When my daughter was born, we have used traditional cloth at home and disposable diapers for nap time and while going out. I came to know about commercial cloth diapers once she turned four months. From the fifth month onwards she used to wear regular cotton underwear at home and cloth diapers while we go out and for nap time.
Benefits
- Cost effective:- Initial investment may be bit high, but it’s one- time. For the two years, I have spent a total of 70$ for the purchase. After that, I haven’t paid anything on diapers, which is really cheaper compared to regular diapers.
- Environmental Friendly:- As we are reusing the diapers instead of throwing away, we are doing a great thing for our environment. Diapers will take 500 years to decompose (As per Google), in this way reusing is a worth decision
- Diaper Rash:- I never found a diaper rash with my daughter after we stopped using diapers. Some babies may get affected. But in my experience, I never saw diaper rash in her. Even if we find any little diaper rash or any redness, we apply pure coconut oil.
- They look cute. Yes, trust me. After we experienced the cute designs, we never go back to disposables.
Varieties
There are several varieties of cloth diapers available in the market. I have used Pockets diaper throughout our cloth diapering journey. The name itself explains the nature. Yes, it looks like a pocket(one side opening), and we have to keep the insert inside it, which is the absorbent material.
There are several varieties of inserts available in the market. For a pocket diaper, I have used microfiber insert (Which usually comes with the pocket diaper itself), bamboo insert and Hemp booster.
Usage and Maintenance
- After purchasing, rinse the diaper in regular water and wash it with detergent.
- Microfiber insert is enough for daytime usage. It will hold up to two pee’s, and we have to change it once in two hours ( and based on the baby’s nature too). For some kids, we have to change it even more sooner.
- Bamboo inserts are same as microfiber, but it absorbs little more than microfiber.
- Hemp inserts are called boosters. We can use it during night time along with either microfiber or bamboo.
- Difference between these three inserts are, microfiber absorbs very quickly, whereas bamboo takes little more time but absorbs a lot compared to microfiber. Hemp booster will take a longer time to absorb, but it can hold and absorbs large quantity. So it can’t be used alone and can be used as a booster along with others.
- It is one size fits for all.
- All these diapers have adjustable snaps and its suitable for babies from 8 lbs. to 30lbs. We can adjust the snaps according to baby’s weight.
Wash Routine
- Don’t keep the used diaper for more than 2 days. Try to wash it soon.
- Take out the inserts and rinse it in regular water to avoid mixing of pee along with other clothes. I have used the washing machine and never faced any issue.
- Don’t use extremely hot water for washing as it will damage the diapers. Don’t brush the diaper and don’t use some harsh methods to clean. Avoid using detergent with harsh chemicals.
- For poopy diapers, Rinse it with normal water after removing it from the baby. Then we can wash it usually as like pee diapers.
- Make sure to rinse completely and check for any detergent residues. Hang out the diapers in sunlight for drying it after wash.
Travel with cloth diapers
- It’s totally possible to use cloth diapers while traveling, provided we have the option to wash the diapers once in two days.
- I have used store bought liners, and it was super useful while traveling. Just place it over the diaper while putting in on and it will collect the poop without damaging the diaper.
- We can store the used diapers in a wet bag during travel time.
- The smell won’t come out for a maximum of 1.5 to 2 days, and it totally depends on how harsh the dirty diaper is.
Cloth Wipes:
I have used two brands called “Mama Koala” and “Alva baby”. Both of them are really good.
Cloth Wipes:
- We have used cloth wipes (Normal cotton cloth) to clean her at home. A cotton cloth dipped in warm water will do the magic and it’s more than enough. We have used store bought disposable wipes for poop cleaning when we are outside.
- Cloth diapering is one of the amazing thing in our parenting journey.
Happy Cloth Diapering!
So much useful information. And I love the most is it’s environment friendly, feels so good that our decisions benefit the environment.
I bought cloth diapers before my son was born and I prepped them and everything and we used them right away. Worked great for us. This is a great deal of information for a momma who wants to cloth diaper. And beware you will get addicted to buying them cute-cute prints for your cute little butts.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
Lovely blog about cloth diapering and I completely agree with you. We too cloth diapered our daughter.Our journey of cloth diapering started when my little one was around 7 months, initially it was overwhelming but once after we have found out what works best for us it was so comfortable and nothing less than a disposable to use. We too used pocket diapers with microfiber and hemp inserts.
And yes I am addicted to their patterns too and after cloth diapering my daughter never had a rash issue too. On the whole we loved our cloth diapering journey.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
I love the awareness you are bringing about this topic! I’ll pass it along to my friends with babies, I know they will find this super insightful
Thank you. Sure pass it on.
Hey this looks amazing! I will pass this to my sister in law who happens to be a new mom as well
Sure. Thank you. Hope it will be helpful for her.
When I was pregnant for the first time I strongly considered cloth diapering due to the cost effectiveness but I didn’t end up doing it though.
yeah. Sometimes the situation won’t help.
I really love the traveling with cloth diaper tips! Makes it that much easier to avoid disposables, thanks for sharing!
Thanks for reading it
Cloth diapers have really evolved since I used them on my children in the 1990s. I love the idea of having an insert or liner–it has to make the washing so much easier. And no pins? Babies have never had it so good!
Thanks really great to know.
Oh we totally used to cloth diaper too! We had the best of both worlds, though – we had a service that delivered the clean diapers to us each week! Was wonderful til they shut down – then I had to buy my own prefolds (I bought the ones we still had from the service) and launder myself, which was less fun. Still worth it, though, and we still saved a ton!
Vow!!! That’s really great.
Wow thanks for all the great info. I never knew about all the different kinds of materials that go in the pockets like hemp inserts, who knew! : )
Thanks for reading it.
Ugh, I miss cloth diapering sooo much. I’m trying to get my twins into their big boy underwear full time these days.
Even I started to miss it, as my daughter is potty trained for day time. They are super cute and comfy.
I had every intention of cloth diapering my first child 6 years ago, but I was too much of a mess to follow through. But now, on baby number 3, I decided I was ready to take the leap ! Thus far, it’s been great!
Good luck.
The benefits for cloth diapering are tremendous and FAR outweigh any inconvenience!
Yes. I don’t see any inconvenience with it.
Thoroughly informative post. I too chose to cloth-diaper my son when he was little.
Thank you. 🙂
These are really cute, i’m glad I came across this blog.