When I was pregnant and would mention that we were cloth diapering, I was met with the same skepticism as when I discussed my desire to exclusively nurse into the toddler years. So many people assured me how impossible it would be when I realized how challenging parenting a newborn/infant is.
So here we are, we’ve passed Ezra’s first birthday, and cloth diapering and exclusive nursing are still happening {more about my breastfeeding journey here}. After the initial hurdles of learning how to do both and then learning how to do both while working full-time, they’re both not only do-able, but have become close to effortless. That’s not to say I haven’t forgotten cloth diapers and pump parts at home a time or two causing momentary panic. But 99% of the time, both things are just part of our daily routine.
Quantity of Diapers
I’ve found that 24 to 30 diapers is the magic number for doing laundry every other day to every third day. At almost one year old, Ezra goes through about 7 diapers per day. But I like having a couple diapers in his diaper bag and I like the ability to throw in a load while having a few clean spares.
Type of Diapers
My favorite all around diapers are the Bumgenius all in ones. We tried another brand early on and they didn’t wick moisture away well. Those diapers became our “quick” diapers – diapers we put on knowing we’ll change them within an hour, before a nap or before we leave the house. When Ezra was around 6 months, the Bumgenius (even with a doubler) weren’t cutting it at night, so we ordered a 6-pack of Mama Koala pocket diapers that we could stuff extra full for long night time stretches. It took a little while, and some dependency on disposable diapers, to get our stuffing “formula” right, but we ended up using three layers: the insert that comes with the Mama Koalas, a hemp doubler, and a bamboo insert (in order from closest to farthest from baby). Most cloth diapering supplies can be found on Amazon, so it’s been super convenient if we needed additional supplies.
Wipes & Accessories
Something I learned from our midwife was that urine is sterile and you don’t need to use wipes for urine diapers (who knew!). So we use cloth wipes (dampened with warm water) for BM diapers at home and Water Wipes for BM diapers away from home. As far as accessories go, we have a half dozen small wet/dry bags for packing diapers for daycare and keeping in our diaper bag for dirties. And we have two large, hanging wet/dry bags with zippers that we store our dirties in at home. I found that a diaper pail and drawstring wet/dry bags made things more difficult than they had to be!
Laundry
I’ve gone through a couple natural detergents before landing on what really worked for us. Our previous detergent worked by getting diapers clean, but as soon as urine hit them a strong smell of ammonia appeared. We now use Biokleen powder detergent (I’ve read that Seventh Generation powder also works well) and Biokleen bac-out as a stain remover for BM diapers. And, thanks to some informative mom message boards, we now have Mighty Bubbles on hands to strip our diapers in the event the ammonia issue makes a come back.
For wash cycle, I have a super straight-forward top loading washer, so I don’t have a ton of options. I do a regular or heavy duty load size, with the pre-rinse before washing cycle and a hot water setting. And we initially purchased a sprayer for BM diapers, but found that it sprayed BM everywhere! So we’ve just been scooping the BM out with toilet paper and flushing down the toilet. It’s not my favorite part of parenting, but it’s not terrible either.
There are a ton of cloth diapering resources and groups out there, but this is the groove we’ve fallen into and what works for us. I also can’t stress enough that cloth diapering, similar to breastfeeding, isn’t an all or nothing thing! Replacing any disposable diaper use with cloth diapers is helpful for your babe and the environment. And who knows, you just might prefer it!
