Before we get into washing, I should tell you that there are two different methods to use in your diaper pail. One is the wet method, where you fill your pail with water and some baking soda and toss your diapers in as they dirty. The benefit of this is that the stains don't really have a chance to set, because they are always soaking. The downside is that it can get pretty stinky having a pail of stagnant water and poo/pee soaked cloths hanging out in there. There's also the potential dangers of a baby drowning. I don't use this method, because the Bumgenius (or any other all-in-one) calls for the dry pail method. Basically, you have a dry pail and you toss your diapers in.

The Bumgenius tell you to pull the insert out of the diaper and separate it from the liner before it goes in the wash. I skip this step, because I really don't think it needs it, and it is pretty gross when the diaper is full of pee or poo to stick your fingers in and start pulling out a liner. I just throw the whole diaper in the pail (making sure to close the laundry tabs...this will stop the tabs from getting "pilly").

I have also read online to scrape the poo into the toilet, or swish it around in the toilet etc. Again I skip this step. I use a disposable Kushies cloth diaper liner (it comes on a roll like toilet paper and you can buy it at Sears for about $7 for a roll of about 200), and put that inside the cloth diaper before it goes on the baby. If they poo, you can pick up the whole liner and throw it in the garbage, poo and all, or flush it down the toilet. The liner catches most of the poo, but even if there is some poo on the diaper itself I don't worry about it (I learned this from my friend Carla.)

Okay, now that your diaper pail is full of dirty cloth diapers, you are going to want to wash them. This pail is about $9 from Sears and hold 12 Bumgenius or about 24 regular cloth.



Take the whole pail, dump the entire contents into your washing machine (drain the liquid first if you are using wet pail method).



I wash on warm with Tide Nature Free and a cup full of Javex 2 to take care of the stains.



Once the wash cycle is done, I actually put it on for another cycle with a bit more Tide. I just started doing this not too long ago, because I felt one wash wasn't really doin' it to get rid of the poo/pee smell. Carla if you have anything to add on how you wash your dipes that would be great.

The diapers don't need any special drying instructions, except that your plastic diaper covers for the old school diapers can't go in the dryer.

That's it! If I'm really lazy I will toss all the clean diapers unfolded into Eva's diaper drawer.



If I have some time (or I'm not being lazy), I will fold all my diapers and put the inserts into the Bumgenius so they are ready to go.



Either way it works....if I don't fold them before they go in the drawer, it just means taking an extra second to put the insert into the Bumgenius before I put it on my baby.

I hope I shed some light on cloth diapering. If you weren't already considering it, I hope it sparked your interest. If you were considering it, I hope I have showed you the ins and outs that you needed to know.

There are a few different kinds of cloth diapers, and some are better than others. We have the old school kind as well as fancy ones. Old school are of course the cheapest....they are called pre-folds and are basically just a piece of absorbent cloth with a few extra layers of cloth sewed in the middle. Very early on I needed to start doubling up and use two pieces of cloth...my baby was soaking through them too quickly otherwise. We didn't pay for these, but they cost around $75-100 for 4 dozen. (Gerber brand) They are nice to just have on hand when I run out of my fancy ones.

Here's how you go about folding the lil suckers:

Lay it flat.



Fold in the sides on an angle, so it tapers in. The wide end will be at the back of your baby.



The last step is to fold down the back as much as you need to. I don't do this with Eva anymore because she is long enough, but if your baby isn't then fold the back down.



I found this awesome contraption called a Snappi to use instead of pins. I never run the risk of poking my baby and I can do it up in about 3 seconds (for two it cost about $5):



So now that your cloth is folded, you've got to get it on your baby. Slide the wide end under the baby's bum. Bring the tapered end up through their legs.



There will be little flap things that form at the sides, so grab those and hold them in place like this:





Take your Snappi, and grip the teeth into one side of the cloth:



Stretch it across and hook the teeth into the other side:




Then stretch and hook the bottom:



It will look like this when you are done:



You are now going to need a cover over top of the diaper. These are Kushies brand and quite easy to put on because of the velcro. It basically does up like a disposable would:





These are Gerber brand and go on like panties. Not hard to put on, but not as easy to take off once the cloth is soaked in pee:





Your baby will have a little bit of a blubber butt, since they are bulkier than disposables. But...whatever.

These are not my favorite cloth diaper, since they do leak a bit easier. But my baby does wear disposables the odd time, and she has leaked in those too sometimes. So I would say they are only slightly leakier than disposables.

My favorite cloth diaper is called "One-size Bumgenius 2.0" (I think they have even upgraded to 3.0 now!). It is a kind of cloth diaper called an all-in-one. Usually when you buy fitted cloth diapers you have to buy them in sizes...you have to buy at least a dozen small, then medium, then large, so this is when it would cost you upwards of $600. The beauty of these puppies is that they size up and down from extra small to large. I think the size is 7lbs-35lbs. So you only need to buy your diapers once (whether that is 12 or more). I recommend getting at least 12. They would last longer and you would have to do less laundry if you got more. These are expensive and cost about $20 per diaper...but if you only buy 12 then it will only cost you $240. They are brilliant diapers because they have velcro stretch tabs like a disposable, they leak less because of the elastic gathered legs, and you don't actually have to touch a wet cloth.

Putting them on is easy....if you know how to put on a disposable, you are good to go! Just to show you how easy, here are some pics:





People are really great when you have a baby, and a lot of people will ask what you still need. These are what I asked for! You can only find them online, but if the person wants to buy them as a gift for you, they can just go online, order them, and have them sent to your house. It's really nice! I have had great service from this site. I have also found this site to be the cheapest and have ordered from them as well (although I noticed they are under construction right now).

There are of course other types of cloth diapers, but these are the only two I know from experience. The Bumgenius 2.0 is absolutely my favorite, but it is nice to have the old school ones around when I run out of Bumgenius and am doing laundry. My friend Carla tried another brand of all-in-ones as well as the Bumgenius, and liked Bumgenius better.

For the dirty job of washing these babies, check out Washin' the Lil Guys

I have all these friends who just became moms, are soon-to-be moms, and having their second, third, etc. moms. For some reason new moms like to pass on the tips and tricks they've learned (because it's usually by trial and error), and because we are so excited about this new journey. So I decided to do a post on cloth diapering.

I started researching cloth diapering when I was about 6 months pregnant. It was mostly out of financial need, because being a student and having a husband who is in the human services field, means we don't make that much money. This is probably the most beneficial bonus of cloth diapering....how cheap it is. I tell you, we definitely cannot afford $20 a week for diapers! Depending on which ones you get, cloth diapering can cost you about $200-$600 all together...that's pretty good, considering that over time your disposables would cost you around $2000-3000! The other thing to consider that makes cloth diapering cheaper, is when people ask you what you still need for baby gifts, you can tell them cloth diapers....in our collection we have about 5 dozen regular cloth, a diaper pail, 9 cloth diaper covers, and 12 fancy bumgenius diapers....the only ones we bought out of the whole lot was 9 bumgenius, which cost us approximately $200. Pretty good hey?!

Of course I don't need to tell you it is way better for the environment. Disposables don't break down in the landfills because of the manufactured plastics and materials they are made from. Let's assume your baby goes through 6 diapers a day (newborns go through about 10-12), and that they are only in diapers for two years (some definitely are in them longer).....6 x 730 is 4380 diapers! Times that by the millions of babies in the world, times that by decades.....that is a ridiculous amount of unbreakdown-able diapers! Okay...'nuff said on that issue.

As long as you are okay with an extra load or two of laundry a week, then cloth diapering might be for you. The yuckiness factor is only slightly more than a disposable, and that is very dependant on what kind of cloth diaper you get. Check out my post on different kinds of cloth diapers, and how to wash your cloth diapers.

*I should add a disclaimer, and tell you that I use disposable diapers at night. I found the cloth leaked too badly. I know there are products out there and extra absorbent cloth and what not, but I don't mind using a disposable overnight. Using 1 disposable a day, means that a pack will last us 2-3 months. I then also always have disposables on hand when we travel.