Cloth Diapering update

We have officially cloth diapered Truman for a month now, since we waited for his cord to fall off for the first 3 weeks, and overall we really like it. I figured it'd be nice to do an update because I've already learned so much actually DOING the CD thing versus just reading about it---quite the difference!

You may remember my other posts about cloth diapering but if not they are all here for your pleasure. We chose to go with the most inexpensive method of CD'ing which is prefolds plus covers and my 36 infant-sized prefolds have certainly racked up the miles on baby boy. The sad thing is that he's already grown out of this size which was a LOT sooner than I anticipated even though Green Mountain Diapers states on their site that they will last up to 10 pounds. In fact, the prefolds have been a little too small for a few weeks now but I just wasn't ready to take the plunge and purchase a different size. You see, although I don't really mind prefolds and covers they are extremely annoying to deal with at night and even during the day when mister man is wiggling all around on the changing table, freaking out, and ready to eat. You have to fold the diapers up, then wrap them around his body, then use your Snappi to fasten them, the apply the cover. That is a lot of steps to repeat approximately 30492 times in one day with a newborn and their hyper-active bowel and bladder systems! Although prefolds are a fabulous choice for your wallet in these early weeks because you get so much bang for your buck, they are a lot more time consuming in my opinion and there's definitely a learning curve when it comes to folding them correctly. We had numerous leaks early on because I wasn't folding them correctly then some more leaks because I wasn't applying the covers tight enough. I have those kinks ironed out by now and did go ahead and purchase a dozen size 'medium' prefolds to use until he's 30 pounds. They are a little bulky and big right now but that's okay---I'd rather use them for longer and have them be too large at first.

Here is the infant prefold fastened and ready to go on my baby boy:


Here is my favorite cover by 'Thirsties' in the x-small size (way too little now):


And in the size 'small' which is a little roomy but much better. It will be great with the size medium prefolds, too, but of course I didn't take a picture of the medium PF yet. Just imagine that I did, okay?


So obviously, 12 new prefolds will NOT be enough to cloth diaper our little dude full time unless I do laundry every single day ( I refuse! REFUSE!). So after much debate, I caved in and am entertaining Nate's original idea to use the more expensive but exponentially easier pocket-type diapers. Basically, instead of having a separate prefold plus a cover that can be reused over and over again before washing, these babies are very similar to a disposable in that they are a one-time use diaper that needs to be laundered after he wears it. You just stuff an insert into a pocket and it's ready to go which cuts down on the application time quite a bit, since you aren't folding and using a snappi to the inner liner.

So I researched all sorts of diapers to death (I mean, really---it was kind of disgusting how much I researched this decision) and really wanted to try about 8 different brands before deciding which I liked best. But Nate convinced me to stick with 3 brands and get multiples of each, so that we can really try them out before tossing them in the wash. I found two websites that offer a 30 day money back return policy at Diaper Junction and Jillian's Drawers and felt best splurging on these diapers knowing that I can easily return them (yes, used!) if they don't work for us.

So what did I get?

Check out these babies!




1. The famous BumGenius One Size 3.0 pocket diaper, created in St. Louis of course! These are the only ones we got with velcro instead of snaps and they come with two different inserts, great to double stuff for nighttime. I swear, Truman is a 'heavy wetter' and can rip through all diapers in a split second so I'm all about double stuffing. And yes, he even wet through disposables--maybe more often than cloth, actually.



So freaking cute, right? It goes pretty high up his back at this point but overall the fit of these rock and I love how quickly the shell dries for us every time. It's a little early to say but I think these are our favorites so far.

2. The Kissaluvs Marvels One Size All in One Diaper. Technically it really is a pocket diaper, not a true 'all in one' but the insert is sewn inside and pops right out in the wash so you don't have to pull it out after use. But you do need to stuff it back inside once it's clean so I still think it's a pocket dipe.





Dang, does anyone else think my baby has MAJOR back in this puppy? The way the insert is sewn in makes the backside a little bulky especially on my young baby, giving him the illusion of a shelf butt. But remember, all of these diapers are designed to fit a baby from about 10 pounds on up through potty training so we are in the stage where all of them might seem a little bulky.

3. Fuzzibunz One Size diaper, not to be confused with their popular 'Perfect Size' diaper that comes in individual sizes and won't fit throughout the years. I kind of wanted to try the Perfect Size type but Nate wanted to stick with One Sized, and thus we have these cute little buggers. The interesting thing with this dipe is that you can manually adjust how tight the leg holes are with elastic and buttons. Very clever, Fuzzibunz! These come with two inserts as well and can be double stuffed pretty easily, too.




Now I must show that we do own two other 'fancy' diapers (any dipe that is not a prefold and cover is fancy to me), due to my St. Louis baby shower hostesses. They bought us our entire cloth diaper registry and I had these two diapers on there for fun.

1. The Dream-Eze All in One Organic diaper. This one is not a One Size and will probably only fit for a few more weeks but I love it and it's super sleek. Again, with the snaps...





2. And possibly my favorite one yet, the bumGenius Organic All in One, One size diaper. With a long name like that you know it's a good one and also the most expensive by far:)



Please ignore my poor baby's temper tantrum and spit up in this pic. I had to move fast and then make it all better by taking him off his tummy after I snapped this picture:)


So I won't go into great detail comparing each diaper but basically, we have 5 different types of 'fancy' diapers and they are SO much easier than prefolds. I'm still going to use the bigger sized prefolds but nighttime and daycare will definitely be all pockets at this point. I'm a huge fan of both bumGenius diapers we have right now and all of the others are pretty nice, too. We are trying to keep track of how many times he'll leak through each brand and how many hours they last and at this point the BG 3.0 are definitely winning out. I'm contemplating sending the others back and getting more of the BG 3.0 but we'll see.

The great thing about cloth, and especially these 'one size' dipes is that we can use them all the way through Truman's potty training and also for subsequent children thus still saving us boat loads of money. But I already told Nate that when we have our girl (God willing!) I will be forced to buy her at least a few pink and girlie printed diapers and he'll just have to deal with that:)

Okay, I could talk about cloth diapers all day but I will stop now. Let me know if you have any questions I should cover in the future!