Let's talk about diapers

[Allison]

Hi, my name is Allison and I am addicted to cloth diapering.

Seriously, when I started no one warned me how addicting it is! I love all the fun prints and colors and Chloe looks so cute in her fluffy cloth diapers and BabyLegs. I mostly use prefolds and Flips covers during the day and then Bumgenius 3.0 AIO stuffed with hemp at night (LOVE these diapers). I have bamboo fitteds that I snappi and use with wool covers but I mostly just use them in the summer when I can hang them outside to dry. I like to use Rainforest Babies when we're out an about because they are really trim and not as bulky to carry in the diaper bag.

Eventually I want to sew my own diapers but skill-wise I'm not quite there yet; I've made cloth wipes and next up will be to learn how to make a wet bag. I will probably figure out how to make a diaper by the time the baby is potty trained.

Does anyone else here use cloth diapers? If so, what does your stash consist of and what is your favorite diaper? If money was no object, what kind of diapers would you buy?

[MaryEllen]

It';s been a while since we were diapering. "The baby" is now 9yo

I made diapers for SJ with a center pocket - like FuzzyBuns. I folded Chinese Cotton prefolds to put in there at night and just a diaper-sized sheet of flannel for the daytime. I quit the extra night padding when I noticed she NEVER wet at night.

The covers I made had fleece on the outside and flannel on the inside. I kept them set up like AIO's, ready to use. That was required if John needed to diaper SJ I also used plain old fitteds with a fleece cover.
I bought a couple of AIO's but hated them. They took forever to dry and I didn't have that luxury.

Do you use Mommy cloths? I made some of those, too, with the left-overs from diaper making.

[ShortyBeth]

I suppose someone has already made a YouTube video of the ins and outs of modern day cloth diapering. I could have used it back when mine were little. There is so much lingo that I didn't get at the time. Maybe a modern day cloth diapering dictionary would be handy, too.

[vicki]

I started diapering in the days of boring white cloth diapers--and I still loved using them! With Vinnie (now nearly 23), I sewed velcro on instead of pins, though I never saw diapers with velcro on them back then. I just thought it seemed like it might work, but Marisa just reminded me that it didn't work well. Too much stuff collected in the velcro, so the diapers didn't stay closed. So, we just used large diaper pings. We also used Gerber vinyl pants over the diapers.

Interestingly enough, 6.5 years later when Madeleine came along, the quality of the Gerber cloth diapers had deteriorated horribly. I used the same diapers for Marisa, Daniel, Veronica, and Vinnie (my stepson was out of diapers when he joined our family at age 4). Those diapers lasted through four kids who stayed in diapers for an average of 3+ years each. Since we weren't having any more kids, I gave the diapers away. Then came Madeleine. So, I bought the "same" Gerber pre-fold diapers I had always trusted, and they didn't even last three years! Same with vinyl pants. They lasted much longer with the other kids, but with Madeleine they were a cheaper quality and became brittle. I then started using a nylon pant which was better.

When we lived in England during the summer of 1980, I used British disposable nappies for Marisa. They had a great system there for disposables--the inside of the diaper was disposable and biodegradable (no chemical inserts, or gel stuff or any weird ingredients which are found in some disposables now). The outside of the disposable was completely separate from the inside, but was also meant to be disposable (just not as biodegradable). You bought the inside and you reused the outside for at least a day.

I often wondered why they didn't do that in this country.

[MaryEllen]

The newer Gerber prefolds are filled with a foam padding. The older ones were fabric folded over - and much more absorbent.

Funny your description of the British disposables. That's pretty much the type of cloth diapering I did. I replaced the padding (sometimes called a soaker) and reused the outer part all day unless it got wet or stinky.

I did use velcro because I couldn't afford a snap press. The trick with using velcro is to close it when doing laundry. I pinned the velcro tabs closed in preparation for washing them. I took the pins out when I put the clean diapers away.

John would not use pins. In nearly 6 years of diapering I never stuck a baby with a pin, but I did prick myself a time or two. John would not take the chance

[vicki]

Funny your description of the British disposables. That's pretty much the type of cloth diapering I did. I replaced the padding (sometimes called a soaker) and reused the outer part all day unless it got wet or stinky.

Oh, I did that as well when we used cloth--but I think it's a great idea for disposables and it never made it, obviously.

[Allison]

MaryEllen, I'm so impressed that you make pocket diapers! Diaper making intimidates me.

I made diapers for SJ with a center pocket - like FuzzyBuns. I folded Chinese Cotton prefolds to put in there at night and just a diaper-sized sheet of flannel for the daytime. I quit the extra night padding when I noticed she NEVER wet at night.

I bought a couple of AIO's but hated them. They took forever to dry and I didn't have that luxury.

Lucky you! Chloe is still a pretty heavy wetter at night so I love the extra absorbancy of the BG AIO's stuffed with hemp. They actually take less time to dry than my bamboo fitteds. I take them out of the washer, turn them inside out and hang them on the drying rack next to our propane stove and they are dry by the next morning. I have to say I though, I do love how quickly prefolds dry. Prefolds make up the bulk of my stash.

The covers I made had fleece on the outside and flannel on the inside. I kept them set up like AIO's, ready to use. That was required if John needed to diaper SJ I also used plain old fitteds with a fleece cover.

Ha ha, I know what you mean. It took awhile for Brian to get on board with cloth. He was always very supportive of me using them but for a long time he would just put Chloe in disposables. Now, he likes to count how many cloth diapers come out of the dryer and calculate how much money we saved.

Do you use Mommy cloths? I made some of those, too, with the left-overs from diaper making.

You know, I had a set of mommy cloths years ago but I didn't like using them at work so I gave up on it. I remember helping my Mom make a set for someone on the Swap- WorknMom, I think. I should try and find my cloths and give it another go. I draw the line at family cloth though, ha ha.

Vicki~ You're right, it's really too bad that kind of disposable diaper isn't used over here, it sounds much less wasteful. Plus, I don't like the chemicals that are used in disposables. I had to put Chloe in some disposables a couple of weeks ago and they left these little beads of something all over her skin. Oh, and my sister tried the Gerber prefolds with plastic pants and said they were horrible. I think plastic pants and pins are what most people think of when they hear cloth diapers. Aside from my family and pediatrician most people I know were very critical of my decision to use cloth.

ShortyBeth~ Here is a link with a pretty thorough cloth diaper dictionary: http://www.diaperswappers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=194852#CDT
I'm pretty sure if you do a YouTube search for Cloth Diapering 101 there are some good videos.

If anyone is interested, here are some pictures of my stash (what's clean, anyway). If you hover the mouse over the pictures I added some notes.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32867104@N00/5405862994/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32867104@N00/5405255377/in/photostream/

[vicki]

How bad is it that I, who have no children or grandchildren near diaper age, actually looked at all your diapers and thought they were really great???

Seriously, those are darling~!

[MAC]

I never had all those pretty colors--just plain white dipes with white Biobottoms wool covers. I made a few flannel ones with 4 layers in the middle, but they still weren't that cool! I gave a box away to a friend just recently--I had no idea I had that many Bios over the years and over the kids...

[workn mom]

Yes, Allison, ya'll made the flannels for me! I loved them, but I don't have them anymore. They all just vanished one at a time!