Wow. I cannot believe that it has been 19 months of full-time cloth diapering in our house! And we still love it. I did a 411 post on cloth diapering you can find here. I won't recap all that information, but I wanted to update on what we have found to really work for us now that we are a year and a half in.
We have gone for a streamlined all the same brand approach best we could. We felt as our daughter has various people care for her throughout the week, it would be easiest on them to have diapers that all functioned and went on the same way and fit. So, our stash is currently half and half BumGenius 4.0s (pockets) and BumGenius Elementals (all-in-ones). I did make my own inserts for the 4.0s because due to our hard water we had a lot of stink issues with the microfiber inserts that are included. I settled on inserts made with Pooters large hemp inserts with three layers of 100% cotton terry (old towel). The Elementals are 100% cotton already and have been great for us. Plus, they are super trim! For our daughter these two diapers have the same fit on the snap settings and have been very convenient to use. Overnight, we still prefer the Blueberry Deluxe pockets with a large SuperDo insert. They have been awesome!
Around 15 months in our daughter had yet another rash flare up and we finally ditched the disposable wipes we had been using. I bought cotton baby wash cloths from the Dollar Tree and a couple travel size spray bottles. We made a mixture of water with coconut oil to spray on her bum before we wipe with the dry wash cloth. Since then we have suffered no rashes! I'm amazed! The natural anti-bacterial properties and the fact that coconut oil is simply magical have been huge in our diapering journey. My daughter actually laughs when we spray her bum now. Totally fun.
We still use Charlie's Soap as out cloth and regular laundry detergent. We did opt to start using their hard water booster over vinegar to be gentler on the diapers' PUL.
We're expecting our second daughter in just a couple short months, and that set me on the journey to build a newborn cloth diaper stash. We plan to cloth from the day she comes home from the hospital this time. I opted to go with Green Mountain Diapers newborn prefolds and small workhorse fitted diapers for the new little one. We had tried both of these options on our oldest and LOVED them, but knew the pockets and all-in-ones were more practical with daycare, etc. We will be using Thirsties Duo Wrap size one covers to go over these all cotton diapers and I hope its as smooth a transition to diaper her as it was at the beginning of this journey!
Recently, Casey and I did the math on what we have put into cloth diapers financially (because it is a big investment) and broke the cost down over 4 years to account for our second child wearing them, too. We added $100 to our "money in" total to consider the diapers that may need replaced before we're said and done. We were shocked at the outcome. We spent essentially $12/month on diapers for 4 years. Wow! Talk about saving some dough! We were really excited and that's before any kind of selling of our stash when both girls are potty trained. Well well worth it for us.
I love talking cloth, so feel free to contact me with any questions you may have! Getting started is the hardest part!
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