Thanks, I think we’ve got a couple baby beehinds but I haven’t heard of the other brand, I’ll look them up. I’ve collected all ours from friends or second hand so they’re a jumble of brands and I have to decide which ones I like before getting more.
1 Like
I will say these were supposed to last “until toilet training” and the website currently claims 18kg but Duckling grew out of them around 13kg or so and we’ve been in disposables since then (for a variety of reasons).
I posted this in my journal and thankfully @Greyweld alerted me to this thread.
I need advice on cloth diapers. When I was pregnant with Baby E I was advocating for cloth diapers but Mr E wasn’t even willing to consider them. At the time we were only planning to have one child and what I was reading said for one child you will probably break even on cloth/disposable from a cost standpoint, and there are savings when you hit 2 children. Since Mr E was the one staying home with her, and therefore would be changing the most diapers, I let him make the final decision and we went with disposables.
Now, with Baby #2 coming, he has decided that he wishes we went with cloth to begin with and he is throwing out the idea of using cloth for #2. Does it make sense to switch Baby E to cloth at this point and use cloth for #2? Are they really as complicated as they seem? Am I crazy for considering this? Do you think once we start using them he will change his mind and want to go back to the ease of disposable?
Also, how many covers will I need? How many inserts? Are there pros to different styles/types/brands?
I will definitely start out asking the buy nothing group, but I’m assuming I’ll have to do quite a bit of work to find them used outside of that group and I will probably be too lazy and just buy new.
2 Likes
What company did you rent from?
1 Like
They don’t exist anymore and I couldn’t recommend them if they did. It was a little shop in my hometown I was trying to support but had horrible customer service
ETA: I still stand by the idea of the rental, it was just the way this particular business was doing things later that I couldn’t get behind
2 Likes
Thanks, I’ll keep an eye out for other services 
1 Like
I think some diaper services stock NB sizes
Ok, so there’s a few different kinds - and it will depend on what you think will work best for your family. You can use flat Terry cloth or prefolds which need to be folded a little, then you put a cover on top.
You can get “all in twos” = AI2 which have inserts that you attach to the cover with snaps or some of them stuff inside an inner pocket.
Last is “all in ones” = AI1 which are closest to disposables, they are all one piece and maybe easiest to use but more expensive and they take a while to dry.
2 Likes
Somehow I missed this earlier and I love cloth diapers so I’ll chime in. I find them really simple but the caveat is that laundry does not bother me at all and I kinda enjoy it. I have 30 diapers and have found that to be a perfect number. It’s not so many that I can go too long without washing and have issues (things get really gross in the bin if you go more than 3 days) but it’s not so few that I’m constantly washing them.
We lucked out and bought around 22 of them on FB marketplace used from a mom who used a few of them one time and decided not to use cloth so they were basically brand new for $150. Then I was gifted some, and bought the rest new. I got a bunch of cloth wipes which are great and will have life as makeup removers/face cleaners/cleaning rags once we’re done with diapering. I have 2 water spray bottles that live in the diaper drawer and we use those to wet the wipes during changes.
Like @LadyDuck explained there’s a few kinds. We have some all in two’s, some all in one’s, some pockets, and some snap ins. The snap ins are great for going out because I can take 2 covers and many inserts in the diaper bag for a day out and it’s less bulky than taking 4 of any other kind. I prefer the all in two’s or all in ones just because they’re easiest for everything from putting on to cleaning to folding. The Grovia AIOs are probably my all around favorites. We’ve used them since Bobbin was born and different phases have meant different diapers were better so I’m glad we have several different kinds. I also have some extra bamboo and hemp inserts for extra absorption when we’ve needed them.
As far as washing, we use a spray pal to rinse out any solids into the toilet and then throw the diapers into a wet bag. For exclusively breastfed babies you can just throw the whole thing in the washer without spraying until they start eating solids. Then every 2-3 days I dump it all in the washing machine with a big scoop of oxyclean (idk what ours actually is, it’s from the eco bulk store but same idea). I do a presoak with that, hot wash with detergent and two rinses. Everything is cold except the soap wash. Then maybe once or twice a quarter I do an extra hot wash with Grovia cleaning pods. Now that I have more space and sunshine to sun my diapers I will put them out more often but in the condo I was just drying them in the dryer. You have to make sure all the padding gets dry or they will smell musty but once you figure out what that is for your dryer it’s easy enough to do. Sunning is a great way to remove stains if they concern you. We’ve been using cloth for 2 years so all of ours have stains now, especially since sunning was difficult on our small porch but I fully expect that they’ll get better again with more sun, it’s so powerful!
So that’s a lot, sorry for the novel. I felt like there was so much to learn about cloth diapers at first and then fell into what worked for our family and now it seems so simple, I hope it’s the same for you!
3 Likes
I agree 30 inserts ish. My favourite 2 right now are flipp covers with a prefolds or insert or Amazon cheap pockets. The pockets are great at the doctor or days out. I still do disposables at night.
I have 7 of the cheap pockets, and then 4 good covers. In smaller sizes 2 good covers was tight but okay, because you can handwash a cover.
I also have some fitteds, they came with my bulk lot of used prefolds. I like them for semi nudey time in the house, but I think that I would like flats as much or more.
I spent $70 on my initial set of used diapers, and then I’ve bought 2 new sizes of covers (15 each) and the set of 7 amazon cheapies (35 for 7 including microfiber). Those are kawaii, but I know people using other brands that are all the same. Friends who couldn’t get anything new are just doing the cheap pockets happily.
I bought liner paper and don’t use it. I use a wipe or toilet paper to squish poo into the toilet and then wash. I wash every 2-3 days.
My current problem is that baby is 7 months and his thighs are fatter than diaper cover holes.
2 Likes
We started cloth again today with baby #2. For baby #1 we had 6 newborn covers and 24 prefolds for newborn and that was enough for washing every 2 days and using disposables overnight. We either had a dryer or lived where line drying in winter was not an issue.
We had a similar amount of prefolds and covers in larger sizes that we used as she grew out of the newborn ones and eventually got a few extra AI2 (all in two) nappies when she was older and we wanted to do cloth overnight and wash less often.
This time we have those same prefolds and covers + 4 pocket AI2 and 3 AI2 wipeable covers with 6 snap-in inserts. All the AI2 nappies we have also came with booster inserts. I like the prefolds and covers but the AI2 options are very convenient when we are not at home as they need less fiddling to put on for me. The prefolds dry more quickly than our other nappies though and are apparently more forgiving of washing errors because they are not made of as many layers as the inserts of most AI2 nappies.
Buying second hand or cheaper options like Alvas will probably make it cost effective just for one but it depends if you can get a good price and what price of disposables you compare to. We used ours for 1.5 years and disposables for 1.5 years with our first and definitely saved money using the cloth even though it wasn’t all the time because we got an awesome deal on the second hand covers and prefolds.
1 Like
Thank you everyone for your advice! I reached out to our buy nothing group and so far I have one person giving us a big bag of Bum Genius pocket diapers. She said the elastic was replaced on some of them but not all, and that she will also put in the “old school regular cloth diapers with wool covers” that she has. So I’m assuming the Bum Genius ones are AI2 and the others are pre-folds with covers? Another person said she has a bunch of inserts she will give us.
4 Likes
Ohhhh wool covers are fancy shit. You maybe lucked out. I’m guessing with flats?
1 Like
I tried newborn cloth diapers, but found them just too small to effectively absorb the amount of liquid this baby can produce.
Now that she’s bigger, and my aunt dropped off a bunch of homemade one-size pocket diapers, I’m trying again. The weekend went pretty well, but there were two outfit changes and only one poop to deal with. I think I’ll be able to make it work during the day, but baby girl is mostly sleeping through the night and can flood a disposable, so sticking to that at night.
I also finally installed the diaper sprayer. It involved running to the store last minute for plumbers tape only to get home with it and discover plumbers tape in the kit. Oh well, better three rolls than zero. Spraying down the poopy diaper was much nicer than swishing it in the toilet bowl, so win, but I basically flushed, washed my hands, and went to Amazon to order a sprayer shield. Interestingly enough, I had exactly the amount it cost left on the balance from some baby gift cards, like to the non-round number cent!
Now I just need to convince daycare to try cloth. The director says they will, but prefer disposable, which I get, but if they’re changing every two hours anyway, then a) I save money, and b) they shouldn’t get so wet they leak. I also have a hanging wet bag coming and a smaller travel wet-dry bag for daycare. I’ll just have to make sure it’s as simple as possible. And pack even more backup clothes.
5 Likes
Tangentially related to cloth diapers…was sitting in Bobbin’s room next to a laundry basket of yet to be folded diapers and wipes while she played. I zoned out for a few minutes and when I snapped out of it I realized she was very carefully picking the wipes out of the basket and trying to lay them flat in a pile like I always do, so sweet and observant!
6 Likes
Aw, cute!
1 Like
I just found this thread and I’m also a cloth enthusiast! We’re 2.5 years in and did them from basically the beginning with a break from months 10-14 due to some medical issues.
My big recommendation that I didn’t see on my quick scan is that we use an open hamper, not a closed diaper pails. Daycare puts the diapers into a closed wet bag so I have a comparison. The open air really helps the diapers smell a LOT less. Like practically nothing for the first 1.5 years, and now we do get some smell (mostly from diapers that daycare had!) but still not bad. With newborn diapers, we don’t spray at all, once he started solids, we started spraying/plopping. We do that for disposables too when we use them because poop really isn’t supposed to go in the garbage and it helps keep the smell way down.
1 Like
Oh and to add. Our kiddo was born about 37 weeks and was in newborn diapers for AGES. We found microfiber diapers were of no use to heavy wetting but he did fine with pre-folds. Our whole stash is cotton pre-folds and covers. The whole stash was handed down, and we had three sizes 1) newborn (orange/lavender stitching) 2) infant (this is an old size but it fit him from maybe 5 months to…still fits my tiny 2.5 year old and 3) blue medium which we have never started using. Now pre-folds seem to be sold in a million sizes so I’m glad we have these and they’ve worked. We have a ton of covers so we’ve never done anything more than a padfold. It works most of the time and we have covers if it doesn’t. Daycare needs them all pre-stuffed anyway so we needed the covers and pad fold for it to work with daycare.
2 Likes
Is it worth getting a 2yr old be bigger cloth diapers? Are there transitional ones? He’s shown no interest in potties.
2 Likes