My Cloth Diapering Adventures and Routine

We have been cloth diapering our little one for almost a month now. Honestly it is not as intimidating as it sounds! Before we started I was worried it was going to be a big deal and hard to adjust to. There was some trial and error at first to find the right combo of diaper covers to fit him correctly, but I bought a few different brands from online and was able to figure out what worked best for us.

The system I am using is prefolds and diaper covers. I bought several pocket diapers at first without knowing exactly what they were and they ended up being too big and too bulky for a little baby. I am planning on using them when he gets a couple months older. Right now the diaper covers and prefolds are working out great. I have about a dozen Gerber 3 ply prefolds (the colored ones) as well as about a dozen Gerber heavyweight 6 ply prefolds. The 3 ply are thinner and thus less bulky, but they also hold less liquid so we use those during the day when we are available to change a bit more frequently. The heavier prefolds are perfect for bedtime and I'm sure will work great when he is older and wetting more liquid.

They have been washing up very nicely with very minimal staining. Of course the white ones stain more easily than the colored so I hang those in the sun to naturally bleach them. Works like a charm!

 The majority of our time we are downstairs, so this is my diaper station for down there. I have all my clean prefolds ready to grab. We are using cloth wipes as well (much easier to just toss it into the bucket with the dirty diapers) with a homemade wipe solution. Those are right next to the diapers. When it's time for bed, I just grab a few prefolds and an extra cover to keep by his bed.

For the first couple weeks of cloth diapering, we still had some disposables left so I saved those for using overnight. At that time he was still only sleeping a couple hours at a time and I didn't want to fuss with figuring out a cloth diaper while super tired in the dark. Now that we are used to it (and he is sleeping a bit longer) it's no big deal for using the cloth at night as well.

Since we are on a tight budget (that's why I'm using cloth!) I did not want to waste extra money on a special "wet bag" to keep the dirty diapers in. I got a small plastic pail to keep upstairs, and a larger black trash can to keep downstairs by the changing area. Surprisingly you can not smell them! I can go two days between washing. If I do start getting a whiff of diaper, then I just keep the bucket in the laundry room until I can wash them. I also keep baking soda sprinkled in the bottom of the pails to help with odor.

I have about 10 covers that I am currently using, and about 8 pocket diapers that I am waiting to use. The covers I am using now are all adjustable up to 25lb so he should be able to wear them until potty training! He is about 14lb now and they are fitting great. I can definitely say that he has only had a couple blowouts in cloth compared to a disposable where he would blow out almost every time. The urine doesn't really leak, but the cover can get moist if you wait too long. That is why I try to change him about every 1-2hours during the day with the thinner prefolds. It has also been great for his diaper rash--no issues at all with it since switching to cloth.

And of course, he looks super cute in them!

For my wash routine, I first dump all the dirty diapers, covers, and wipes into the washer (I have a top loader) and set the machine to do a cold rinse/spin for a small load. That is done in about 15 minutes, then I add about 1/4c of washing soda and a cap of All Free and Clear detergent. Then I set my washer on a Normal cycle (small load), hot water, and two rinses. It is done in about 45 minutes or so then I set the covers out to air dry and toss the prefolds and wipes into the dryer (or hang in the sun if stained). That's it! It might change a bit when he starts eating solids in a couple months but we will cross that bridge when we get there.