Cloth Diapers

I absolutely love my cloth diapers. I have about 40 of them. I have been trying to convince my baby sister to go cloth for her third son, due in late June. As I told her, the hardest part is stopping!

 

Way back in August 2012, I wrote my first cloth diaper post. At the time, I had found some cheap eBay pocket diapers but then chose to go with a 200 dollar Bummi's prefold kit. My Mom also made some diaper covers and Mr. Picky's Mom gave me some prefold diapers that had been his when he was a baby. Well, after Miss Salean was born, she put us in our place really quickly! I started cloth diapering her around a week old. The diapers were huge and she hated them! After about 3 days of constant crying when she was in cloth, I threw in the towel, sold everything that I had bought, and packed away what our Moms had given me.

 

A few months later, I discovered Alva Baby. In some circles, they are considered 'China Cheapies' and are scoffed at. In others, they are the best thing ever. I am with the latter group. I love them, they cost about 6 dollars each (locally, the same type of diaper are about 28 dollars each). Yes, they ship from China and they take 3 weeks to get here, but they do the trick and they have not broken the bank. Best of all, Salean loves them!

 

The type of diapers I use are called pocket diapers. This is because they come in two parts: the cover with a pocket in the back, and the liner that gets stuffed into the pocket. Both parts are shown below. At the very top of the cover, the elastic at the opening of the pocket can be seen.  

 

Below is the opening and the pad sticking out of the pocket. I use microfiber pads, one comes with each diaper. But pads are available in many different materials including hemp and bamboo, as well as combinations of microfiber and several different other materials.

These are my favourite patterns. The skull one I have had for almost a year, it was one of the first that I had bought. The rainbow on the top left is my newest one. I don't think it had been worn yet as of the time this picture was taken.

Some more favourite patterns. Bottom right is another that I have had since almost the beginning.

Camouflage patterns for Daddy.

Solid colours to go with that special outfit. Some of these were among the first bought, as well.

 

This one is a brand called Kawaii. I bought it because of the pattern. To me, it looked almost like snake or lizard skin, a pattern Mr. Picky loves. This is the only one of this brand that I have, I like it but find it harder to get a good fit because the snaps seem further apart.

 

Some patterned diapers made of waterproof PUL material.

Some more patterns made with a softer minky material. The pink on the upper left has a small Winnie the Pooh pattern that the camera did not catch.

 

Some more PUL patterns. 

What I like best about this brand is that they are considered one size. This is why there are so many snaps on the front. In the next two pictures, the black one is adjusted to the largest size and the pink is the smallest. It does not look like much difference, but it is! 

 

 

 And finally, this is the size I have on Salean now, at 15 months. The rise is fully open, because she is really tall, I have had it this way since she was about 10 months old. I just recently started snapping them with 3 open snaps in the front. Some are a bit bigger and I can still leave 2 open, but for the most part, she has three.

 

So this is my complete stash, all but one that I keep at Grandma's just in case. It is white with green and pink spots, another of the first I purchased. These diapers should last me until little miss is trained, an adventure I am hoping to attempt come Autumn. If another baby were to come along, this stash should do that child to. Unless it happened to be a boy, then we may have some pattern  and colour issues.

 

 I do still use the prefolds and covers from our Moms, usually they are laundry day diapers or sometimes I will put one on her just because I like the patterns of the covers. I don't put them on as much as I used to; I find them harder now that she is bigger and wigglier because they have to be put on in two parts.

 

I won't bore you with my cleaning and storage routines today, save something for another day! I love my diapers and don't think I would go back to full time disposables again, currently she wears disposables at night because she is what is considered a heavy wetter and I don't want to wake her to change her every few hours. I can't wait until the warm weather arrives, with the cute patterns she can go with just a t-shirt or tank top (and loads of sun screen) all summer!

 

 

Hope everyone had a great weekend, Happy Monday!

 

~Natasha.