Long before I was even pregnant, Ryan and I made the decision to use cloth diapers when we had kids. It would be more eco-friendly, seemed like it would be more comfortable for our future child, it would go against throw-away-culture, but more than anything else, we figured it would be a way to save some money. Of course there were people who thought we were just nuts. And so many people who said, "oh well, you should at least use cloth diapers when you go out," or something else to that effect. Since we were not parents yet and had not experienced it, I think we both felt pretty weird insisting to people that we could do it and that it would be fine, but now that Tzeitel is here and we have been using cloth diapers for a month, I am so glad that we stuck to our guns!
Since this is our first baby, we have no experience using disposable diapers besides the time we spent in the hospital. So, when we got home and started using cloth exclusively, we did not have much to compare it too. In the first day or so there was a bit of a learning curve concerning which snaps made the diaper fit her best and at what point we needed to start washing our stash, but we learned very quickly. Within just a few days we had it down pat and were honestly puzzled as to why anyone thought that cloth diapering was so hard.
It all felt pretty simple to us. Change her diaper, put the dirty one in the diaper pail, put an insert in a new diaper, put the diaper on her, and wash them all when we had about two left. In terms of washing all you have to do is dump the contents of the diaper pail into the wash, run a cold cycle with no soap, then run a hot cycle with soap and dry them. Not really that much to the whole process.
In terms of how the diapers fit, I definitely am partial to cloth. The disposable ones we used in the hospital seemed like they were scratchy and uncomfortable for her. The cloth diapers though are soft and nice. I can only imagine that they feel much better on her skin.
One thing that we do have to watch for when using cloth is diaper rash cream. Many normal rash creams will mess with the absorbency of the diapers. At the recommendation of our midwife, we decided to use coconut oil and it is working really well for us! She has had very little rash since we have started using the coconut oil and we just put it on every time we change her diaper to act as a barrier from any dampness. Regardless of if you are using cloth or disposable, I would say coconut oil is a really good natural option and bonus...it smells fantastic! Who does not want their baby to smell like a little coconut?
One question that I had before we started using cloth diapers was what kind of wipes would we use? I didn't really want to use disposable wipes because we would have to pay for them, but I also was not really sure how cloth wipes would work. I didn't want cloth wipes to be too harsh on my little babies bum. Turns out though, cloth wipes are pretty simple. We were lucky enough to have my brothers girlfriend pick out some super soft material and make wipes out of it for us. Now, it's as simple as just washing the wipes right with the diapers and spraying them with water from a spray bottle before wiping off her little booty.
Lots of people also seem to think that leaving the house or going places is extremely harder when you are cloth diapering and...well so far that has not been our experience. It's pretty simple, we just pack more diapers, inserts, wipes, and a spray bottle in the diaper bag (basically just like you would do if you were using disposables, minus the spray bottle). Then when she has a dirty diaper you just throw it in a wet bag instead of throwing it into the trash can. Simple as that.
So now that we have been doing it for a month, what do we think? Welp. We like it, we like it a lot, it helps us to save money and COME ON Tzeitel looks adorable in her cloth diapers. To us it seems pretty easy, we have a system pretty down pat. Yes we have to do a bit more laundry than normal, but it's totally doable! And we get the satisfaction of knowing that we are not putting a bunch of diapers in a landfill, Tzeitel is wearing something comfortable, and we are saving a lotttt of money in the process.
So, if you are a new parent, even if you are not super crunchy in other ways, I would definitely urge you to look into cloth diapering!
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