Cloth Diapering

I have been meaning to write about cloth diapering, the class I went to, my plan, and the cloth diapers that I have so far.

As mentioned before, Steve and I plan to cloth diaper our baby after the first two weeks. We are putting him in the Pampers swaddles sensitive until I can establish what brands to buy him and which company I want to go with.We plan to buy about 20-24 cloth diapers.

 So far I have bought him 1 fuzzi bunz diaper and 1 bumgenius diaper (both one size pocket diapers). See here for my post on them. Because they are one size, they will grow with him as he gets bigger. Today I was at babiesRus buying some last minute items and saw a new brand of cloth diapers that were recently released. They are called Perfect Bum by Cocala and were also on sale (25% off). Each diaper runs about $15 but I got it for $11.25 due to the sale. They also have a starter kit (see picture below) which includes a t-shirt, tri-fold, extra absorbancy insert as well as the diaper. This kit is a bit pricier at 32.99 but I got it for 24.74 due to the sale. '

Pros: Price-they are not that expensive compared to other brands
         Reviews- so far they have gotten great reviews
         Stylish- their patterns are pretty cute
         Convenient- if you live by a babiesRus, you don't have to pay for shipping and wait for the diaper.
         Velcro- they are velcro (if you hate snaps)
          Disposable liners- they do sell disposable liners that you can flush to make your like that much easier

Cons: Sizes- they are not one size fits all. You will have to buy small/medium/large depending on the weight of your baby. This could make diapering a bit more expensive (depending on how much you spend and how well they work)
          Limited- because they are new, they have very few patterns. I like the jean pattern, but if you want some more choices, you have to start buying the kits, which could run $30+. If you are not diapering for style, then buying all jean, or all one color won't be an issue.

I am excited to use them and hope that they go well. I may buy a couple more, but I haven't decided yet. While at my cloth diapering class, she talked about all the reasons to cloth diaper. Reasons: Economical (our #1 reason), better for baby (less chemicals), better for the environment, and they are super cute. It is especially important if your baby has sensitive skin. As far as washing them, there is a particular routine that you go through and special detergent you use but I have heard that once you  get the hang out it, its no different than any other load of laundry.

  Something that the class talked about were soapnuts. They are actual nuts from a tree that you can do laundry in, and are great for those with sensitive skin.The way they work is that you add a couple to a pouch, throw it in your laundry and bam... natural cleaning agent. They are a bit pricy depending on where you get them from but a very cool idea (not sure if we are going down the soap nut route).

The class was a bit haphazard, and the woman running it was closing her business (so I won't be buying diapers from her). I think cloth diapering will be a learning process but I am excited to learn.