Some of the stuff has already been addressed but another perspective to add to the CDing camp.
Cons:
- It can be harder to find a daycare that's willing to CD. If you are going to try don't even ask until you are there in person touring, bring a AIO or pocket diaper with you (already put together) to show them how similar they are to disposibles. Show them the wet bag you would be sending so they know they wouldn't have to provide a container. Also if you are going to use them at daycare APLIX is generally more user friendly for first time users so you may want to tilt your stash heavily towards those vs snaps since it looks less daunting.
- The risk with sending stuff to daycare is if there's a new person in the room they may not understand not to use diaper rash creams that aren't CD compatible so you may end up having a diaper or two pay that price.
- They are more work, anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to themselves. Washing, drying/hang drying/sunning, stuffing (assuming you use pockets) does suck time there's no way around that. I used to stuff diapers while watching TV since it's mindless work but it's still another chore.
- One sized diapers while fabulous for most of your journey do have their flaws. They won't fit a newborn til around 11-12 lbs and once your kid is really moving with a big old Boda belly, and wierdly skinny or fat legs you can end up with leaking problems or fit issues. (Hence why we stopped when we did)
- Spraying diapers (esp when they first start solids for probably 3-4 months and are in the peanut butter poop phase) is gross. Once they get older it's not usually an issue you can just plop it out of the diaper but it can be gross esp if you have a low gross out tolerence.
Pros:
- Cheaper: We CDed DD from 10lbs thru about 20 months. That was a lot of money we weren't throwing away in disposables and now will be able to use those same diapers for our son when he's born. We bought mostly gender neutral colors so we could use them regardless what the next kid was and I will still use the pink few I have on him I'll just make sure he's got pants on .
- Best thing, I think we had maybe 2 poopy blow outs her entire time in cloth and only a few leaks, usually due to inexperienced users not tightening them enough. I have friends who's kids in disposibles had blow outs all the time and I was completely baffled.
- You always have diapers on hand, you may need to wash them but you always have them
- Better for many kids with sensative skin.
- Oh and cute, esp on girls who wear a lot of dresses, we didn't use diaper covers ever when she was in cloth no need to.
How many and what you need:
-We have a really large stash since I got many as seconds/used but if you are planning to do laundry every other day you should have about 26 diapers (assuming 12 a day which gives you a little wiggle room if they aren't all dry by the next morning yet )
- 2 hanging wet bags or can liners. I really liked our Planetwise hanging Wet bags. They were 30 bucks each but then we didn't need a diaper pail at all, I just hung them from one of those metal Command hooks attached to the end of DD's dresser.
- 2-3 wet bags to send to daycare or to use when you are out and about to put dirty's in.
- CD safe diaper cream - there are many on the market but some good ones are: CJ's Butt Butter, Angel Baby Momma.
- Some fleece liners (you can make these from some cheap fleece you buy at Joanne fabrics, they don't have to be stitched on the sides since they don't fray just cut to size) 3-6 good to have for when your baby has a bad diaper rash and you need to use something stronger like A&D but don't want it on the diapers.
- Diaper Sprayer (don't need this til they start solids though)
Also if you are going to CD it honestly just makes sense to do cloth wipes as well. Again one less thing to buy and believe me it's really annoying to try and throw away just disposible wipes when you have no disposible diaper to containn them in. Otherwise they usually end up in the wash with the diapers and get stuck to everything. Way easier to just use cloth wipes that you can throw in at the same time as the diapers. Again something you can easily make if you have a sewing machine. Buy some flannel from a fabric store put two pieces together, back to back and zig zag stitch/or serge them all the way around the edges. 6x8 is a good size for these.
We're using cloth diapers. We think that overall they're better in so many ways. And they've really come a long way from when our mom's used them on us. You can get them now where they're very similar to disposable diapers.
Re: Cloth vs Disposable diapers
Some of the stuff has already been addressed but another perspective to add to the CDing camp.
Cons:
- It can be harder to find a daycare that's willing to CD. If you are going to try don't even ask until you are there in person touring, bring a AIO or pocket diaper with you (already put together) to show them how similar they are to disposibles. Show them the wet bag you would be sending so they know they wouldn't have to provide a container. Also if you are going to use them at daycare APLIX is generally more user friendly for first time users so you may want to tilt your stash heavily towards those vs snaps since it looks less daunting.
- The risk with sending stuff to daycare is if there's a new person in the room they may not understand not to use diaper rash creams that aren't CD compatible so you may end up having a diaper or two pay that price.
- They are more work, anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to themselves. Washing, drying/hang drying/sunning, stuffing (assuming you use pockets) does suck time there's no way around that. I used to stuff diapers while watching TV since it's mindless work but it's still another chore.
- One sized diapers while fabulous for most of your journey do have their flaws. They won't fit a newborn til around 11-12 lbs and once your kid is really moving with a big old Boda belly, and wierdly skinny or fat legs you can end up with leaking problems or fit issues. (Hence why we stopped when we did)
- Spraying diapers (esp when they first start solids for probably 3-4 months and are in the peanut butter poop phase) is gross. Once they get older it's not usually an issue you can just plop it out of the diaper but it can be gross esp if you have a low gross out tolerence.
Pros:
- Cheaper: We CDed DD from 10lbs thru about 20 months. That was a lot of money we weren't throwing away in disposables and now will be able to use those same diapers for our son when he's born. We bought mostly gender neutral colors so we could use them regardless what the next kid was and I will still use the pink few I have on him I'll just make sure he's got pants on
.
- Best thing, I think we had maybe 2 poopy blow outs her entire time in cloth and only a few leaks, usually due to inexperienced users not tightening them enough. I have friends who's kids in disposibles had blow outs all the time and I was completely baffled.
- You always have diapers on hand, you may need to wash them but you always have them
- Better for many kids with sensative skin.
- Oh and cute, esp on girls who wear a lot of dresses, we didn't use diaper covers ever when she was in cloth no need to.
How many and what you need:
-We have a really large stash since I got many as seconds/used but if you are planning to do laundry every other day you should have about 26 diapers (assuming 12 a day which gives you a little wiggle room if they aren't all dry by the next morning yet
)
- 2 hanging wet bags or can liners. I really liked our Planetwise hanging Wet bags. They were 30 bucks each but then we didn't need a diaper pail at all, I just hung them from one of those metal Command hooks attached to the end of DD's dresser.
- 2-3 wet bags to send to daycare or to use when you are out and about to put dirty's in.
- CD safe diaper cream - there are many on the market but some good ones are: CJ's Butt Butter, Angel Baby Momma.
- Some fleece liners (you can make these from some cheap fleece you buy at Joanne fabrics, they don't have to be stitched on the sides since they don't fray just cut to size) 3-6 good to have for when your baby has a bad diaper rash and you need to use something stronger like A&D but don't want it on the diapers.
- Diaper Sprayer (don't need this til they start solids though)
Also if you are going to CD it honestly just makes sense to do cloth wipes as well. Again one less thing to buy and believe me it's really annoying to try and throw away just disposible wipes when you have no disposible diaper to containn them in. Otherwise they usually end up in the wash with the diapers and get stuck to everything. Way easier to just use cloth wipes that you can throw in at the same time as the diapers. Again something you can easily make if you have a sewing machine. Buy some flannel from a fabric store put two pieces together, back to back and zig zag stitch/or serge them all the way around the edges. 6x8 is a good size for these.
@numeria11 - Great post!
And for cloth wipes, we just used baby wash clothes - perfect size and cheap.
And for the one-size, DD used them until she potty trained without any issues.