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Thursday, January 3, 2013

Thursday Talk: My year in cloth diapering

 My Year in Cloth Diapering

I knew I wanted to cloth diaper but I was so intimidated by it. In my 20 years of babysitting, working at daycares and being a nanny, I had never had a cloth diaper family. But it just made so much sense to do it and I was determined.


For months while pregnant I watched and re watched so many YouTube videos explaining washing, wearing and all other tips of using cloth diapers. I read every blog I could find trying to wrap my head around how it works. It's so simple but I just couldn't get it. What did I really need? What detergent do I use? What brand do I buy?  Finally after a long phone call with an out of town friend and a visit to our local cloth diaper store that was it, I was just going to buy my first stash and go for it.


Well that stash sat clean and ready to go until my baby girl was 2 months. We went with one size pockets. If I did it all over again I would have bought a small stash of newborn size for the beginning, but I was still nervous about how everything would go.  About a month after starting we went on vacation. I bought a cheap pack of disposables so I wouldn't have to worry about washing while we were gone. The hotel ended up having a washer and dryer in the room and my baby ended up with the worst diaper rash I had ever seen. I felt awful both because of the rash and that I hadn't brought the cloth diapers.
Even now we still have our bumps like a few months ago when her diapers were pee-smelly all the time.  No matter what I did to try to clean them or how many times I ran them through the washer.  I read about stripping diapers which sounded intense and not like something I wanted to do.   But on another trip to the fluff store and they suggested a new detergent along with multiple hot washes. It worked great and with this new detergent we haven't had a problem since.



Walking through Target or Babies R Us and passing the diaper aisle I'm blown away by how much disposables are and how much we have saved already in a year. Not to mention how much waste is created. I do have to stop myself though from buying up every cute print I find in cloth. Our stash is plenty big already!

 Follow Caitlin and Elinor over at Fourth Street Payphone

9 comments:

  1. I'm due on 2/8 and we are going to be trying cloth diapering after our son was diapered in disposables, I'm nervous but excited! Even more so that baby #3 will cost almost nothing to diaper!

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    1. Awesome!!!! Good luck with your cloth journey, and if you ever want to blog about you are more than welcome to email me!

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  3. I switched my son to cloth at 7 months old and we LOVE it! He is 15 months now) However, we still are trying to figure out a night-time solution. Since we are still nursing & bedsharing at night, little man 'sleeps' for about 11 hours. We've been doing disposables for bed, but I want to figure out a cloth solution.

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    1. AbbeyG- I would HIGHLY recommend the Cow Patties pocket fitted if you haven't tried it yet. It's all bamboo fleece, including the insert (other than the outer print you pick). Paired with wool or fleece it's fantastic. A few customers have used a minky print as the outer fabric on it which adds even more protection!

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  5. Thanks for shearing information.Just wanted to say I love reading your blog and look forward to all your posts! Keep up the superb work!
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  6. I've used honest diapers with both my boys and they're wonderful, no leaks, last through the night and they love the designs.
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  7. So cute baby in the diaper. I just love the post. And i think cloth diapers have become a popular product in the world of parenting today. There are various types of cloth diapers sold in the market. Beside friendlier on your baby's skin, cloth diapers also plays an important role in reducing the impact of waste from disposable diapers.
    Baby cloth diapers

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