Navigating the world of cloth diapering

Our family has decided to cloth diaper baby E!  While we were nervous at first, we actually quite like it!  We had discussed doing this well before she was born.  We had planned to attend a class on cloth diapering at a local business, but, as you all know, I was on bed rest and was never able to go.  Sure, I had a lot of people offer to go in my place and buy the diapers for me but I wanted to be the one to go, this was my child and I felt I had the right to experience this myself not through someone else.

So, we waited.  We finally went to our local boutique while baby E was still in the NICU.  Kind of weird shopping for your baby and she be nowhere in sight.  But, they were amazing and very informative and I am glad I waited to go myself.  Since she was a preemie and weighed all of 4.5 pounds, we decided to buy a few of the lil joey's.  They are made for babies 4-12 pounds, however, she is now 9 pounds and I feel like they are almost too small.  We loved them!  Definitely took some getting used too and we only bought 4 to start, just to make sure we liked them.  Buying 4 at the time meant we were doing laundry like crazy and we eventually went and bought 6 more, so we have 10 lil joey's, still not enough. We didn't want to buy more though because we knew soon she would out grow them.    

We knew from the beginning we wanted something easy, something that worked like a disposable.  So we decided the bumGenius all-in-ones  were the best fit for our needs, and she can wear them until she is close to 35 pounds!  HOLLA!  Being a working mom, I knew I did not want to spend my nights stuffing diapers, I would rather be loving on my little girl.  So, we ordered 24 of these from cottonbabies.com.  Which by the way, we have been super impressed with this company.  We had ordered disposable liners just last week and they were here within a few days, same with the diapers.  I ordered those on Valentine's Day and we received them 5 days later, not bad. 

A lot of people ask, what do you do with the used cloth diapers?!  It's easy!  For when we are at home, we just bought a small trash can and a diaper pail bag (that you wash with the diapers) and we throw them in there.  If she poops, yes I said poop, then we let the diaper soak and then spray before we put it in the bag.  If there is no poop, just urine, we toss right into the bag!  It is easy, tricky part is getting the grandparents on board!  For when we are out and about, we use a wet bag.  We purchased the medium sized bag and it can hold quite a few diapers!  Fits great in your diaper bag, too!

So, we shall see how this goes.  We are really only doing this to save money and because a fluffy butt it so cute!  We saw somewhere that you can expect to spend around $1600/year on diapers for one child.  Considering your child may not learn to use the potty until about 3 years old, we figure we are saving quite a bit AND we can use these for baby #2 down the road.  We have probably spent close to $600 total, not bad.  Granted, we are doing more laundry and we do have to purchase a separate laundry detergent (we use Rockin Green, hard rock since we have well water), I think we are still saving!

Check out baby E wearing her lil joey's:

I am by all means NOT an expert but I am here if you have any questions!  I know cloth diapering is the new cool thing to do :)