You may have noticed in some pictures that our boy is now sporting larger underwear.  We made the switch to cloth.  Although I thought about it for about 5 minutes before he was born I swore off the idea figuring we would have several kids and the idea of that many diapers to wash was silly.  It didn't seem less expensive and the idea of spending more on your water bill didn't make sense either.

I was torn with my decision just a bit thinking, "but I'm totally the type of person some people might think would do cloth... after all, I have some green crunchy things I care about!"

I was set in my decision and never looked back until about 10 months into Anderson's life when we went to Santa Barbara and without fail I was thinking about switching.  We stayed with my friend Jen for part of the time and I saw her using cloth with ease.  Like me, she enjoys cooking, and saving money.  We talked about it in length and soon I was convinced.  I asked her if it brought her some sense of satisfaction, similar to how we feel after we cooked a good meal, and she agreed that it did.

We don't pay for water in our place, I could get the diapers used eliminating a big start-up cost, and I'd get all one-size diapers in various colors so I wasn't catering to having just a boy or girl.


Upon returning home I asked a friend if she'd be interested in selling her cloth diapers to me.  She used them for several months and then their family decided to go with disposables.  She had some diapers in great condition that weren't pink and so I snatched those up.

I quickly realized I'd need more than 8 diapers so I checked into used diapers through Jillian's Drawers. They have a great program where you can try out cloth for a month to see how you like it.  If you don't like it you return them and they sell their gently used diapers to people like me.  I got another 8 diapers for half-off and stuck with the same brands that I got from my friend so I wasn't going to sit around with 5 different brands when I went to stuffing them all.

We now have 16 diapers- mostly BumGenius but some FuzziBuns too.  They all are considered "pocket diapers" and really don't take much time stuffing although next time we need diapers I'd like the one size all-in-ones out there.

To wash them I do a cold rinse with just cold water then wash hot and rinse cold with Charlie's Soap.  We use flushable diaper liners that can be washed a couple times and got a wet bag that really doesn't stink since I wash diapers about every 2 days.

We just folded about 12 diapers.  Benjamin wasn't quite sure how he got suckered into doing that at 10:00 PM but I told him it was just because he was helpful.  He asked why we didn't get the one size all-in-ones from the get-go and I told him we'd get them next time.  "More diapers?!?!"  Let's say he's on board but not 100%.

Yes- it's a bit more work.  Yes- it's a bit more messy.  Yes- some of his pants fit more snuggly or not at all unless we use disposables.  BUT... I like it and it works for us and it's fine AND the big kicker for why we switched- we're saving money by not buying loads of disposables and YES I feel a bit better not adding to the landfills.

There it is.  Our decision and our life with cloth.  Do you use them too?  Have you avoided them for so long but are wondering if you should make the switch too?!