretty overwhelming experience when we started out but I think that it has been super important to go through what we did because we learned so much about what to do, what not to do, and what works the best for our household. I was super thankful that my hubby was so open minded throughout the entire process and ended up liking cloth diapers.

Do you have some cloth diaper stories, tips, tricks, what worked or didn't work for you?? I'd love to hear them! Thinking about cloth diapering and have questions? ASK AWAY! :0) I could talk about this stuff all day long ;-)

Glad to be back blogging today after my last in mid June (YIKES!) haha! :-)