Fluff

You may or may not know that we started using cloth diapers a few months ago. It first peaked my interest last fall, but we all know how chaotic life was then, so it fell by the wayside. Fast forward to January during my last visit with my dear friend Janelle before our move. She had mentioned her plans to CD (cloth diaper) her new baby and during this visit took the time to show me her stash and explain some things about it. I was intrigued. But again, with the chaos of moving and then finding out I was preggo and beginning to puke my brains out, it got put on the back burner.

Once I was a few weeks into my 2nd trimester and was starting to feel a bit better, we started to really discuss the logistics of having twins. The fact that we would soon have THREE kids in diapers sounded expensive. When I sat down to do the math, I realized that it didn't just sound expensive, it was DEFINITELY going to cost us a pretty penny. Depending on the kind of diapers you buy, the average amount spent to diaper a baby from birth through potty training is right around $2500. And Brennan wasn't able to wear anything but Pampers without getting a nasty rash, so even with coupons, it was expensive to keep his butt dry. Depending on what kind of CD you choose to use, you can spend anywhere between $200 and $1000 on a stash for one baby, washing diapers every other day. So even if I chose the most expensive kind and bought enough to wash every other day (for 3 boys) I'm still saving a nice chunk of change. And for those of you wondering about the water bill? Washing every other day, we've barely noticed an increase in the bill. We're expecting about a $10 bump per month once the twins are born. Laundry soap? You can choose to use pricey CD soap or regular laundry soap. Either way, you use a very small amount because it can cause build up on the diapers and cause them to not work effectively. Again, we haven't noticed that we're spending more on detergent at all.

By this time, Janelle had given birth to her sweet little bundle and was enjoying wrapping her little bum in cloth everyday. She shared lots of info with me, which was a major help to kick off my research into the world of CDs. I read everything I could, did tons of research, joined a CD group in Facebook through a friend, and decided it was time to jump in.

I bought a few different kinds of diapers and began experimenting. I'll admit, it did take a few weeks to get into a good routine for laundry and just navigating the in's and out's of CDing. But all in all, it was really easy. Diaper laundry really takes minimal time. With one kid in CDs, I do diaper laundry about every 1.5-2 days. And it's the easiest laundry EVER. Because there's no sorting or folding. It's by far my favorite load of laundry to do! And no, I'm not up to my elbows in poop, nor do I come into contact with it any more than I did when he was in disposables. Nor does the poop get into the washing machine. You simply dump it out of the diaper into the toilet and rinse with a diaper sprayer if you so desire. Or you use biodegradable, flushable liners so that the poop doesn't even touch the diaper. Easy peasy.

And the real beauty? I haven't had to shell out any money to buy diapers in MONTHS. It's awesome. Not to mention the fact that I'm not filling landfills with plastic and chemicals. That's just an added bonus! (Please know that I'm not judging anyone who chooses to use disposables. Heck, I used them for the first 20 months of his life! And it's everyone's own personal choice what to put on their kiddo's bum. I'm just pointing out the truth - they sit in landfills and will still be sitting there when our kids are diapering their kids. Sad :( I'd be lying if I said that that was the primary reason for switching. It's not - it was totally a money thing. But doing my part to save the planet feels very very good.)

I really just scratched the surface of this topic, but I feel like going through all of the details in one post would make for a realllllllllllllly long and boring read. So I'll post more about the details (the downfalls, different types of diapers, etc) later. If you have questions, feel free to comment and I can try to answer them in one of my next posts!