Monday, October 18, 2010

Cloth Diapers



I was a nanny for many years and it always hurt my heart to throw away so many disposable diapers. I swore that when I had children, I would use cloth diapers. Now the time has come to put my money where my mouth is! Enter Bum Genius.

Unlike cloth diapers of the past that used diaper pins and rubber pants, cloth diapers of today are pretty high tech. They have little cloth inserts (that also expand with snaps) and come in a variety of cute colors. The brand we decided to go with even fits the child from birth through potty training (with the help of some strategically placed snaps). They are secured with velcro and have a very straight forward and simple design.

So far we have only acquired two white ones, but we will probably need around twelve total. They run about $18 per diaper. Our initial investment will be around $200 but over the next two years we will save well over $1000.

I was talking to my brother and his wife who cloth diapered their two children and told them about this handy dandy toilet sprayer:


Though I think it will come in handy, they said they used to just dunk the entire diaper into the toilet and call it a day. Sounds a bit yucky to me, but it would save us nearly $50! They also recommended keeping the diaper pail in the bathroom. Seems pretty obvious, but I was planning for one in the nursery. I had my eye on one of the fancy diaper pails (Diaper Dekor, Diaper Genie, etc.) but I'm thinking a simple lidded garbage pail will end up being easier. Something small would fit better in our tiny bathroom anyway!

The true test of these diapers will come once Charlotte is born, but we've ready some pretty good reviews online. We'll have lots of diaper washing in our future, but we both agree that it is the right decision. The next part to figure out will be whether we should also use cloth baby wipes. Jason has done some research, but neither one of us are completely convinced yet. I'll keep you posted on what we decide!

3 comments:

  1. I would go for the diaper sprayer. I often wish we had one. Maybe we'll get one!

    By the way, aren't we due for another belly pic??? :-)

    Enjoying the blog...Tara

    ReplyDelete
  2. Right! I need to post another belly pic soon! I'll try to take a good one this weekend. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. we use bumgenious - have every day for 2 yrs and three months. we love them. they have held up pretty well - only in the last few months have i had to pull out the sewing machine and replace some velcro here and there. they are still pretty white, and she was able to wear them from when she was 9 lbs, and now she's 35lbs! we also love the flannel wipes.

    ReplyDelete