The Green Room

Cloth diaper update

I was going to do a joint post on both cloth diapering and elimination communication, but I’m not sure exactly where we are with EC. It’s been really varied lately. One day we were really off and she only peed on the potty once – she hasn’t gone that infrequently in like six months! Then three days later, she went on the potty every single time – not once in her diaper. If I had to put a number on it, I’d say she goes on the potty 75-85% of the time during the day. Now we’re getting ready to transition to training pants, so I thought this would be a good time to review our first sixteen months of cloth diapering.

Types

We’ve used a couple different types of cloth diapers. Our go-to diapers are all-in-ones (AIO). They’re basically just like washable disposables – just velcro or snap them on and you’re all set. They’re super easy and what we have the most of, at my husband’s request. They are on the pricier side.

BumGenius all-in-one diaper, moonbeam, size medium (discontinued).
I apologize now for the poor quality of all these photos. I decided it was easier to just take pictures of our diapers, since I was folding them anyway, than to bother downloading and linking to a bunch of promotional pictures

We have a couple pocket diapers, which are very similar to AIOs (easy-peasy, pricier). They do require the extra step of stuffing the liner inside them after you’ve washed them. However, since the diaper and liner are separate, they also dry faster. I actually consider pockets and AIOs to be a draw if you do your drying in a machine. In my experience, the pockets only take one cycle and then need to be stuffed. The AIOs take two cycles and in between them I turn the diapers inside out to make sure the inside gets dry; we then have to turn them right-side out again when they’re done. It’s tit for tat in my book – I would say pockets are easier, but my husband doesn’t like to stuff them, and therefore AIOS are easier for me, because then he does more of the folding!

FuzziBunz pocket diaper, apple green, size medium.

Two other major types of cloth diapers are prefolds and fitteds, both of which require covers. We have a couple of each. Prefolds are the cheapest way to go, and really aren’t that hard once you’re used to it. That said, I rarely reach for them unless the others are in the wash.

Econobum prefold, white.

I believe there are some people who really like fitted diapers, particularly for the newborn phase. They seemed like they’d be too bulky for me, so I never tried them with a cover. But I do like using them without a cover so I can tell immediately when Miriam’s peed and go ahead and change her. Most winter mornings I’ve kept her in her pajama top, with a coverless fitted diaper and baby legs on bottom. Basically, I’m being too lazy to let her go diaper-free, but I’m still avoiding letting her sit in a wet diaper. It also curbs some of the “did you go potty yet? do you need to go potty?” I can just touch her diaper to check.

BumGenius fitted diaper (discontinued), size medium, and Kissaluvs fitted diaper, berry purple, size 1.

One other type of cloth diaper is the Flip system. (I’m not sure what to label them – are they hybrids? We’ve only used the cloth inserts but I believe they do have disposable ones.) I like these, and I know some people really love them. They’re easy to use, slightly cheaper than the others, and a great choice for a lot of people.

Flip hybrid diaper, pink.

Sizes

It seems like most parents go for the one-size diaper. This has the significant advantage of only needing to buy diapers once. Also, if you have multiple children in diapers at the same time, they can all wear the same ones – just change the snaps to change sizes.

BumGenius 4.0, one size: snapped down to small on left, all snaps undone to make a large on right.

However, I personally feel like the one-size AIOs are a bit bulky. (The only exceptions to this are the Flips, which I just mentioned, or the Tots Bots, which I really like the style of but hate the price of.) We went for sized AIOs. This was essentially double the money, though you can spread it out over a little time. As opposed to buying roughly 18 one-size diapers, we bought about 36 diapers: 18 smalls and 18 mediums.* (This is in addition to newborn sized diapers, which you have to buy separately whether you’re using sized or one-size diapers.) Our rationale is that we will be better able to use these diapers for multiple children. Let’s say just for fun that the lifespan of a diaper is 2-3 years. You could use a one-size diaper for your child for that entire time, and I imagine it’d be pretty worn out by the time they’re potty-trained. We used the small size diapers for less than 6 months with Miriam, so they’re still in really good shape. If they only lasted 2 years, they could theoretically get us through 4 children at that rate. (My wallet hopes my math holds true.)

Sizes newborn (extra-small), small, and medium.

Miriam’s been in the medium diapers for about 10 months now (she’s a lightweight 16 month old at 21 lbs). The velcro started curling a while back and about a month ago it got to the point where some of her diapers really weren’t staying on well, so I went in to the diaper store to see what to do. It was a simple solution: buy new velcro to replace them. Each kit was only $1 and included replacement velcro, diaper tabs, and elastic. Taking off the old velcro was a bear. Putting on the new stuff wasn’t quite as bad, though, and for essentially the cost of one new AIO diaper ($18) my entire stash of mediums was refreshed and ready to go again.

In case you, like me, weren't sure exactly what "curling" meant - it's not just an Olympic sport. Even when I push down on the edge here, the velcro won't stay all the way down.

(An important note: The sized AIOs we use are no longer carried by BumGenius. Other brands that do carry sized AIO diapers are FuzziBunz, itti bitti, Swaddlebees, and several others. Of those, we have only tried FuzziBunz, which are great.** You can also get sized fitted diapers.)

Nighttime

I don’t have much to say about this, because Miriam took a gazillion years to sleep all night. We nightweaned her around 13-14 months, and it was still another month or two until we were all sleeping mostly all night long. She still doesn’t always sleep all the way through, but she does go right back down now. Anyway, the point of my “woe is sleep-deprived me” is that we have almost always changed her diaper at some point during the night (even now), so we haven’t dealt that much with nighttime leaks. We put an extra microfiber insert in her regular AIOs and that’s usually fine. If she wakes up and her pjs are soaked, we just change her diaper and pajama bottoms and put her back down. However, if it happened more often I would try hemp inserts.

Stinkiness

We have gone through a phase or two where the diapers were rather smelly. I followed the instructions to do a bleach wash once a month, but at the time I didn’t feel like it helped much. And yet now we don’t really have that problem anymore, so I’m not sure what changed. Maybe I’m using the diaper sprayer more when she does poop in her diaper?

The diaper sprayer. So much more important than I thought it would be.

Traveling

While the majority of our traveling has been to visit family, we have done a couple trips where we stayed in a hotel. At first I wasn’t sure about using cloth on those trips, but my husband was in favor of it, and it turned out fine. Now I don’t even think about it. We always go back to the house or hotel fairly early anyway so Miriam can get to bed, so we just wash them then. It also helps that my husband is an extra big help with the laundry when we travel, and that Miriam does really well pottying when we travel. (For real. She does so much better holding it and going on the potty when we’re out and about than when we’re just bumming around the house!)

Looking Ahead

One of the only problems with using cloth diapers is that they’re just as absorbent as disposables. I know, most people don’t think that’s a problem at all – they think it’s fantastic! But for elimination communication, and really any potty training, half the battle is getting children to realize they’ve peed and they’d rather not have it pressing again them. Ideally I’d have a diaper that allows Miriam to feel wet without having her clothes get wet. I think this is why some (many?) ECers prefer to use prefolds all along.

In fact, as we transition to training pants, I have seriously considered not spending any more money and just reusing my Econobum covers with the super cheap prefolds that I used as burp cloths when Miriam was little. Especially since at her age the whole pulling up and down thing is less important – I’m still the one taking her pants off anyway. The important thing is for her to feel the wetness, and she certainly should in those.

Econobum with a cheapo superstore cloth diaper folded inside.

But my husband thinks it’s important that we transition away from the diapers, as great as they’ve been. He gave me the green light to buy cloth training pants, so I spent all of naptime yesterday debating the merits of all the different brands – and there are a surprisingly large number out there! Instead of sticking predominantly with one brand, which is the route I took with the cloth diapers, we’re going to try seven different cloth trainers. I can’t wait until they arrive! And if you made it through this review and you're actually interested, I just might do a review of all of them several months from now! I know - get excited!

* It would actually be triple the money if you buy them in small, medium, and large. While I did buy a few large AIOs (because I got them on a great sale when this particular line was discontinued), we are actually hoping to have her fully potty trained by the time she would be big enough for them. I am still glad to have the six or so that I bought, however, just in case nighttime training takes a while.
** A very important note about the FuzziBunz – only get them with snaps. Their velcro is no good at all.