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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Cloth Diapers
Can you recommend what you are using? I'm thinking I'm going to go down this road instead of disposable, but I"m not 100% yet. My biggest block is know that I am actually going to save money. Seems that all the types I look at are expensive to start up with and that I am totally getting my money's worth.
Questions I have are: how much are disposable diapers in the first month? how long are they in each size diaper?
Basically I just need confirmation that I will actually be saving money. So all the thoughts and ideas would be great.
Currently I am looking at gDiapers with the reusable cloth inserts...
Re: Cloth Diapers
Our stash right now consists of Kiwi Pie fitteds, Dream Eze fitteds and all-in-ones, GroBaby (now GroVia), and Bum Genius Pockets. We love the Dream-Eze the best, but they have been discontinued so you can only buy them used. The Kiwi Pies are hard to get your hands on, too. They sell just about as quickly as they are made.
Bum Genius are really popular, I think because they are easy to use and one-size. We don't really like them as much as our others. I've decided I'm not a fan of the microfiber inserts. They hold smell a lot more than our organic cotton diapers.
If you are looking at gDiapers, I'd recommend looking at the GroVia (www.grovia.com) or the Flip (www.cottonbabies.com) systems. Both of these typically get much better reviews than gDiapers.
We have yet to break even on our costs. Harper is 16 months and Ava is one month. However, I have definitely bought more diapers than we *need.* I think we have 83. The Dream-Eze are sized though, and they make up half our stash. If we just used the one-size, even with 2 in cloth, I think we'd be fine with half as many.
I'm kind of a nerd about numbers, so I may or may not have a spreadsheet with what we've spent, washed, etc. In the first year of using cloth with Harper, we changed 3310 diapers. (Everyone judge my idiosyncrasy now
)
There are lots of great sites out there about cloth diapers (types, reviews, cleaning/care, etc.). For example, Diaper Pin has a calculator page for comparing costs of disposables & cloth.
Little Padded Seats in Valley Junction has a very helpful "Cloth Diaper 101" intro session that they hold regularly (next ones are coming up on 3/6 and 3/21 according to their Web site) - and the owners are super helpful. DH & I were new to this, and they answered all kinds of questions for us - honestly, without just trying to sell us things we didn't need or want.
Another great local resource is Wallypop. She's local & also really helpful.
Jillian's Drawers is another good resource & offers a diaper trial program, which many people recommend.
We primarily use prefolds & Blueberry one-size covers, which is a really economical cloth diapering method. We also have some pocket diapers & a couple of one-size bamboo. The more you can see what others are doing, check out a class, and read online, the better. It's truly an excellent cost-saving and more environmentally-friendly option. I hope it works for you!
We easily saved but I do a lot of washing. I think I only have 15 diapers and I wash every night before bed.
You really have to have a baby IMO to try different brands. I love fuzzibunz but they don't fit Ana well because her legs are so chubby. We generally use swaddlebees, blueberry, and we have a couple of happy heinys and thursties duo wraps that go over a few fuzzy fitteds that I picked up.
Newborns are changed every 2 hours or more so they go through a TON and it's hard to fit them until they're a little bigger. The fly through newborn size, spend a month or two in size 1 and then another month or two in size 2.
In my experience my kids spent a lot of time in size 3 disposable diapers. (starting at about 15lbs and going up to 30) I do sposies at night because I hate the stink and it's hard to beat the wetness protection overnight. Ana just sleeps better with a sposie. At the point where they move to size three you can probably change diapers less than every 2 hours, although I still try to keep it around there unless we're out and about.
Also FWIW - I love little padded seats in that it's handy if you need something right away and the owners are amazing!!!! BUT, they're really overpriced. You can find about anything they carry for less online. I feel like that's unfortunate because I'd love to give them my business but the bottom line speaks to me.
How mare are disposables in the first month: Well, we only used them for a bit over 2 weeks. But in those two weeks, we went through about 3 packages of Pampers/Huggies belly button variety. Which are not cheap.
How long are they in each size: totally depends on the kiddo. We do keep some of each size on hand for backups. But I have a bunch of each left, since we don't use them much.
The start up cost of cloth is more than the cost of a box of disposable diapers. But the overall savings is awesome.
We use all pocket diapers, mostly all one sized. I liked that I could change the absorbency of them, and they dry fast, and they work just like a disposable for daycare. I started out with about 15 small Happy Heiny, and then moved on to one sized Bum Genius, Happy Heiny, and a variety much like the HH my mom made. majority were the grandma special, but there was a bit of a design flaw in them, and we ended up buying a bunch of Rumparooz, which my DH and I ADORE! I bought most of my HH inserts on diapers.com, but all my other diapers and supplies from Little Padded Seats. I take that back, my mom made my wetbags, 3 large, and 2 tiny for diaper bags.
I love my cloth diapers. LOVE them!
you've already gotten some great advice, and i ditto checking out LPS and Wallypop. There is also a Des Moines Babywearing/Cloth Diapering group (two separate groups, but meetings are combined) that meets once/month. I am actually going to take over these meetings in April. The meetings are the first Tuesday of the month at 10am, at 733 19th street (Sherman Hill).
I looked into gdiapers and they are actually more expensive than disposables. We have used a lot of different types and brands of diapers, but right now my favorite is baby beehinds fitteds. I recommend buying one or two of several different types/brands and seeing what fits baby best before you buy a lot.
When Benjamin was born we used disposables for the first 3 weeks or so. We then used prefold diapers with covers. I had bought a variety of brands that were one size diapers but B was super skinny and was small so they didn't work out right away for us. Prefolds were fine for us in the beginning. We now have a stash of mostly BumGenius, GroVia, & Rumperoos. We are so glad we chose this route, DH even likes that we did them. And we are planning on using them for future children so they will definitely be cheaper in the long run!
Can you recommend what you are using? Ditto PP's. It depends on what you like. I started my stash w/ 100% used dipes because I didn't want to invest until I knew what I really liked. FWIW: our top used dipes are our Prefolds. We are currently using unbleached Indian Cotton Diaper Rite PF's from Diaperjunction.com. When we leave the house we use Pockets, currently I have 4 Swaddlebees pockets and 2 Happy Heiny's. At night we use Sbish Multi snapless fitteds and Bellabottom fitteds with wool.
how much are disposable diapers in the first month? I have not done a month cost, but I did do a comparision of what I spent in cloth diapers (current total for all diapers and accessories: diaper sprayer, pail liners, inserts, snappis, etc: $861.63) DS is 18 months old. I then figured using 10 diapers a day of Kirkland brand for 1 year and the total cost of that was $900.00. So I have definitely saved money and my stash is nb through toddler and I will use it again on my baby due any day now.
how long are they in each size diaper? This depends on the size of your child. My DS was long and skinny so his nb PF's last until 6 months, I think I had to get to transfer to Small covers. One Size (OS) dipes usually last from 8-35lbs or so. But our BellaBottoms and Sbish should last until he's potty trained b/c he's mostly long, rather than wide.
ADVICE: Check out www.DiaperSwapper.com and http://hyenacart.com/Spots_corner/index.php?category=2 for used diapers, or the trial packages from Jillians Drawers. I've never used the Trial Packs, and I've read that they don't provide enough dipes to last even one day with a nb. But you CAN find awesome deals. I usually start w/ DS and SC then check the website of the diaper the seller is trying to sell to make sure I'm getting a good deal.
The clearance section on swaddlesbees.com is AWESOME as well. Also, don't invest in just ONE type of diaper at the beginning. I thought for sure DH would only want to use AIO's or fitteds. He surprised me and didn't like any of them because he thought the snaps were too cumbersome. He very much prefers PF's to all of our dipes which is awesome, b/c they're also the most economical to purchase. 