Monday, April 19, 2010

Project: Earth Week . Cloth Diaper Report (the conclusion)

Back when Zadie was tiny Baby Lemon, I wrote a couple of posts on our experiences with cloth diapers. You can read my posts on cloth diapering a newborn: part 1 here, and part 2 here. I also wrote a guest post over at Surely You Nest on switching to cloth for a toddler. It's been a long time since then and I feel that we have it figured out.

We currently use a mix of pocket diapers and fitteds with covers. I was hesitant at first to try Goodmama diapers but I gave in to a print with rainbows and clouds and was immediately sold. And for good reason. These diapers are hard to beat. We have a heavy wetter here so we need something super absorbent. These last about 3 hours. Some people go coverless but I think they must not have rugs or furniture. We still love Thirsties covers.

We also have a few pocket diapers. Mostly we use the BumGenius brand stuffed with one of the microfiber inserts sold with the diapers and another hemp insert. We have a few Thirsties AIOs as well. These have the microfiber built in to a pocket system. They are surprisingly trim and we still add a hemp insert. The only downside to the Thirsties is that they take a long time to dry.

While the Goodmamas show absolutely no sign of wearing out, I don't see the BumGenius diapers lasting through another 2 years with a second kid (no this is not a hint. I am not, nor do I intend to become, pregnant anytime soon). The velcro is starting to pull off most of the Thirsties AIOs and we've already replaced the covers once. Always a sucker for something new, I bought the BumGenius flip system to try out and I didn't really like it.

We still hang our diapers on the line every chance we get. The sun bleaches out the stains and keeps everything so much nicer. The Goodmamas have been in the drier many times and it doesn't seem to bother them. We always hang the pockets and the covers.

At night and when we are going out for long periods of time, we use the Seventh Generation diapers. We could not get anything to work for nights. I wish I would have believed my friend when she told me not to mess with it. But I'm all type A and had to see for myself. I wasted a LOT of money on pricey inserts. A LOT. We go through a pack of diapers every 3 weeks (more if we travel). We are still using the same wetbags I bought when I was pregnant and even the same bags for the dirty diapers. While I will keep the wetbags because they are still in great shape, I can't wait to toss the laundry bags in the trash. They are spent but I know we're almost done with this. Welcome pullups! There is nothing more green than potty training.

So there you have it. This is what works for us. Every baby is different and every kid has a different body. It does take a little bit of experimenting to figure out what is going to work for you.

And we still love our changing table (above). Check out the monkey cup cozy! I love it. It's concealing a Mason jar of diaper dust. Mr. Lemon just punched a bunch of holes in the top with a hammer and nail. More on the cup cozy tomorrow when I'll be announcing two sponsors.

Don't forget to check out Sabra's Cloth Diapering 101 over at Sew a Straight Line. Tomorrow she will be writing a tutorial on sewing your own cloth diapers (really amazing if you have the time). I will be posting a tutorial on making your own cloth wipes and sharing my secret wipes solution recipe.

8 comments:

Carolyn said...

I drank the kool-aid and love GMs too- luckily they work for us @ night w/ an extra layer of one sort or another between the soaker layers and either wool longies or a wool soaker over top most of the time.
I love our Thirsties covers. E. has started potty-learning and probably pees on the potty 3 times a day, but it hasn't made a huge dent in the diaper laundry, yet. I did invest in some fancy "big girl" pants for her- trainers from hanna anderson, but she hasn't been completely successful in them yet...

Beth Lemon said...

Drinking the kool-aid is right! It took me a few months to do it but I'm glad I did. I think I was about to give up when I found them. But wow, no way we could go all night in one. We add another layer in just for naptime!

And same here with the potty. She is using the potty quite a bit but is still wetting the diapers -- just not as much. Oh well, we'll get there.

Thanks for the tips on the trainers. I don't have time to do all the research I used to so I have to start somewhere.

Steph said...

We did cloth diapers and I always had a heck of a time getting them clean in our front-loader. I tried every suggestion I got and they still smelled like a sewer most of the time. Cloth diapers did save us a ton of $$ even though it was only from age 10 months-20ish months. We potty trained starting around 19 months - she didn't want to wear diapers anymore so we figured we'd give it a shot - and whew, what a relief! No more struggling through diaper changes, no more extra laundry. I can, however, tell you from experience, that you will know the location of every public restroom within a 20-mile radius of your house. ;)

Beth Lemon said...

I heard that there are some issues with front loaders. I think it's because they use less water.

Yeah, I'm not looking forward to taking a toddler to the bathroom at every place we visit. I know it's going to happen.

The Calico Cat said...

We used bum genius until my son grew out of them - too rotund. & the velcro basically quit working. We had NO problems with washing them in a front loader though... (We only used Charlie's Soap & we used 2 cycles - al least one of which was heavy soil & extended time - it's been so long I forgot.) Unfortunately, we switched to disposeable afterwards...

Rae said...

I came here from Meg's kid's clothes week, and ended up here (loved those elephant pants though...SO AWESOME). I love it when I read a blog post that sounds exactly like I could have written it. And same here with the BG's. Bum-Bummer.

randomlogik said...

Love this idea. Is it just a regular changing pad you used? Is it somehow secured to the plywood?

Beth Lemon said...

@randomlogik It's just sitting up there. It's not tied down. Thanks!