After sharing a photo on my Instagram recently of my darling daughter’s cloth diapers, I had a few friends reach out with questions on how I do cloth diapers, what I use, how does it fit into daily life, etc. and figured a blog post would be the best way to answer all the questions in one place. So without further ado, here’s what I know about cloth diapers and how I’ve made it work for me and my family the past few months. As I learn more, I’ll come back and update this post.
Before I dive in – I want to make sure that I start by saying that this is the way that I do cloth diapers and what works for me. So far what I’ve learned is that there’s no “right way” to do cloth diapers, besides to wash them regularly. So whatever options work best for you, your investment (both financial and time commitment), and your family is what’s best.
Overall, cloth diapers have been such a good decision for us and something that we both are really happy to be committing our time to. Truly, they have not been that different than disposable diapers and I know this for a fact because we started off using disposables! I had been gifted an entire set and I was still nervous about the amount of time I would spend washing them, especially since I knew I wouldn’t be a stay at home mom. Knowing that I’m not producing unnecessary waste for the planet that my daughter will grow up on, as well as avoiding having harsh chemicals in the most absorbent parts of her delicate new body has made our journey with cloth diapers so so worth it.
*Also – any links I provide do not give me commission. I am writing this blog post because I want to give genuine reviews for the people who asked me. I respect our relationship enough to tell you the honest truth about products before I recommend or write about them, not because I will be receiving revenue of any sort for what I write.
Why Cloth Diapers
Cloth Diapers can seem like a huge task to take on, depending on the information you’ve received from them and where you came to learn about them. My first introduction to the idea of cloth diapers was from my parents and grandparents complaining about them. They talked about how parenting was so much easier with disposable diapers because you could just throw it away and never have to think about it again. Fast forward almost 30 years and we’re now painfully aware of the number of disposable plastic laden diapers we’ve thrown away. Additionally diapers take nearly 400 years to decompose which is much longer than any of our babies will even live, pending superhuman consciousness/AI integration but I digress.
Cloth diapers, for me, is an environmentally friendly way to parent at this current point in time. Plain and simple my biggest motivator is the effect disposable diapers have on the planet.
Below I will give details about what I use, what supplies I think you need overall, my daily routine with diapers, my weekly routine with washing, and any additional tips that I’ve found to be useful.
What I Use:
I was blessed by being gifted a complete set of cloth diaper covers and absorbent liners from an amazing friend who had babies before me. Primarily, we use the Bumgenius pocket diapers with a variety of absorbent liners… Naturally natures liners, g diaper liners, and thirsty liners. We also tried out the gDiapers brand of diapers but found the Bumgenius pocket style to be more user friendly for us. Specifically, my husband liked them better and I’m going to do whatever keeps him on board with cloth diapers! The reason he likes the pocket diapers better is that the closures are more intuitive for him and the diaper covers themselves are more like disposable diapers, which he was used to. gDiapers, for him, were just a little too different in their closures and liners. I personally didn’t find them to be bothersome but, again, I’m sticking with what keeps the Parental Unit happy.
Cost:
I will say this off the bat: cloth diapers are cheaper than disposable diapers. End of story. According to The Bump: “A typical family can spend between $2,000 and $3,000 per baby for two years on disposable diapers while cloth diapers and accessories run about $800 to $1,000 if you wash them yourself.” We were gifted pre-owned diapers and spent $0 on acquiring new diapers. However, in the event that I buy new diapers, (or just want some new patterns) I would buy secondhand from places like Mercari or Poshmark where people sell their gently used cloth diapers for a decent price. If the thought of pre-owned cloth diapers grosses you out, cloth diapers are not an expensive endeavor. They are merely an upfront cost but you don’t have to continue buying diapers over and over once you have them.
Supplies You’ll Need:
- Diaper covers + absorbent fillers
- Wet bags – I use these both in the diaper pail and in the diaper bag for on the go. They’re also super useful for wet bathing suits or poo/pee covered baby outfits, if you ever find yourself out and about with those!
- Diaper pail/bin – I use this one
- Biodegradable liners for poo – These are Austyn’s favorite thing because they line the insides of the diaper and when the baby poos, you just pick it up on the liner and can either flush or throw them away. No scrubbing/hose attachment needed!
- Spot cleaners like Biokleen, which I have previously written about for fur child stains, but hey they work for my human kid too!
- Hose toilet attachment – I was gifted one and not sure where it came from. This is useful for spraying off baby’s “solid waste” aka poo before you throw it in the bin to be washed. In the early months, it’s not as necessary to use if baby is exclusively breastfed as the poo is water soluble.
- Laundry soap – any you use for baby’s clothes should work fine, but you can get specific ones if that seems better.
- Washer and dryer
My Daily Routine:
Here’s a condensed version of what a day in cloth diapers looks like:
- Wake up, slept in bamboo diaper – change into 2nd bamboo diaper. *See “Tips” section below for details on night time disposables.
- Eat/nap then change into cloth.
- Cloth diapers used for about 12 hours a day.
- At bedtime, change into bamboo diapers for overnight.
Another daily task includes prepping the cloth diapers to put on your baby as well as prep them to put in the wash. You have to put together clean diapers, take apart soiled ones, spray with spot cleaner and put them into the bin for washing. I run a load of cloth diapers roughly 2-3 times a week.
Weekly routine:
Wash cloth diapers every 2-3 days. I have read a lot of advice on how to wash cloth diapers and just like I said before, there are a lot of different ways you can wash them according to your needs and preferrences. I use a plant based detergent (running theme of planetary consciousness here) and the pre-wash + heavy load wash cycle. I have used oxyclean on some of the tougher stains that Biokleen doesn’t dissolve, but it’s not an every wash type of thing.
Tips/Side Info:
Diaper liners help with the poop, and don’t really matter for the pee. These are biodegradable and can be flushed down your toilet or thrown away with whatever wipes you use.
We use disposable bamboo diapers for overnight due to the fact that Carsyn has been sleeping through the night since 2 months old and she does wake up for wet diapers. (Waking baby = things I prefer to avoid) The disposables are superior at wicking away the moisture from her night time pees and can simply hold more liquid for longer than the cloth diapers. She uses 2-3 diapers during night time hours, at most. For me, this is far less than the amount of disposable diapers we would be going through if we used them during the day. They also do not have the same amount of chemicals and plastics that traditional disposable diapers have, so they are the most eco-friendly option as far as disposables go. The brand of disposables I use is Bambo, but Honest Brand is a good option as well if you’re more chemical conscious with your disposables.
When we travel or leave the house for more than a grocery store run, we pack disposable diapers and use them. Cloth diapers are amazing for staying at home, which we do 90% of the time. But on the occasions that we spend the day with grandparents or family for celebrations and get togethers, the bamboo diapers are our go-to for the time being.
The commitment on both our ends has been essential to making cloth diapers successful for us. I do the majority of the washing, but Austyn has become the designated laundry load-switcher so he also sets everything out to dry overnight once we wash a load of diapers. (Somehow cloth diapers always end up being washed in the evening. Must be my work/laundry schedule!)
On days that you wash diapers, also consider how long it takes for them to dry. All parts of cloth diapers are primarily air dried, unless you want to have to replace pieces sooner. The diapers tend to dry overnight for us, but the absorbent liners often need to be tumble dried on low after the overnight air dry to get fully dry as we use pretty thick ones. I do not dry the covers as this will ruin them over time.
Comment below with any questions you have and I’m happy to answer them or point you in the right direction of where you might find more information to make an informed decision!