1st and last day of CD'ing! Questions
I have 2 boys, 36mo and 20mo, and we are spending about $50-$60/month on diapers. I'm due with our third Aug. 1, so we'll add one more to that list soon. Hopefully DS#1 will be potty trained soon.
I have some old school clothe diapers that my mom gave me, the ones with the giant safety pins and the big plastic covers. Yesterday, I decided we'd suck it up and give it a try.
Poopy clothe diapers are NASTY. Lol. Seriously gross. How do you clean them? Do you put gloves on and scrub them in the toilet? Hose them off in the yard? Lol. Hard poop was fine. Mushy, not so much!
They also don't seem very absorbant, and maybe it's just the kind I have. With disposables, I can run around town for 4-5 hours and not stress about it, but with these I needed to change them quite frequently.
The ones we have are.... bulbous. Lol. Such a big bubble butt on my little boys that actually have no butt. Are all CD's like that?
Also, I keep reading about all the cost savings, but they are expensive from what I can tell! Somewhere around $15-$20/diaper. I would need to get 2 sizes, I'm guessing. One for the older one, and one for the newborn, and like 20 in each size. So, 40 diapers @ $20 = $800. Not to mention any other supplies, like inserts (do all diapers have these?), extra laundry detergent, diaper pail, whatever else we'd need. So, in reality, there wouldn't be a cost savings for like 1.5 years. Right?
I'd really love to not have a garbage can full of dirty diapers waiting around until the garbage man comes, and would love to not have to run out and get diapers. But I'm having a really hard time figuring out the awesomeness of CD's, especially since I would mainly do it to save money.
Re: 1st and last day of CD'ing! Questions
That's absolutely disgusting to let a child sit in any diaper for 4-5 hours, except for overnight. Really? It's not that hard to change them every 2 hours or so.
You're using cloth that doesn't work. You're going to have to get new ones if you want to use cloth successfully.
Old school prefolds and pins are a pain in my rear. We did PFs with covers (no pins) when DD was a newborn and once her legs chubbed up a bit we switched to pocket diapers. All cloth diapers will have more of a bubble butt than disposables, but some are trimmer than others.
You can get one-size diapers that are adjustable sizes and fit from newborn through potty learning! So you wouldn't have to buy different sizes, though you would still want to buy enough to get you through a couple days with more than one child.
About the cost, yes its a hefty initial investment. But the biggest difference to me is that when you are done with the diapers you can sell them and recoup some of your expense. Certainly can't do that with sposies! On top of the actual diapers, we also bought cloth wipes (though you could easily make your own for cheap), a lidded trash can, 2 pail liners, 2 travel wetbags, detergent, CD safe rash cream, and rice paper liners. The paper liners are flushable and contain the solid bit of poo, so you can just plop to poo into the toilet and toss the diaper in the pail. You can also install a diaper sprayer on a toilet and spray diapers if you wish.
A large part of our stash is made up of NuBunz diapers, which are about $8 a piece, not $15+. So if you were really looking to not spend as much, there are cheaper options out there. We have had no problems with the NuBunz, so I like them just as well as I like our FuzziBunz or Happy Heinys or Bottom Bumpers.
The longest I have ever kept DD in a cloth diaper (while running errands) was close to 3 hours, and she didn't leak but that diaper was soaked! At home I change her much more often, at least every 2 hours if not sooner.
Check out websites like Kelly'sCloset.com or AbbysLane.com for info.
The O'Baby Blog
i learned most of what i know lurking on EFF. i know lots of the AP mamas use CD, but the EFF regulars are the real experts
this is a good overview too, and it covers some of the cost issues.
if the ones you have are really old-school, they're probably pretty terrible. they sound most comparable in style to prefolds (big square of fabric?). modern prefolds are crazy absorbent. i don't think many mamas use pins anymore. they either just fold and cover or use something called a snappi. we never used many prefolds, but we did/do use fitteds w/covers. thirsties covers are great! those old plastic pants have got to go
yes, cloth have to be changed more often than sposies, but that can be a good thing. if nothing else, many mamas find it helps their kiddos potty train since they know what wet feels like.
yes, there is a big ole bubble butt. some styles are trimmer than others, but many CD mamas have big love for the fluffy butt tho.
there are adjustable O/S dipes that would probably fit your older boys and would fit the baby after about 10-13 lbs. when our DD was newborn, we did a rental from Nell's Natural Baby. that way, we weren't out too much on a size she would be out of by ~3mos.
we also did trials from Jillian's Drawers and Sunshine Diapers. clearly, i like to do research before i commit
i hope some of this helps. GL!
Oh Lord...where to start on this one...
First, like pp said, I think it's kind of gross that you leave your kid in the same diaper for 4-5 hours. To answer your question, YES, you'll need to change a cloth diaper more often than that. You should be changing a disposable more often than that. If your kid doesn't pee within 5 hours, I'd suspect he is dehydrated and that's a problem. If he is wet and you're leaving him in pee, that's also a problem.
Secondly, it sounds like your diapers are the problem. You yourself said they were very old, which could be part of the reason why they aren't very absorbent.
Third, on sizing, I'd recommend a one sized diaper to you that should accomodate a younger baby and your toddler. This will help in the money department. I'd think for 2 kids, you'd need around 25 dipes. You probably won't be able to use the OS cloth on a tiny newborn, but once they hit about 10 lbs it should fine.
Poop: I dump poop into the toilet. Her poop is rarely mushy, but if it is, I use toilet paper to wipe it off. It's really not that big a deal. There are also diaper sprayer thingies that you can attach to your toilet, but I've never found them necessary.
Ditto pp on letting your kid sit in a dirty dipe for 4-5 hours. That's seriously nasty.
That's probably also why the poop was so nasty - if they sit in it too long it's going to get all squished.
Get some decent CDs & change your children more often. That's pretty much the solution here.
Oh boy, well, I see why you're frustrated with CDing. You're doing it wrong
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#1. Don't use the prefolds your mom gave you.
#2. Build up a stash of one size diapers. If the initial investment freaks you out buy from a store like Jilliansdrawers.com that accepts returns if it doesn't work out. You can also buy gently used CDs on diaperswappers.com in the FSOT section. I've been doing that, saving a ton of money, and everything has been in great condition, usually only used a few times.'
#3: You don't have to get all the poop off before putting it in the pail, we just wipe what we can off with some toilet paper and put it in the toilet. You can also buy a sprayer to go on your toilet, or buy flushable liners for your CDs.
#4: Fluffy butts are part of the package, embrace them. It's cute.
#5: I'm pretty sure you aren't supposed to leave any diaper on for 4-5 hours during the day. You'll need to change CDs every 2 hours.
#6: Read this: https://simplemom.net/tools/cloth-diapering/
If your goal is to save money, then you might also want to look at pre-folds. They usually only cost $1-2 each. You would need to buy them in multiple sizes, but we found pre-folds to be very useful as burp cloths, etc. as well, so it never hurt to have the extra sizes around. As pps have mentioned, you can also buy one-sized fitted diapers that will basically fit LO from around 10 lbs until they use the toilet. You would probably need to buy some newborn sized diapers or you could just use sposies for the newborn stage than switch to cloth when your new baby can wear the same diapers as your middle child.
We use prefolds with thirsties covers and snappis during the day and Bum Genius 3.0 at night. In addition to the diapers themselves, we've bought the covers, snappis, a diaper sprayer, an extra garbage can, 2 big wet bags for storing the dirty diapers, some smaller wetbags for travel/daycare, and special soap. We may only ever have 1 kid, but we feel confident that we'll save money in the long run. You should definitely save in the long run if you would be using them for more than 1 kid. You can find a cost comparison at https://www.jilliansdrawers.com/newtocloth.
We do have the diaper sprayer, which attaches to the toilet and lets you clean offer diapers with water, and I really like it. The diapers have very little poop on them when I put them in the pail, and it is really easy to use. You can also buy disposable/flushable liners so you just dump that into the toilet with the poop, and there is very little left to clean up.
Lol. Let me clarify a couple things. My children DO NOT sit in soiled diapers every day for 4-5 hours. There have been rare times that they have been in a diaper for 4 hours. They DO NOT sit in poop all day long. Also, they both nap for 3-4 hours, during which I don't wake them up to change them. DS#2 always have nasty stools, never hard, and yesterday we had chili. Did not make for easy "dump in the pot" diapers to clean up.
Sheesh.
I'm loving all the info and sites you are guys are directing me to. I'll get looking into some of that stuff and see if it makes this easier!
Ditto on the all-in-ones if you're diapering more than one. They are a little more costly, but you'll never have to buy another size. I do think you'll need more than 25 though if you don't plan to launder every day. I would say 35-40 is a good number. Also, you can get them cheaper if you buy in bulk.
Diaperswappers is great too. i was intimidated by it for the longest time because it's just not a user friendly layout IMO, but once you get the hang of it you can save some serious dollars.
Jillian's drawers does a diaper trial where you can try them for $10 for 3 weeks. Might check out something like that before new baby arrives to help you decide what to buy.
We use old school prefolds, pins and "rubber pants."
In the beginning, rinsing out the pooped-in CD was a bit nasty, but I got used to it fast. Cold water, rub the poop fabric together (and yes my hands are all up in it - I just WASH them after...) and toss in the diaper pail (a water + baby oxyclean soak I have in a chrome covered small pail in my bathroom.
Rubber pants don't ahve to be changed every every time - I can usually get 2 changes out of 'em.
THe pins you get used to - watch a youtube video on how to pin them.
Twice a week I do a diaper wash - dump diapers + soak into bathroom sink, squeeze them out and put back in diaper pail. Diaper pail goes down to laundry room, I do a cold rinse by hand in the slop sink, wash the diapers on super hot/soiled setting, air dry rubber pants, diapers go in the dryer and viola - major savings.
Once you get used to it, it's nothing.
And I don't even have a washer/dryer in my apt.
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You know you don't have to rinse bf poo off right? It dissolves in water.
your OP didn't imply that the 4-5 hours with no diaper change was a rare occurrence.
I would suggest buying used to try it out. With 3 kids you will definitely see a savings prior to 1.5 years- we only have one and we probably broke even 3 months ago.