Not your Mother’s Cloth Diaper

I have several friends now using cloth diapers & biodegradable diaper inserts, which I think is very cool. It saves tons money & the environment. Click here to read more advantages. I wasn’t quite courageous enough to do this my first-go-round, but seeing how easy it is for them makes me want to hop on the bandwagon whenever the next bun pops in the oven. This is a list of advice so valuable that I can’t seem to delete the email, so here are some of her tips…Let me know if you have more, have thoughts, or if you can explain to me how diaper inserts work!!

You may spend $500-600 on diapers & supplies. The real savings, though, is when you already have them for your next child, and you don't have to spend any money on them then. They also have a really high resale value on e-bay, so you can get alot of your money back. She bought Funni Bunz from Tree City Diapers

Don't buy any X-small's because the baby will grow out of them so quickly. I used disposables during the first few weeks because I needed time to recover, and the smalls were too large.

Buy 18 diapers of each size (as the baby moves up in size). Newborns go through them so quickly. I bought only 12, and there were times I was washing every day.

I bought one wet sack to keep dirty diapers in when I go out. It will hold 3-4 diapers at a time and is lined with plastic inside to prevent any leaks. When I use it I just wash it along with my diapers.

They will need two garbage pails, with pedals. One needs to be larger for the diapers, and the other needs to be smaller for the wipes. I just buy the cheapest garbage bags I can find and I throw away the garbage bag each time I wash. I just dump the diapers into the washing machine.

You don't have to swirl the diapers in water first. I just put them straight into the washing machine. I run a cold rinse first, with a little vinegar to help with staining, and then I run them again on the very dirty, hot cycle. I have never had any problem with poop residue, not even once.

I have taken to using one disposable diaper per day, the one I put on him at bedtime. Now that he is older and sleeping longer than 3-4 hrs. at a time, he soaks through a cloth diaper too much. I know many people use cloth at night too, I just can't get enough liners in there to keep him from soaking through after 10-12 hours.

I wouldn't buy any white diapers if you get the kind with snaps. In the middle of the night, when you want to keep your nursery dim, it's too hard to see the white snaps on white diapers. My preference is to buy all pastels in gender-neutral colors.

Fuzzi-Bunz are a pocket-type diaper, with terrycloth inserts. Mine have held up well, but I did have to double stuff them when he was small. His legs were so skinny that he would leak out the leg holes. Now that he has meat on his bones, I can single-stuff them during the day.

You do have to change the cloth diapers after 2-3 hours. They can't stay on for 5-6 hour stretches due to leakage.

Any diaper rash ointments that are not pure white will stain the diapers.

You can't use fabric softeners in the diaper loads or they won't absorb.