Cloth Diapers: Rachel’s Definitive Recommendations

Before the babies were born, I did ludicrously exhaustive research on cloth diapers, changing my mind many, many times about what I thought the best options would be for us. Now that Matt and I have been using cloth diapers on Julian and Eloise for about nine months, my opinions have crystallized about the single best, most effective, and most economical diaper system. I find myself moved to offer these opinions up to others who might want to skip the research and go with one extremely smart person’s* recommendations. So here they are: (Suggested quantities are estimates for ONE baby.)

The essentials:
18-24 Cloth-eez prefolds (hands down the best prefolds)
5-6 Thirsties covers
3 Snappis fasteners
3-4 BumGenius one-size pocket diapers

The advantages of this system are many. In spite of their plainness compared to much more elaborate diapers, prefolds have many benefits. They are cheap; they are every bit as effective (if not more so) than the fancier options; they are very easy to use after a day or so of practice; and they are a breeze to care for. When paired with Thirsties covers, they are about as good a diaper option as you can find.

BumGenius diapers are incredibly effective and absorbent, and we have had very few issues with leaks overnight. Because they’re one-size, they should last from birth to potty training. Presumably if you had a good bit of money to spend (though still less than the cost of disposables!) you could do an all-BumGenius stash, and I know plenty of people who do this. I just kind of hate stuffing pocket diapers.

One huge advantage of this set of diapers is that they can all be bleached. I know some people aren’t fans of bleach, and I suppose it’s something to avoid if your baby has very sensitive skin, but it has never bothered our babies and an occasional bleaching really rejuvenates a diaper stash.

The optional splurgy bonuses:
3-4 Thirsties Fab Fitteds or Kissaluvs fitteds (for friends and relatives intimidated by prefolds — pretty foolproof)
2 Sposoeasy all-in-ones (for the diaper bag)

Neither is necessary, but both are nice.

The accessories:
-Diaper pail (this one works great)
-2 pail liners (we use these)
-2 wet bags (for the diaper bag; we use these)
-24-30 cloth wipes (Thirsties work great for us)
-Spray bottle (for wetting wipes)
-Baby Bits wipes soap (one box will last months)
-Strip of velcro loops (optional, for hanging covers to dry — put it on the underside of a table or shelf — possibly Matt’s best invention ever)
-Toilet spray hose (for dealing with non-breastmilk poo)
-Diaper detergent (we use Country Save but I’m not convinced it’s the best; many people like Charlie’s Soap and Allen’s Naturally, but I haven’t tried either (yet); consult this list)
-RLR laundry treatment (use every couple months to remove detergent build-up from your diapers — the number one cause of stinkiness)
-California Baby calendula cream (use this or another product on this list for simple diaper rash — for serious diaper rash, use serious diaper cream with disposable diapers for a day or two)

And there you have my unsolicited opinions. I hope this is helpful to someone. I’m always happy to answer questions — I think after I convert 10 people to cloth diapers I get a toaster oven.

Julian and Eloise say: We love our cloth diapers!

*Everyone knows this is a joke, even if I don’t use an emoticon, right? I’m trying to wean myself off them.

Filed under Baby Stuff | Tags: cloth, diapers, gear, howto | Comments (14)

Prefolds

Well. That took a while.

Over a month ago, I promised a series of posts on cloth diapers, but then stuff happened. Mostly, Ellie happened. I won’t say that situation is entirely resolved, but she has her eyes closed at the moment, so I figure this is as good a time as any to catch up on some all-important blogging. (You may have also noticed the flood of daily picture posts below… we’re still catching up, but we’re much less far behind than we were. If for some reason two photos a day of our kids aren’t enough for you, you should probably also be watching my Flickr photostream, which has rather a lot of photos in it.)

So! Diapers!

Julian and Eloise each go through between six and eight diapers a day, and the vast majority of those are prefold cloth diapers. Prefolds are rectangles of absorbent cotton that have been folded over several times and quilted together so the thickest part of the fabric is right where the action happens. We use the unbleached version, because (if for no other reason) it seems silly to employ a sparkling white item for such a dirty business.

There is a little advance work you have to do to use prefolds. Rachel put them through three wash cycles before we used them, which shrinks, softens, and thickens them.

Since they’re just rectangles, you have to fashion them into a little baby loincloth when you put them on. We use a slightly different wrap technique for each baby. Ellie, as you can see in the pictures, gets the “twist.” You put the prefold under her butt, twist it around to form an hourglass shape, and pull the front up. This focuses the twisted (and thickest) part of the diaper where her business end is. For Julian, we fold the front into thirds, vertically, and then pull it up, focusing the thickest part of the diaper in front, which is where the peeing happens.

In this day and age, you aren’t forced to hold them together with sharp safety pins. Instead, you use a clever little plastic doodad called a Snappi. It’s a Y-shaped piece of stretchy plastic with little plastic teeth that grip the diaper fabric. You just wrap the diaper around the baby, snap on the Snappi, and voila. Secure and snug, and no pokes.

Of course, that’s not quite it. Prefolds are absorbent (really absorbent) but not waterproof. Since you presumably don’t want pee to soak through the diaper onto your baby’s adorable outfit, you need to enclose the whole assembly in a waterproof diaper cover. Our favorites are the Thirsties covers which have double elasticized leg gussets to hold everything in and double-sided Velcro tabs for a snug fit, and come in a variety of cheery colors… which you’ll never see, since presumably your baby is wearing pants most of the time. Ah, well.

As I think I mentioned in the initial post, we use cloth wipes, as well. We use Thirsties wipes pretty much exclusively. We have a spray bottle on the changing table containing water with a little bit of soap dissolved in it. We just moisten the wipe, and go to down. They’re so soft, I wish I could use them. (Take a moment to enjoy that image, won’t you?)

The dirty diaper and wipe go in the laundry pail, and unless it’s visibly soiled, the cover gets hung to air out for another use. (We basically have four covers in rotation—two for each baby—during a given day.) Since the covers have convenient Velcro tabs, we stuck a strip of Velcro tape under the edge of our changing table so we could easily hang the covers.

To recap: put on the prefold, snap on the Snappi, and Velcro on the cover. That’s it! I honestly think our cloth diapering procedure takes maybe 20 percent longer than a disposable diaper change. That seems completely worth it to me. (Not to mention that the prefolds cost about $2 each, and we’ve probably used each one more than thirty times. Compare that to the cost of disposables!)

Julian helpfully agreed to help Rachel demonstrate in the following video:

(Man, you can really tell from how tiny Ellie looks in the pictures how long ago we took these. Where does the time go? Also, since the babies are bigger now, the diapers fit much better, too.)

Filed under Baby Stuff, Parenting | Tags: cloth, diapers, howto, prefolds | Comments (18)