You are doing WHAT?!?!? Modern Cloth Diapering...

When I say cloth diapers... I bet you think about a mom from the 1950s with diaper pins and plastic covers. And if that is what cloth diapering was all about, I would NOT have jumped on the band wagon.  With soon to be 5 kids in our house I need fast easy and simple.  Any kind of diaper pin is just not going to cut it...  I have to be quick. My youngest two will only be 13 months apart.  I have to be fast in whatever I do..  When I was first approached about cloth diapering with my oldest son (now 4), it was perceived convenience that made me say no... I mean, how easy is it to take a diaper off and throw it away?  I was young(er) and didn't want to do anything different. My first baby, my first son... he should have the best of everything!  Looking back, the best for him would have been cloth all the way....  He had such significant skin issues that we couldn't use any of the major brands of disposables.  It was a nightmare, but I was right and I was going to do it the "normal" way.  We found one brand that didn't cause as many issues and stuck with that brand only.

Now, with my second son...  Cost of disposables was making me more and more upset and with a third baby looming on the horizon the cost was only climbing.  It seems like every time I went to the store because we needed diapers, I was paying out the nose for something that was going to end up in the trash.  We started seeing some of the same skin issues with him and I got frustrated... There had to be a better way.  Luckily, I have an amazing friend that cloth diapered her kids and she convinced me to borrow some diapers and just try it.  So I did.  I figured it couldn't be worse than what we were using.

Our first trial of cloth diapers gave us a run for our money.  I put my son in the first diaper, he was very confused, looked down at the diaper and tried to figure out why this was so different.  After a couple minutes he was happy and moved on to vacating his bowels.. Gross, I know, but it is part of diapering.  My son, who was 10 months old at the time was already in size 5 disposables.  He is a huge chunk!  We have had issues with poopy diapers and boy did he show us what the cloth diapers could do.  My husband was the lucky winner of that first diaper change with cloth.  He wasn't totally against cloth, but he wasn't sold on the idea either.  So him getting the first poopy was quite the ordeal.  Long story short, the cloth diaper held everything in and we didn't have a massive messy blowout which we had become so used to.  My husband was floored.  He took the diaper off and the clean up was so much faster because the diaper held everything and not as much was on our son.  So that being said... my husband became an instant convert.  He came out of the nursery saying I can't believe it...  I just can't believe it.  Now the worst part of cloth (for me) is dumping the poop in the toilet.  Basically, when you have a poopy, you dump the poo and flush.  Then you put the diaper in a wet bag and that is where is stays until you go to do laundry.

Right now we are using a normal trash can for our pail.  I use what are called pocket diapers and so when I go down to wash them, I just take the whole thing down with me, pull the inserts from the diaper and throw them in the machine.  I started with pockets and that is what I know the best.  There are several different types of cloth diapering and when you are starting out it is very overwhelming.  Fitteds, prefolds, AIO, AI2, and the list goes on and on and on...  I am sticking with the pockets because I have the inserts for them and I don't want to have 7 different kinds of diapers to confuse everyone that comes to my house to watch my kids!   This picture shows a pretty good representation of what I use daily.  The riser snaps make it smaller.  This is a pocket or a One Size (OS) diaper.  I don't use insert snaps which you can see at the lower middle, but I know moms that swear by the snap in inserts.  I am sure this looks complicated, but it really isn't.  You put this cloth diaper on the same way you put on a disposable.  Bring the tabs around and snap.  The tabs will allow you to overlap to adjust for skinnier babies.  That is why you see so many snaps on one side and only three on the other.

Now the inside is super simple for my pocket diapers.  I put an insert in the pocket and away we go.  I put my inserts as I am putting the clean diapers away.  That way I always have one ready to go.  This particular diaper has Velcro tabs, and they are available, I just don't use them since I am not a huge fan of Velcro anything.  It is merely a personal preference.  

And since I keep mentioning inserts...this is what an insert looks like.  There are primarily three different types of materials inserts can be made out of... Microfiber (MF), Bamboo, and Hemp.  I have all three, and I typically avoid the microfiber ones.  My favorite inserts are hemp.  They are quite pricey, but are the best at holding liquid.  We use them overnight and if we are going to be in the car for awhile.  Bamboo is the next step down both in price and effectiveness.  I don't notice a huge difference between bamboo and hemp but I do think there is a difference.  Microfiber I am not a big fan of.. With microfiber, we typically have to use 2 inserts and I think they make the diapers bulky.  

That is a very basic overview to modern cloth diapering.  I will be writing more and being more specific as time goes on.  I am still experimenting with what I think works best, but I encourage anyone with questions to email me at meangreenmommie@gmail.com!  I have converted several people already in the few months we have been doing it and I am more than happy to answer any questions I can!  If I don't know the answer, I probably know someone who does!