Thinking About Going Cloth?

Are you like me and thinking about switching to cloth diapers? This is something that I have been considering doing for some time now. With the birth of my second child, I started thinking about all those disposable diapers again. Plus until recently I had two children in disposable diapers, Allie is now potty trained and I have now decided to switch to cloth diapers. This has been a big decision for me, I wanted to make sure that they would work and fit our lifestyle, fit our budget, and be better for the environment (this was kind of a given). To get the answers to my questions I started doing some research on the Internet and this is what I found.

Cloth diapering is a whole world out there to be explored, there are so many different choices to choose, from cotton pre-folds to the super convenient pocket diapers. I am not going to go into all the different cloth diaper choices, the following are some of the sights that I used to help educate myself about the different cloth diapers available; Papoose (which is also a retail store in Norwich, CT), The Maine Cloth Diaper Company (which has a retail store in Maine), bumGenius, and Kelly's Closet. The current issue of Mothering Magazine has two great articles on cloth diapers- Dumping Disposable Diapers and The ABC's of Going Cloth, plus they have a bunch of archived articles on their website.

After collecting all my research on cloth diapers, I decided that I wanted to actually put my hands on some and I lucked out because Papoose in Norwich, CT carries and extensive line of cloth diapers. When I went to Papoose, Holly one of the co-owners was extremely helpful. She spent lots of time with me answering all my questions. If you live in the Norwich area or even near it, this is a great resource. They even offer Cloth Diapering 101 classes. After I had a chance to get all my questions answered I decided that I wanted to try the bumGenius diapers and I bought 3 to try. I really wanted to try them out before investing in a whole set. So I have been using them for 4 days, as much as I possibly can and in as many different situations as possible. So far, I have only had only one leak and it was at night and I didn't have the “doubler” in. Since using the “doublers” at night I haven't had any more leaks.

Getting Started:
18 diapers (I may need to get more, but I am going to start with 18 and judge it from there)

18 doublers (which are included with the bumGenius diapers)
Diaper Sprayer
Flushable Diaper Liners (for when you need to use diaper cream, you don't want the cream directly on the diaper, because it will decrease their absorbency)
Charlie Soap (or an additive free soap of your choice)
Wet Bag (one for the diaper pail and one for on the go to put those used diapers in)

So, for less than $400.00 I will be on my way. In 6 months my new cloth diapers will have payed for themselves and if Jack goes until he is at least 2 ½ before being potty trained we will save around $1200 and tons of waste in our landfills. Did you know that by the time your child is potty trained you will have used enough disposable diapers to more than fill your house with dirty diapers.