Cloth Diapering (Part II)

You can read about our decision to cloth diaper in my Cloth Diapering (Part I) post.

Once we made the decision to go with cloth diapers, we were overwhelmed with the amount of choices there are out there!  Holy moly it's confusing.  Prefolds, pocket, all-in-one, one size, fitted cloth, hybrids, etc.  Where do we even start?

I read up on a lot of different bloggers and what they were using.  I figured we'd likely have to pick a few different kinds we liked and test them out to see which ones work best for baby girl and our style.  But I wasn't sure I wanted to register for them online or not.

Luckily, a friend here in Baltimore pointed us to Soft and Cozy Baby.  It's a new cloth diapering store here in Baltimore (Hampden to be exact) that sells all kinds of brands.  We checked it out so we could see and feel the different types of diapers.

We ultimately registered for several different kinds.  The brands we're trying out are GroBaby (which are now being called GroVia), Fuzzibunz Perfect Size, BunGenius One Size Pocket, and G Diapers. 

I love how far cloth diapers have come.  They are now stylish with all their adorable colors, and much easier than the old fashioned prefolds with covers/clips.  I can't wait to try them out.  Cloth Diapering (Part III) will be coming after baby girl arrives and we have time to try them out!

Cloth Diapering (Part I)

The diaper debate...cloth v. disposable seems to be a hot topic in parent-land.  People have very strong opinions one way or the other.  I'm going to share what we're doing and hope you'll share your opinions on it as well.

It seems as if there's a trend of people going back to cloth.  I approached the topic much like I did with labor and delivery decisions:  I was skeptical and wanted to know what the big deal was.  Well, I learned quite a few things and a couple facts stood out as being important to me.  The environmental impact that disposable diapers leave on our earth is insane.  Even if we could cut down on that impact a little bit, it was an interest to me.  Also, everyone talks about the price of cloth being so much cheaper.  Well, I think it depends on what type of cloth diaper you plan on using.  If you're going to use the prefolds with a cover, then I think this is absolutely cheaper.  If you're going to use the fancy schmancy cloth diapers, it probably is still slightly cheaper than doing disposable, especially if you plan on using them for siblings.  Finally, babies who wear cloth diapers tend to get less diaper rash and potty train sooner than kids in disposables.

The downsides that were important to me:  the time it takes to use cloth (the laundry, care, etc.); the fact that you have to change the baby's diaper much more often (this is also somewhat of a good thing for baby at least, not so fun for mom and dad who have to get up through the night to change the diapers); the upfront cost of buying all of the diapers.

I won't go into more details than that...some other bloggers have done a fantastic job explaining the pros and cons.  If you're more interested, take a look at Julia's post on why she and her husband chose to go cloth.

We weighed our options and looked into both cloth and disposable diapers.  We decided that with our lifestyle the way it is right now, we want to try to go the cloth diaper route.  Baby girl will be home with us the first 6 months, so we really do have the time to devote to trying it out.  She won't be in daycare until she's about 6 months old.  It makes sense for us.  We'll likely still have a stash of disposables for when we're traveling or when cloth diapering just won't work.  But cloth diapering has come such a long way that it seems more manageable than it used to be. 

So yep - we're going to try the cloth diapers.  I will go into more detail about cloth diaper shopping - how we're choosing the right cloth diaper, and where we've shopped for them in another post.  Stay tuned!