Cloth Diapering Adventures: My first month

 After several months of subtle hints, and comparisons of price and how much much we would save, Sam finally agreed with me to start cloth diapering. (He is SOO good to me)
 Cloth diapering is quite a controversial topic I have found out. People literally either love it or hate it. Some find it disgusting, others prefer it to disposable because of all the "horrible" ingredients of disposables. I am not really here to make anyone choose one side or the other. We made the decision to do so merely for economic reasons. Cloth diapering saves money. 
 Getting started with it is expensive, to get away with the least you need is a over $100.00. Many people balk at that, but it is a one time expense. We were spending almost that MONTHLY buying disposables between a newborn and toddler. You do not want to go cheap with prefolds or covers; you get what you pay for. You can buy things that work just as well, such as flour cloth, microfiber towels to make your own inserts; you just need to be willing to change a little more frequently because the flour cloth is not as absorbent as a regular well stitched prefold.
  I was fortunate enough to be given 8 diaper covers for Natalie's size (thank you Rebecca!). So I ventured to Walmart and bought flour cloth (1.00 each) and two microfiber drying mats for dishes. Then I went to the local cloth diapering store and bought the cloth diapering detergent (yes, special detergent), Sarah two covers(on sale) and a wet bag( bag to store dirty diapers until you wash them...keeps them from drying and getting horribly stinky).
 Once home I set to washing the flour cloth like normal and cut up and sewed together my microfiber inserts. Washed and "line" dried my covers on an old DVD rack.

 This was it! I was committed.


 The first day was kinda odd. Throwing the wipes into the diaper genie alone was weird, and so was putting dirty diapers in a bag and just save them; but I was very surprised at how easily I fell into it. I honestly thought it was going to be more difficult than what they are. Natalie (while still breastfed) had one blowout. It was only because the diaper slid to far one way. Sarah didn't have any problems at all.
Even dealing with the poop isn't horrible. If you think about it, you are handling the poop whether you use disposables or cloth. With cloth you just dump it out and wash it. Toddler poop is a little different, they have to be soaked if it doesn't roll out. Still something I am getting used to but it isn't horrible. I keep a bottle of GermX in the bathroom and on the changing table and use it every time I pull off the dirty diaper and get done wiping their little bums.

 Once Natalie started formula she started wetting so much that just the simple trifold I was doing wasn't holding her pee. So I went back to the cloth diapering store and got 11 prefolds (indian cotton...the best stuff) and a snappy (the thingy that holds the cloth diaper on once it is folded) for $12.00! I am always so thankful to the Lord for always working it out that I find sales or special buys when I need something like this ... and that did the trick! She has had ZERO leaks or blowouts.


Sarah....that child is a different story.

She doesn't leak or blowout. The issue with her is she is just becoming a big girl, and is very close to being ready for the next stage of her life. Potty training is very near to us, and we will probably start sometime in August.
With her we half and half. Half cloth diaper, half disposable. I view the cloth diapers with her the next step before cloth training panties. She is recognizing now that she goes "pee" or "poooop" in her diaper, and will ask for a change. She will pull her diapers (cloth or not) off if she can get to them while laying down for a nap. She finds peeing on herself disgusting. So a few more weeks of this we will move to cloth trainers.

 We did catch her one day when we went to get her up from nap with her diaper cover on her head calling it her hat, her insert in her bed, and her stark naked from the waist down. It was hilarious :)

 My adventures of cloth diapering have just began, but I am more than happy I changed over. It is simple, neat, and makes me feel accomplished.