I decided to use cloth with my children long before I actually became pregnant with Penelope (my 1st and, currently, only child). It is not something I thought about growing up as I didn't know anyone that used them. I was aware that it was how parents diapered their children in "olden times" (because I saw it on Little House on the Prairie)... but was completely clueless that it was something that still existed until one of the families at a daycare I had been working at came through with them. The family's baby actually wasn't even in my classroom, but it just took seeing them once in passing and having her quickly show them to me to make me understand them and wonder why on earth anyone would use disposables when these wonderful, REUSABLE ones existed!
And these are the wonderful diapers I was introduced to, the BumGenius 2.0 by Cotton Babies:
....seriously? How cute are they? How can these:
...even compare?! Not saying that this tot (whoever he or she is) isn't cute, but that diaper... not doing it for me. Slowly, I started researching cloth and all of the, literally, HUNDREDS of options. Not too long after, I found out that I was pregnant with a child of my own, and started to dig deeper - most specifically, on what was available to me locally in Milwaukee, WI. As it turned out, there wasn't much - but there was more than I was hoping to find.
I am the type of person that has to see something before I actually purchase it (especially with clothing) and cloth diapers were no exception. I was so overwhelmed with all of the cloth diaper options that the internet had to offer, with a plethora of reviews, good and bad... and I just had no idea where to start. I wanted to see my options with my own eyes. There were a total of four stores that I found to carry cloth diapers: Freckle Face, which carried BumGenius (an All In One, One Size Diaper), BabiesRUs, which carried flats (Inserts that go inside a diaper cover), gerber plastic pants and g diaper covers (a sized, diaper cover), USA Baby, which carried BumGenius, Bumpkins (a sized diaper cover... they also have sized All In One diapers), and Bambino Mio (a sized diaper cover) and Future Green, which only carried organic flats.
...so... I bought one of each. Even though I knew that I already loved the BumGenius diapers, I wanted to try other (cheaper brands) to try and save some money. (Well... I wasted money, because I mostly hated the other brands... but we'll get to that.)
The Bambino Mios had cute prints, but leaked horribly - poop and pee. PUL was just too thick and stiff, even after many washings. The inserts I was using held adequately, but if any urine fell outside the nappy, it was going right out the leg hole and soaking into the trim fabric. Poop was going out the sides and up the back, even though I had a good fit. Also the hook and loop closures didn't work well at all and there are no laundry tabs to keep them from fraying up all of our other diapers in the wash. And what was worse, they stained very easily - I tried everything (bleach, sun light, salt and water scrub, alcohol...) ... the yellow poop stains were not coming out. I wanted so badly for these to work because they had an awesome package deal to get all the diapers that you would need from birth to potty for $120.00... and they sold them in the freaking One Step Ahead catalog. How could One Step Ahead steer you wrong... they have the best products ever! Well not this one.
...at least they were good for a cute picture, right? We continued to use them for about 3 months, just because I wanted to get my use out of them (I couldn't return them once they were opened)... but my thoughts about them did not change. They continued to leak and they definitely did not look as cute as above in the end as they were severely stained with yellow breast milk poo.
I also had high hopes for the Bumkins brand diaper covers. As a nanny and child care teacher, I have loved their light weight, water proof bibs for years. Boy was I excited to find out that they made cloth diapers too! And in the same prints as their bibs! Adorable! Even still... I bought a boring white cover (wanted to be gender neutral).
These diapers had an excellent fit and I didn't have any problems with pee or poop coming out of the leg holes or up the back. The leakage problems came through their "air flow panel" in the back of the diaper...
...see that mesh on the inside of the diaper? That's the problem. If Penny peed enough to dampen the nappy all the way, the mesh would get wet. If i didn't notice and put in a clean nappy, the clean nappy would get damp from the mesh. This caused Penny to get a rash across her back from being damp too long. Also... what this diagram doesn't show it that on the outside of the diaper, there is just a flap of PUL that covers this mesh. So if you're not careful, and don't make sure that the flap is pulled down over the flap, you get major leaks. Also... since I breastfed... regardless of if the flap was down or not, Penny's icky yellow poo would squidge out of the vent. Also, just as we did with the Bambino Mio's, we had problems with staining. The PUL on the Bumkins is very thin... so after using this cover for a month, it was stained a dingy yellow color. Icky.
Next we tried the G Diaper "G Pants" with cloth inserts. However, we were cheap and just used our Gerber brand prefolds instead of buying their super nice, thin G Inserts. Our way still worked, but if I were to ever consider using G Diapers full time, I would definitely invest in their cloth inserts. There are a lot of things that I love about these covers. For one... how cute are their prints? Super cute. I also like that they have actual fabric on the outside. They look like little underwear. The problem I found with the fabric, though, is that, if baby pees too much and soaks through the liner, even just a tiny bit, and the outer layer gets damp... a change in covers is needed. With PUL covers, the urine can just be wiped off.
These covers are pretty easy to change. They have nice laundry tabs and the hook and loop closures work well, even after many many uses. I did feel like the elastic band was too thick and stiff, however. When we use these for more than a day at a time, Penny ends up with little scabbies on the skin that covers her pelvic bones due to rubbing against the band. The best best thing about these diapers, though, is that they offer cloth and disposable inserts. Their disposable inserts are also compostable and flushable. Though we never used our G Pants regularly, we always had some around to use on trips. I bought some medium sized G Pants for a trip to visit my husband's family in June of 2010... it's now January of 2012, and they still fit well.
In an attempt to make cloth diapering as cheap as possible, I also gave a go at trying the old fashioned plastic pants from Gerber. I'm sure everyone has seen these and probably wore them yourselves at some point, as a babe:
...of all places, I actually found mine for 3 for $3 at a Mennonite grocery store in northern Wisconsin. With these, you use a regular prefold diaper:
...and kind of fold it into the shape shown above. Back in the "olden days", they would have used pins to keep the sides pinned to the center... but now we have this handy thing called a Snappi. It's a stretchy band with 3 ends and each end has little prongs that are similar to the ones that you use when securing and Ace bandage:
So you fold the diaper into the little triangle shape, you put it on the baby and secure it with the Snappi. Slide the plastic Gerber pants over it all and you end up with something that is really bulky and not very attractive. So unattractive that I didn't take a picture and didn't care to try again. I know some people use this same method of folding and using the Snappi, just with different covers... I just found the whole thing to be too much extra work, with the folding and too bulky. Instead, I always fold our prefolds into 3rds, length wise and lay them inside of a diaper cover. Less folding, less bulk and easier to change.
I'm glad I saved the best for last... the Bum Genius 3.0 by Cotton Babies:
... the Cadillac of all the cloth diapers. Though pricier than all the other options I tried, these had the best fit, the best closures, NO leaking, NO staining and absolutely no dissatisfaction. Needless to say, this is what we has stuck with for 2 1/2 years now and intend to use use with all of our future children. We started using them when Penelope was 2 months old. At first, we only had about 8 of these diapers... which wasn't even a days worth. We tolerated the above covers for a few months and then the best thing ever happened. Cotton Babies, the company that makes BumGenius came out with a diaper cover: The Flip! I immediately bought one in each color (at which time, there were only 3 to choose from).
These had all the benefits of the BumGenius diapers, but were a better choice, financially. The BumGenius diapers are an All In One style diaper, which requires you to change the entire diaper, each diaper change. At about $18 per diaper, it costs quite a bit to purchase enough to diaper your baby full time. The Flip system costs the same amount, but since the Flip is a diaper cover, at each diaper change, you just change out the insert (or prefold) and not the cover. The baby wears the cover until it is dirty.... sooo.... in order to use them full time you would only need about 6 covers and 30 inserts (enough so that you can go 2-3 days without washing).... where you would need about 30 BumGenius diapers. So $140 vs. $540.Shortly after coming out with the Flip, the Cotton Babies came out with a cheaper alternative... the Econobum. Essentially the same as the Flip system, just fewer snaps and slightly thinner fabric... for about half the price.
Score! I bought two and I was finished with my diaper stash (for then, any way).
Through the years, I have tried several other cover types. I gave into peer pressure and bought Nicki's Diapers brand of diaper, the Best Bottoms diaper cover with Organic Hemp Inserts. oooOOOOooo.
Penny was over a year old by the time that I purchased these. I had several friends that were converting to cloth diapering and had discovered these at Nicki's store in Madison. Plus they had a pair in Chocolate Brown. I HAD to try them. I only bought one cover and 5 inserts, enough to get me through a day with them. They did work very well, but they were no replacement for my Flip covers. It was summer time when I decided to try these. The only two things I don't like about them is that 1. they're too thick for my liking. They have two layers of PUL, so the do a wonderful job of being waterproof... but I feel that they don't breathe as well as the fantastically thin PUL used in the Flip system and 2. these fit very snugly. At 2 1/2, Penelope has to wear these at their largest setting, when she is only in the middle setting with her Flips. Penny is a skinny girl, so this is fine, but if my next child is a chunky monkey, I don't feel like these covers would fit them all the way to potty training.
Over the years, I have shared articles, videos and sales about cloth diapers via Facebook and, of course, a picture or two of Penelope in her diapers (because what is more adorable than a baby running around in nothing but their diaper?) I have had many people ask about them and have had quite a few converts. In future posts, I'll be explaining all about cloth diapering... everything from diaper types and more brands, how to wash them, links to where to buy them, and much much more! Normally I would just write a novel to whomever was asking about cloth diaper info through Facebook messages... but I'm so glad that I'll just have send them links to this blog now!
Our most recent adventures in cloth diapering have come while on our search for cloth training pant options. We have a very smart, but very stubborn girl on our hands. We have been through the potty training process with her on three separate occasions now and are once again "off the wagon".
She showed a very early interest in the toilet, so we bought her a cheap training potty when she was 10 months old. I thought that I would start setting her on it as part of our morning routine, just to get her familiar with it... the very first time I sat her on it, she peed, stood up to look, squealed and clapped her hands, then sat back down and peed some more. But that was that.
Around 16 months, she was starting to show some classic signs that she may be ready to train - she was hiding to poop, telling me when she was wet and actually started to ask to sit on her little potty. But at that point in time, I was NOT ready to start potty training her. I was ill, with what ended up being serious gallbladder problems, and was in the middle of holiday planning, planning a wedding, planning a cross-country move and working 4 days a week. By 18 months though, she was definitely ready as she was taking her own diaper off and asking to go to the potty. Enough was enough, I was trying. I bought the classic Gerber training pants:
...again, I was boring and bought white, to be gender neutral. You can find these almost anywhere... I got mine at Target. The only thing with these is that they fit kind of funny. They're really long, so it's kind of cumbersome for a toddler to pull up and down.
...but, seriously? How stinkin' cute?? (Never mind the shot glass Mardi Gras beads... she confiscated them after a bachelorette party I had been to :P ) She did really well with these for a few weeks - but lost interest in the potty around week 3 and refused to sit on the potty after that :(
Sooooo we waited for her to tell us it was time again... which came a few months later, when she was about 20 months old. It went very much the same - she would be super excited and on board with everything. Telling me when she needed to go. Waking up dry from her naps and night time. Everything is awesome... but around week 4, she started having more frequent accidents and wasn't enjoying sitting on the potty anymore. She also wasn't telling me when she had to go. I kept up with it for a few more weeks, but just before our cross-country move, when she was 23 months. I stopped because it was just too much. She wasn't enjoying it anymore and was constantly having accidents - all while I was packing, making last minute visits with friends and family and trying to sell the things we couldn't bring with us.
I realize that a lot of her disinterest could have been from all of the excitement of our moving process and constantly having stuff going on, but we made a HUGE effort to stay consistent and never strayed from our potty routine.
After the move, she showed a great deal of interest again... but only with all of the new toilets she was encountering. I have heard so many stories of toddlers having to warm up to strange toilets... I was thrilled that she actually liked them! Not a week after we moved, we went to my sister-in-law's baby shower at her parents house. Her parents had a super huge house and Penelope had a blast running around in it... especially when she started discovering bathrooms. We found and peed in 4 different bathrooms. No joke... and those were just the ones with access from the main hallways. I don't want to know how many private ones were off of their many bedrooms. This potty excitement was short lived though. As soon as Daddy arrived with the moving van, all of our belongings and her training potty... all bets were off, she wasn't having it!
Skip ahead several more months to now... we're all settled in and I'm determined. About a month and a half ago, she started showing interest again (she's now 2 1/2) and I jumped on it. We put a training potty in the family room, the dining room and we have a nice little seat that sets into the big toilet in the bathrooms.
(If anyone is interested in knowing, we have 3 different potty seats that we use.) The first of which was just a cheap, $5 one what we found at Ikea:
This one is nice and small and comes in a bunch of fun colors. It doesn't have any parts to it, so no worries about getting pee in tiny crevasses. You just carry the whole thing to the toilet and dump it. We keep this in our living room now, under our coffee table. Super convenient.
For Penelope's 1st Birthday, we also invested in a more substantial potty - the Boon Potty Bench (oooOOOooo):
It's super cool looking and I love it. We always have had tiny tiny bathrooms, so this is perfect. I had it next to our bathtub for a while. The top folds down and it's sturdy enough to sit and stand on. Penny could push it over to the sink to wash her hands and I could sit on it while she was taking a bath. It has a nice drawer in front that slides out and you can just carry that to the toilet to dump it. If you have any splashing or spraying however, you have to take the top part of the toilet off to wash. Not a big deal though.
The other features that I love are the storage compartments on the sides. We also sometimes keep this in our living room ( at our old house, it is in our dining room in our new house ) ... and the compartments are big enough to store a wipe container in and one side also has a toilet paper roll dispenser, so that you can keep all of your clean-up supplies and extra undies with the potty. Genius. They sell these in many stores now... but we ordered ours from Target because they had just come out at the time. I have since seen them in-store at Babies'r'us, Target and at several baby boutiques.
Our 3rd (and/or 4th, since we have two) is by Safety 1st. It's a neat little, padded insert that fits right into a standard toilet seat:
It's nice because it's small and stores easily in the bathroom... it has a hook on the back so that you can hang it on the wall next to the toilet on a command strip-type hook. Since the toilet is still so tall compared to Penelope, we also have to keep a stool in the bathroom. We had an incident where she lost her balance and fell off of the toilet and I wasn't able to catch her in time. This caused her to be a bit "gun shy" to the toilet for a few weeks. So close supervision is a must with these. You can find some that have a set of fold-up stairs attached to them. These are also nice, but take up more space.
So... a month and a half ago... I'm determined to get this ball rolling. I put her in underwear and start setting her on the toilet every hour or so. We bust out the "Once Upon a Potty" VHS and book set we got as a hand-me-down (SUPER cute if you haven't heard of it) :
...they come in boy and girl versions and have a fun little music video with babies dancing with their "Potty Potties". The whole video is about 10-15 minutes long, so it's the perfect amount of time if you just want something short for them to watch while they're sitting on the potty (and it's about the potty, so lots of encouragement!) We also pulled out an Elmo potty chart we had gotten for Penelope's 2nd birthday:
...as you can see, she didn't do so hot in the beginning, but after day 5, she totally got into it and did very well from then on. We even took a 4 day trip to Las Vegas to visit my husband's uncle sans daytime diapers! Things were looking up! At home, we were in underwear all day. We were waking up dry from naps again, getting to the point where we were considering trying night time and errands without diapers... but then we hit a wall. She did SO WELL for about 6 weeks... then... nothing.
She stopped telling us she had to go. She had frequent accidents... and, worse, if we started sitting her on the potty or even just ASKING for her to sit on the potty... she would have a fit as if she were completely insulted that we asked! What the heck?!
She still showed interest in her potty books - by now, we have several. She even loves to put her stuffed animals and dolls on the potty. She, however, refuses. Now what? I persisted for about two weeks, keeping her in underwear despite frequent accidents - only averaging one pee on the potty each day... but gave up last week.
Pee pee clothes stink and we have white carpets. No fun.
Cotton Babies to the rescue again! Introducing the NEW! Flip trainers! BA-DAH!
(Drool) Just like our beloved Flip diaper covers... however these have stretchy sides that make them very much like the classic, disposable Pull-ups! I had deeply contemplated buying some cloth trainers... as a nanny, I had seen the Imse Vimse and Blueberry trainers in action and love them... but just couldn't justify them at $16 - $19 a pair (what if we only needed them for, like, 4 weeks?)
The Flip Trainers come with inserts... so just like with the Flip diaper cover, you keep the cover on until it is dirty and you change the insert! (These inserts are also super super soft and I may just steal them to make into panty liners when Penelope is done with them!) Currently, they have them at an introductory price of $25.... which includes one cover and 5 inserts. My Mother-in-law is awesome and bought two sets for Penny. (Thank you! Thank you!) We love them so much, I may just splurge for a few more as it looks like we'll be using them for a while (though Penny loves these (as do I) her potty relapse doesn't look like it'll be correcting itself any time soon.)
Since we would otherwise be in diapers still, these are perfect for us. Penelope can still be in her "diapers"... but they're much easier to get on and off for trips to the potty (when we can convince her to sit on it). They also absorb more than other cloth trainers and are water proof. Granted, we have only been using these for a few days now, but I'm pretty positive that they're here to stay!
So this is where we are now, as of January 3rd, 2011. I know I still have a long road ahead, but we have very much enjoyed our cloth diaper journey so far and look forward to doing it again with future children! Thank you, if you have actually taken the time to read through all of this - I felt it necessary to share our full story before getting into specific cloth diaper blogs. I hope you enjoy this blog, I look forward to sharing all sorts of helpful tips, how-to's and all of my favorite links and videos!
So... I guess this is.... to be continued...
