Cloth Diaper Update

Since I posted the picture of our cloth diapers on the clothesline yesterday for Wordless Wednesday, I thought that it would be a good time to do an update as well. It has been about a month since we first started, and we are still trying to works out the kinks - it hasn't been easy!

I think that a big part of the transition for me is that I am used to disposables and have been using them for the past 3 1/2 years. And cloth diapers are WAY different. I didn't worry too much if my kid was in a wet diaper for a while - I would change it when I had a minute, no big deal. Car rides and trips to the park - I would just change the diaper when we got home. With the cloth diapers, I need to be a lot more diligent about changing the diaper on a regular schedule, because sitting in a wet cloth diaper all the way home will result in leaks, wet pants, and a wet carseat.

I also had some trouble finding a good diaper cover. I tried 3 different brands before finding a good one. In my opinion, the first two brands I tried, Swaddlebees and Bummis did not work very well. The cover would be completely soaked almost immediately after the diaper got wet. My friend Kelli at Gohn Crazy recommended Thirsties covers, and I tried them next - and I LOVE them! I can't say enough good things about them. Since I started using the Thirsties covers, leaks and wet pants are a lot less common around here, and it has made this transistion a bit easier.

I don't mind the extra laundry. It really isn't that much. I am used to laundry being an almost every day project anyway, so an extra load every 2-3 days is not a big deal. And I LOVE using my clothesline for drying them, and I plan to start drying a lot more of my clothes out there too. Can't beat that fresh air/sunshine smell in the clean laundry!

I do still have some disposibles. And I have used one here or there for convenience (long car rides and once when I didn't have any clean diapers), but I am using cloth about 95% of the time, including naps and overnight. I am hoping that over the next couple of months I will get more and more used to this, and I won't even need my emergency stash of disposables.

One good thing is that I have definitely noticed a big difference in how much trash we are throwing out. Previously, I would just toss all wet diapers into our kitchen trash can. Now that we are using cloth, I think that we have about 1/2 bag less of trash every week. It may not sound like much, but that's 2 bags a month, 24 less bags a year of trash we are producing, which I think is awesome.

Anyway, it is still a work in progress, and I still am learning a lot about this process, but I am so happy that we have switched. By the way, anyone looking at switching to cloth check out Baby Cotton Bottoms - they sell the Thirsties covers, as well as many others, and they have a flat shipping rate of $5.00 per order, which is awesome. I will update again in a few months, after we are hopefully totally used to our new diapers!