How we do cloth diapering - Part 1

I get asked often on cloth diapering but somehow I never write a single post about it. Mainly because, I want to show pictures of the process. However, when the time came to take picture of the soiled diaper, my clean-freak nature took over and I'm no longer in the mood of documenting. Thanks to Annie who has been has been e-mailing me a few times to ask about cloth diapering, this post is finally up. By the way, SimpleMom.net has extended posts on Cloth Diapering that worth reading here

-> As for us, Why We Do it: 
a. To save money,

A friend argued if this is true after all one cloth diaper cost $18 versus. 24 cents for cloth diaper (meaning you got to wash the cloth for about 80 times in order to match the price of disposable ones.) Will it able to withstand so many wash? I answered: depends on how often or how long your baby use them. So far I still use all my cloth diapers after almost 1.5 years of use  (1 year for Max & 5 months for Wes). In addition, by wearing cloth diaper, the kids can feel when they are wet, which help them to be...

b. Potty trained faster

Max is done with diapers at 21 months (except when he is sleeping) vs the average American boys at 30+ months.

c. Reduce rash on baby skin

d. Good for the environment: less diapers to be thrown on the landfill

-> How many cloth diaper should I get:
It also depends on how often you want to use or wash them. I personally do not use cloth 100%. We use disposable when we're out, baby being babysit by others, and at night time (because with disposable we don't have to change the diaper in the middle of the night)
I have 20 cloth diapers and it usually last me +/- 4 days.
Start with a few and see how you handle/ like it.

->Which cloth diaper should I buy?
Below is my review on 3 different cloth diapers that I tried:
A. Babyland from Ebay. This one is cheap (about $6 per diaper) but you got the value that you pay for. It's not well made (with only 1 year of use, the elastic on the leg part is stretched out), thin, and keep leaking. I ended up having to buy more inserts and. I still use it but definitely NOT recommend it:

B. Fuzzi Bunz. I like it the snap on fastener option. The insert is thick but it's not wide enough thus doesn't hold as much as...

C. Bum Genius. If I could do it over. I will not buy other diapers but this one. Bum Genius only has Velcro fastener when I first started on cloth diapering. It still works fine after 1+ year of use but I read some reviews that the Velcro does wear off after extensive use but according to this article Cotton babies (the maker of Bum Genius) offers Velcro replacement kit for a small fee if it does happen.

The good news is the company just came up the new and improved version: Bum Genius 4.0 with snap on fastener, which is what I bought for Wes last December. This is definitely our favorite:

If you plan to buy in bulk (six or more), I found it cheaper to buy through this site: Nurtured Family than anywhere else:

On the next post I'll answer the big question: How about the poop/ How do you clean them?


How we do cloth diapering - Part 2