Diapering my baby and why we chose cloth

Disclaimer: if diapers don't interest you or talk of poo grosses you out, this isn't your post. You can try reading again tomorrow :)

I've had a vague awareness of cloth diapers my whole life. My mom used them, and I watched countless babysitters and relatives struggle to get my baby sister diapered, complete with pins and rubber pants, from a young age. More recently I heard several friends brag about their cute fluff, their incredible cost savings, and how diapers are nothing like they were 30 (or even 10) years ago. I was intrigued.

You see, I've always hated disposables! I have incredibly sensitive skin and the chemicals in disposables bother my hands. I can't imagine what they'd do to my baby's butt. And anyone who knows me knows that I'm about as cheap frugal as you can get. I love premium products and I love finding ways to get them at bargain prices! I think it runs in my blood (thanks, Mommom!) so I was interested to crunch the numbers when I was pregnant and considering cloth for E.

My only fear was poo. I mean, that's gross! In looking into options, I realized that I could do a diaper service for the same price I could buy disposable diapers. Not quite the cost savings I was counting on, but I didn't have to deal with the poo, so I was willing to shell out the extra cash (or break even if comparing to disposables).  Our service dropped off eighty cotton prefold diapers every Monday and picked up all the dirty diapers from the previous week. Every Monday was like Christmas where the magical bag of beautiful diapers would appear in exchange for my dirty laundry. It was glorious! I used the prefolds with Snappi diaper fasteners and Thirsties Duo Wrap covers, so there were no pins and these were not your standard rubber pants. They were cute, fit well, and never leaked.

But after a month of paying someone else to do a load or two of wash, I decided diaper service was no longer worth it. I bought twenty-four Indian cotton prefolds for $1.50 a piece and cancelled the service. E was EBF for nine months, so all dirty diapers went straight to the pail and then every other day went into the washer. No extra rinsing or dunking. Super easy! And eight months in, we're still using the same $8 bottle of detergent from Target. Now that's the savings I was looking for!

One of the absolute best things about cloth diapering was the lack of leaks and blow outs. Over the course of E's life in cloth (we started at one month, when she grew enough to fit into the Thirsties), she's only had one blowout. That's a total of one time that I had to maneuver a soiled onesie over her head. Once! And that one time it was my fault. I was in a hurry and couldn't find a snappi so I didn't use it. I tucked the prefold into the cover and just used the cover to hold it in place. Didn't work :)

I was so afraid of poo before I started, but I actually had to deal with it less than I would have in disposables. Personally I would much rather deal with poo in the diaper where it belongs than all up her back as is so common in disposables. Complete win win in my book!

E napping in her Thirsties diaper at six months old