Cloth Diapering Review: Part I

Cloth diapering has been one of the fun experiments of new mommyhood. I was very excited about the prospect of it & talked about how we prepped for cloth diapering here.

Now that we are almost 2 months into it, I thought I'd give a little update for those interested.  I am going to break it up into two parts, because apparently I have a lot to say on the subject. This post will cover the type, brand & number that I use, along with detergent. 

I've had many people ask me about cloth diapering...what we are doing, our experience with it so far, etc..hopefully this post will shed a little light on the subject, for those who are curious!

One of the first steps in cloth diapering research is choosing the type of cloth diapering you want to do.  There are several types including: pocket, All-in-One & prefold. 

After much research, we decided to go with the pocket option.  Basically, with pocket diapers you have a diaper cover (shown above on my man's cute little hiney) with a "pocket" inside and cloth insert that slips inside of the pocket.  The cloth insert does most of the absorbing, but the pocket cover acts as an additional absorbant layer.  The outer side of the diaper cover is water proof to help with leaking.  On the flip side, All-in-One's are just what they sound like, the cover & cloth inserts are one and the same, no assembly required.

I opted to go for the pocket over the All-in-Ones namely because they tend to be much faster drying than All-in-Ones. And believe me, I have learned that drying time really makes a difference when I'm running low on diapers.  Being that you can disassemble the layers of the pocket diapers when you lay them out to dry, they dry much faster!  In this crazy heat, they dry in about 30 minutes in full sun.  I have a couple of All-in-Ones and even in full sun they take at least a couple of hours to dry.

The next step for me was deciding which brand of pockets to go with.  After reading lots of mommy blogs I decided on BumGenius.  I know there are many great brands but this particular brand seemed to get the most positive reviews from the most mommies (less leakage, great warranty, good durability & longevity) so I took the leap & ordered all BumGenius.  I really have no other brand to compare them to as I haven't tried any of the others...but while I can't give an opinion on any other brands, I can say that I LOVE my BumGenius diapers.  As E was a chunky little monkey, we were able to start him on the diapers when he was about 2 weeks old.  BumGenius diapers are OneSize diapers, meaning they are adjustable for all baby sizes, but typically are too large for those little newborn legs. 

Even at 2 weeks old we had no leaking problems & although they did engulf his little body, they did the trick!

It is recommended to start with 24 diapers for one baby.  At the time that I purchased mine, there was a buy 5 get the 6th free sale, so I ended up buying 15 and getting 3 free for a total of 18. 

With 18, I do laundry about every other day, but sometimes I end up having to launder every day. Not the end of the world, but  I decided recently to invest in a few more (again I found a sale! yay!) and will now have 22 which should ensure that I only have to do laundry every other day. 

As for detergent, there are several great ones out there, you just need to make sure they are approved for cloth diapering.  I have been using Ruby Moon & love it-- no residue to speak of & gets out most stains!  If I do have a little stainage left, the sunshine usually bleaches it out!

TO BE CONTINUED...