When you hear cloth diapers, what do you think?
If you are thinking of this image … you are wrong!! Long gone are the old-school clothes pins or dingy white rags.
Old-school cloth diapers
Cloth diapers have really evolved, especially over the last decade. Let me take you through my cloth diaper experience with Stella and why we WILL be doing this again with our son, who is scheduled to arrive in September.
By the way, here is what a new, modern cloth diaper looks like:
New cloth diapers
When I was pregnant with Stella, we lived in Champaign, Illinois. The cloth diaper movement was HUGE. You were almost an oddity if you didn’t head to Babyland in Savoy to pick up your cloth diapers, supplies and detergents. In an effort to reduce waste and also save money in the long run, we dove in head first and committed to going cloth.
The diapers are freaking adorable. They come in solids and fun prints. The outside is waterproof and the inside has absorbent cotton and additional inserts to soak up … you know what.
We ended up being given and buying around 15 diapers total before Stella was born. We also bought the toilet sprayer, wet bag and detergent supplies. While it was a decent amount of money upfront, it was still less than buying disposable diapers until she was potty trained. And we knew we could use them on a second child down the road.
You can get them with snap closures or Velcro. We found that we loved the Velcro ones because they were so similar to disposable diapers. Tots Bots became our favorite brand followed by Bum Genius.
So, how did it go?
Awesomely. Yes, we had our learning moments and unavoidable blowouts. But after we got into the rhythm of it, it was a cake walk. Every other day I ran a load of laundry just for the cloth diapers (rinse, wash, rinse) and then dried them. Stuff and stack, and they were ready to use again.
The oddest thing was getting used to No. 2s. Yep, I’m talking about poop. You don’t want to leave that in the diaper before washing so you actually used a sprayer-like feature that attaches to your toilet tank. You simply hold the diaper in the toilet bowl, spray the No. 2 off and then put it into the wet bag until it’s time to wash. If that’s the grossest thing I had to do, it wasn’t bad.
Here we are again, taking on the cloth adventure. I feel like it isn’t very popular in the Cincinnati area, to be completely honest. I have to explain it each time I mention it. If there are any cloth diapers moms locally, I’d love to hear from you!
The funny thing is, our cute little boy is going to have to wear a few pink diapers! I know, how dare I?! But I’m not going to throw away cloth diapers just because they are pink. Plus, real men wear pink, right?
After hearing my story and experience, would you consider doing cloth diapers?
If you have any questions about going cloth, let me know. I’d be happy to share more of my tricks and tips. Email: Jennifer.ketchmark@wcpo.com
