Cloth Diapers

I have had several people ask how I do cloth diapers, so I thought I would post about it and have it out there for all of cyberspace to view. We started cloth diapers with Dallin when he was about six months. My neighbor helped me to see that cloth diapers are not as daunting as it may first seem. She actually has a blog about cloth diapering. She is very helpful to anyone who is interested.

There is a whole world of cloth diapering that I am not really a part of. Even though I have picked up a little of the jargon, I'm not going to go into all the possibilities. If you want to know more, just ask me. The two main motivations for cloth diapering were environmental and economical. You can spend as much or as little as you want on diapers. We decided to go with the most economical which was prefold diapers (they are the ones that are often used for burp cloths.) I learned that you can't just go to Wal-Mart and buy the packages of diapers there because the centers are made with synthetic fibers instead of cotton. So we ordered 2 dozen prefolds from Montana Diaper Store. We also ordered a diaper cover (Mary, my neighbor made a couple more for me). I have tried some fitted diapers and pocket diapers, but I have found that I just like the simple prefolds and doublers the best. (Doublers are extra padding that is put in the middle so I don't have to change him quite as often.)

We keep the dirty diapers in a diaper pail (I rinse the poopy ones in the toilet) and I wash them every other day. I soak them in cold water over night and rinse them in the morning. Then I do a hot wash with only a tiny bit of soap (you need to use the simplest type of soap with no additives) We use the stuff from Sam's Club. After the hot wash I have recently started to add another short warm rinse. All of this is done as a large wash so that there is plenty of water to rinse everything and to prevent pilling. Then I just dry them.

As far as covers go, my favorite are the wool covers because I don't have to wash them nearly as often as others. When I do wash them, they have to be treated with lanolin. (I am still amazed that the wool covers actually are water proof!) The one shown in the picture happens to be a wool cover that my Mary made for me. The other covers I have are Bummis Whisper Wraps.

Recently I had to start adding doublers to the diapers because Dallin was a heavier wetter. I made these out of six layers of old flannel receiving blankets. They work wonderfully! I felt very economical and environmentally friendly when I made those.

The only other problem that I have encountered is the build up of ammonia (old pee eventually turns to ammonia, especially when the kids are older) I found the best solution was to soak them in OxyClean overnight and then wash them like normal. That also takes care of any stains that happen to be there.

It might sound like a lot of work, but it's just a couple extra loads of laundry per week. We estimate that we've saved about $200 in the last year by doing cloth diapers instead of disposable, not to mention the environmental benefits.

Sorry this is such a long post. Hopefully I have encouraged people to take a stab at cloth diapering. If you are interested in cloth diapering, I would recommend having someone navigate you through the world of diapering, because I can tell you that it can be quite daunting if you do it yourself.