What I've Learned about Cloth Diapers

There is a whole community online of cloth diapering parents, which is helpful but also a little overwhelming. I started looking into cloth diapers right when I got pregnant (an easy summer job gave me lots of time to research online). After all my research and no baby to test out the diapers on, I ordered a Bum Genius Flip. When A came along, I realized the Flip was not the diaper I wanted to use. It was way too big. So I went back to the blogs, forums, and shopping sites and started my research over.

We've had A exclusively in cloth diapers for the last 4 weeks, and here's what we've learned about all the brands we've tried.

Bum Genius Flip: This was the first diaper we tried and the one I wanted to make work because you have the option of putting in a disposable insert, but they are a one-size that grows with baby, and even for our 10 pounder it was too big-spreading his legs way far apart. We never even used it.

GroVia All-in-2: This was recommended by a friend. We had the same issue as the Flip- it was way too big. And it took forever to dry.

GDiaper: We bought these because they were the only cloth diaper Babies R Us carried, and I had a coupon for them. They leaked every time we used them. I liked the fit a lot though. GDiapers also have the option of a disposable insert, but they are made with the same gel in disposable diapers, which is bad for baby and the environment. 

Swaddlebees: We tried the old side snap model and the Simplex. I liked them both a lot, but couldn't find anyone who carried enough for me to have a full supply. I got frustrated trying to purchase them from different companies, so I gave up. I found out on a forum that the company just doesn't keep their supply meeting their demand. I just tried putting the Simplex on again yesterday, and it leaked. I'm happy we didn't wind up with these as our main diaper; the snaps are much more difficult and you have to put an insert in, which would be harder for grandparents and friends to use.

Picture Source: Bumgenius.com

Bum Genius All-in-One 3.0: This is what we settled on. The only thing I dislike about this one is it takes forever to dry. I was using them still a little damp, but yesterday my mom suggested turning them inside out before drying them. They've been coming out completely dry since I started doing this. We had a few leaks recently ,but we started putting inserts in at night, and haven't had a leak since.

I highly recommend cloth diapering. We find it as simple as using disposables-really! If you are thinking about getting started, you might want to try a diaper trial (I just heard about Jillian's Drawers). I wish I had known about this before we tried all these. You pay a deposit and get to try a bunch of varieties. I've also discovered the Diaper Swappers Forum that has been very helpful. I posted some concerns on there and got a bunch of responses that were helpful right away. 

Why did I do all this researching, trial and error, and suffering of some big leaks? The simple answer is the first two weeks that we used disposable diapers, we went through about 200 diapers, costing us about $100. In my opinion, it took just as much time to take out the trash of stinky disposables as it does to throw a load of laundry in every day.

The cloth diapers we've decided on are probably going to cost us about $1200 over A's lifetime, and we can  reuse them for future babies, or sell them or give them to friends.

The biggest reason I wanted to go with cloth is because the disposables are one of the worst pieces of garbage we have, taking up to 500 years to decompose. I don't know about you, but that's not how I want to leave my mark on the world.