The Adventures of Cloth Diapering: part 2

As most of you know, we are a cloth diapering family. We have been using cloth diapers since Bria was about 4 weeks old. The only reason why we didn't start earlier is she was too small (5lbs. 12oz) for the diapers to work properly (there was leakage down the side of her leg). Since the beginning we have been nothing but satisfied with how well Bria and I are handling the cloth diapers. She has had only 2 minor rashes-ones that just needed a little bit more baby powder! EVER.

If you want to read my first post about cloth diapers, you can check that out here. I talk about which diapers I'm going to use, the different kinds of diapers out there, and all the research that has led me to use cloth in the first place.

After about 7 months of cloth diapering, and three different brands of diapers, here is what we found out.

Overall winner:Kawaii Baby

pluses: Diapers are easy to change. I love the snap button and how you can adjust sizes to your liking. They dry quickly when hang drying. They have all sorts of very cute patterns and colors The liners are made of soft micro fleece and they grow with your baby! One of the best parts? The prices are very reasonable ranging from $5.99 - 14.99 each. This is important as there are so many overpriced cloth diapers out there.

minuses: It is a little big and bulky (this may be just for the Goodnight Heavy wetter diapers).  If you don't do an extra rinse for the laundry, they do tend to leak.

Overall: We have 12 Kawaii Baby diapers in our rotation of about 17. These are by far, my favorite of all. Although we have both the velcro and button diapers, I prefer the button and they hold the diaper together better. I will be ordering more Kawaii baby diapers as soon as they get more diapers for their bamboo, all natural diaper line! So excited! Head on over to Kawaii Baby to order your diapers! Did I mention they have FREE shipping on all orders of $70 or more?  

 Kawaii Diaper

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Second Place: BumGenius 

pluses: They are velcro, so they are easier to snap on. The diaper liners are easy to adjust for size with buttons on the inserts. They come in cute colors. They are very easy to use. 

minuses: The velcro attracts lent and hair from the dryer, making the appearance look yucky. Also, the velcro seam is coming undone and is hart to take apart sometimes. Had many leaks due to improper fit of the insert. 

Overall: The BumGenius cloth diapers are good diapers, but they tend to leak they are easy to use and are less bulky than the Kawaii Diapers, but I still prefer the Kawaii diapers because of the no leakage aspect.  I can't get over the quick deterioration of the velcro :( 

BumGenius

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Third Place: Flip

 pluses: You can change the inner liner and keep the outer shell for multiple diaper changes. Grows as your child grows. They have disposable inserts that you can buy (I haven't tried these yet, but hope to some day).

minuses: It is a pain in the butt (pun intended) to put this on a little ones behind. With the liner not secure in a 'pocket' it's time consuming and hard to put on a wiggly baby. When I try to put this on Bria (and now it's worse that she's mobile) she kicks her legs around and takes the liner out of the shell. It also leaks if I don't have the liner completely fitted to the outershell.

Overall: These are great diapers to use when you don't have time for the laundry because you can use the outer shell multiple times. I however, will not buy anymore Flip diapers as I already have 2 and that's enough. 

 More about our cloth experiences: It's much easier than I imagined. When I first started to research cloth diapering, it was a little daunting and intimidating, but once I bought the diapers and made the commitment it has become a wonderful experience. I was so surprised at how easy it was, and once I got a system down, I couldn't imagine not using cloth diapers. Not only am I happy that we are saving money, but we are doing our part in keeping unnecessary waste out of our landfills, which, duh, is a huge part in trying to protect our planet! I would still like to get a couple more diapers (as I mentioned above, I'm going to buy from Kawaii Baby) to lessen the laundry load each week. Washing has been an easy process as well. We are lucky enough to have a child that only poops about every 2-3 days (it's normal for breastfed babies). Please, if you are thinking about cloth diapers, make the switch. It's not only cheap, but it's healthier for your baby and the environment. I'm also glad that I have enough diapers to use with the next child we have!

Still need convincing? Please check back tomorrow for a schedule and process of how we use our cloth diapers. 

Have any other brands that I should check out? I know there are tons of options out there, and I only talked about a select  few, but please let me know if you have any other recommendations for me! 

Laundry, Laundry, Laundry...Soap!

Over the weekend I made my very first batch of laundry soap. Ever! It was not that hard (once I figured out how I needed to shred the bar soap-trust me, it was harder for me than I think anyone else!) either. I will be doing this again and again. I don't think I will use store bought laundry soap anymore!

My failed attempt to grate the soap in my processor

This is better! after I used a cheese grater (this is the key word!) I used my fingers to make the soap pieces even smaller!

With making our efforts to become more green and eco-friendly I figured instead of buying a box of soap that costs around $30 for a 33 oz. box, I can definitely save money!

Here is the recipe I used:

2 cups bar soap- finely grated ($4.64 for 10 bars at 4.5 oz.)
1 cup Washing Soda ($4.19 for 55 oz. box)
1 cup Borax ($11.99 for 76 oz. box)

(I used Ivory soap, but Fels Naptha Soap, Sunlight bar soap, Kirk's Hardwater Castile, and Zote will work too. DON'T use heavily perfumed soaps!)

All you do, is mix the ingredients together and store in an airtight plastic container! Use only 2 tablespoons per full load. *The soap will not produce suds, but rest assure it is doing the job....and well!

Finished laundry detergent! I also sifted the bigger pieces outta this batch. 

So far with B's diapers, this detergent is, by far, better than the store bought brands- leaving her diapers smelling like Spring! It works amazing on our clothes too. 

I just can't wait to try different soaps with different smells... Perhaps in keeping with our eco theme I need to buy organic or eco-friendly soaps! 

I haven't figured out my cost of everything, and how many loads I can get out of each purchase, but I found a site that had a detailed breakdown of her costs just to give you an idea:

Here are my calculations: The cost of making the above recipe of laundry soap was .71 cents.  That was amazing to me!  With this 2 gallon size recipe you will have enough to do 64 loads of laundry.  That translates to about .01 cent a load. 

 How Did I Figure This Out? Here is the breakdown of my costs and how I came up with those numbers (I am using the prices I paid for these items and you may find your price varies some based on what you pay): Fels Naptha: $1.12  for a 5.5 oz bar.  The recipes says use a 1/3 of a bar.  I calculated 2 oz. just to make the math a little easier.  The cost of the Fels Naptha per batch is: .40 cents

Washing Soda: $2.23 for a 55 oz. box.  This came to .17 cents per batch.  I calculated how much per oz (2.23 divided by 55) and then weighed a half cup of washing soda (4.2oz.) and multiplied my per oz. price by 4.2 Borax: $3.27 for a 76 oz. box.  This came to .14 cents per batch.  Did the same calculations as above, however a 1/2 cup of borax weighs 3.5 oz. For the final numbers I have .40 + .17 + .14 = .71 for 2 gallons of laundry detergent. 

- Re-blogged from: The Family Homestead 

The Adventures of Cloth Diapering

Even before Clint and I got pregnant, we both knew that we wanted to diaper our little one in cloth. There are many reasons, but the number one reason for me wanting to cloth diaper is that there are absolutely NO chemicals that are touching my baby's bum-and that in itself was reason enough for me. I also found out that cloth diapered babies have less diaper rash, fewer blowouts, and are often potty trained up to a year sooner. This lovely lady has some in-depth information on cloth diapering!!

Are you intrigued yet?

Here's more:


Did you know?

*Disposable diapers have traces of a toxic called Dioxin which is within the bleaching process of the paper within the diaper

*Disposable diapers are the third largest single consumer item in landfills.

*Consumer reports state that you will spend between $1500-$2000 on disposable diapers before your baby is potty trained

(all statistics are from this site) 

Okay. So I found out some reasons that going cloth will be better for our growing family than disposables. But then you get into what kind of diapers to get.

There are literally dozens of different kinds of diapers: AIO (all in ones), pocket, fitted, etc. You can read up on them here

For now, I am using all the cloth diapers I received from my Mom(!) She gave us:

(2) Flip diapers with cloth inserts (6) BumGenius pocket diapers.

All cloth diapers (with Bria's legs)

                              

                                     Bum Genius "pocket" diapers

                                               

The Flip diapers are called hybrid diapers because it come with an exterior shell and a cloth insert that can be taken out and washed while you can reuse the shell multiple times (unless, for obvious blow-out reasons). They also offer biodegradable disposable inserts for when you are away from home and don't want to carry around soiled inserts. The Flip diapers use snaps to close and can become very small.

The BumGenius Diapers are AIO (all-in-one) diapers that have a outer shell and then a "pocket" to put your cloth inserts into (see above picture). These also use velcro in order to close the diapers (which, I'm not a huge fan of velcro, but we'll see how they do). Both the outer shell and insert have to be washed after each use which means you probably would need more of these diapers than the Flip kind.


**Both of these diapers GROW with your baby meaning that once you buy the diaper they can be used until your baby is potty trained! So really, it's truly an investment. 

I have been wanting to order some of Kawaii Eco-Friendly Bamboo Minky and Minky diapers when they become available in the 2011 colors :). Also, I would like to order a couple of GroBaby ( now called GroVia) diapers as well as some FuzziBunz.



But for now, I will be using my Flip and BumGenius diapers until I can build up my "stash" of cloth diapers.

And now for some cuteness, because I know you were all waiting for it! It's so much better taking "naked baby" pictures with a cute colorful cloth diaper than a disposable!

Now all I need to do is create cloth wipes to use with the homemade wipes instead of paper towels!