Diaper Surgery...

My diaper stash consists of only two things- flats pad folded into Flip covers and Bum Genius Elementals. Simple to use, easy to clean and uber minimalist. (Disclaimer: I do use Superundies for my son who still wets the bed and an having some custom Tinkle Time Overnight Trainers made for him as we speak.)

As far as the Elementals go, I love them. I mostly bought them for my husband to use when I am at work on Saturdays but I find myself reaching for them during the weeks sometimes when I want to change it up from flats and covers. I love that they are made from organic cotton, that they are so trim and that they require no stuffing or folding. What I hate about them is that they take forever and a day to dry, which is why I don't reach for them more.

I like to hang everything to dry and really only use my dryer to fluff everything up one it is mostly dry from hanging. The Elementals take days to air dry and since I don't have days to wait, I use the dryer which takes forever. The dryer costs me money to use that I don't want to spend and that is something I did not include in my initial calculation of how much diaper laundry would cost me each year.

So, I decided to take the plunge and detach the soaker on an Elemental. I came across this You Tube video that lays it out step by step and made it seem a lot less scary. I mean, these diapers retail for over $20 a piece so I didn't want to go and completely ruin them beyond use. As it happens, when I took my diapers out of the wash last night one of my Elementals had some stitching coming out where the soaker attaches so I decided to go for it- it was like the Gods were telling me to whip out those scissors and start ripping seams.

I am happy to say that I love my upgraded diaper. I hung it to dry with the other Elementals and it was 90% dry this morning while the others were still wet. I am planning on doing the other ones soon so that my whole stash of them will be fuss free.

Maybe you are wondering to yourself "what about the resale value?". Well, I don't care about the resale value of any of my diapers. I bought them to use and to save me money- I didn't go overboard and buy tons of stuff so I don't feel the need to recoup anything. I am going to use them however I want to, use whatever detergent I want to and honestly, beat the crap out of them if I want to. If, in the end by some small miracle they are worth something, then awesome. If not, I won't lose any sleep over it.

Diaper Stash Contentment!

I have finally found diaper stash contentment!

Don't mind the ugly green plaid chair- it's getting
thrown away when we move

My happy stash consists of:

9 Bum Genius Elementals
8 Flip Diaper Covers
18 Oso Cozy Unbleached Flats
2 Hemp Babies Doublers (may buy one or two more)
36 Cloth Wipes
3 Kanga Pail Liners
2 Superundies Night Time (for my son who is a heavy sleeper and still wets at night)

All of this cost about $300, but I am set until the baby potty trains. If anything is still in good shape I can sell it to make some of my money back. Right now, with all factors taken into account (cost of cloth diapers, cost of laundry, what disposables would have cost, etc.), I will end up saving over $500 by cloth diapering. What is more important is that it's healthier for my kids and a super awesome bonus is that I never have to worry about finding deals on disposables and will never have to run out to buy them again!

Since my stash is mostly natural fibers, I am going to cut up an old micro fleece blanket to use as liners for nighttime diapers instead of buying pre-made liners. I don't mind the baby having wet cotton against her during the day, but her bum gets a little red if I do that at night. Same goes for my three year old daughter's nighttime diaper (she still has accidents sometimes at night so to save my sanity I put a diaper on her).

As for wipe solution, I am using a few drops of Dr. Brommer's Lavender Soap mixed with water (I am going to boil the water first, just to be safe) in a foamy soap bottle. I got the Dr. Brommer's from an awesome deal at American Apparel a couple of weeks ago- I'm talking only .40 a bottle (I bought 2)!

So I have officially moved from the obsessed with buying cute bum fluff mode to zen mode- I am sure my wallet is going to thank me!

I Am So Edgy...

Cloth diapering is all about finding what works best for your baby and for you. You may start out with diapers that you think you like but a few months later realize that they in fact are not working out.

I have tried lots of different diaper configurations and have settled on what I think is best for us: prefolds with covers and flats (my favorite are OsoCozy Unbleached Flats- they are super absorbent and have even gone all night without a doubler and have not leaked) stuffed into pocket diapers. I have a couple of Bum Genius Elementals that I love (I bought them during a seconds sale) which are also in my daytime rotation.

I came to this conclusion because it logistically works for us (prefolds and covers during the day and pockets stuffed with flats at night and on Saturdays for my husband to use when I'm at work) and because it is all very east to get clean. You have to remember that you are cleaning poop and pee off of the diapers so a good wash routine is essential to making the whole cloth diapering experience work- if the diapers are not cleaned well enough it will lead to rashes and possibly ammonia. When you are in the newborn stage you may wash one way but when your baby starts doing solids your whole routine may change- different foods cause different poop and pee which can be harder to get clean.

Right now, we are in the toddler stage- my daughter is (obviously) eating real people food and she is also just starting to drink cow's milk and weaning from mommy's milk. My wash routine consists of a cold wash with no detergent and then a hot wash on the bedding setting (more water) with and extra rinse- I use one scoop of Charlie's Soap. With washing diapers water is your best friend and unfortunately all of the HE machines don't like to use water so you should use the setting that has the most water. I usually line dry (and by that I mean hang diapers all over the house to dry) and only occasionally use the dryer on the prefolds and flats.

With my busy life, any diapers that cannot get clean with this routine and with the detergent I use (I use it on all of our clothes and get a 1000 load tub for $100) then the diapers have no place in my stash. I have gotten rid of all of my microfiber inserts and my Bum Genius Freetimes because of this- I was sick of having stinky diapers and trying to figure out what was wrong. Natural fibers are easy to clean and flats are the easiest so those are what I go with. I wash every three days and so far so good!

Honestly, I am probably the least crunchy, hippie, tree hugging person out there. I think recycling is annoying, I'm not alarmed about global warming, I don't really do the whole Organic food thing and I drive a gas guzzling SUV. I cloth diaper primarily because it saves me money and saves me time by not having to find deals on disposables and by not having to run to the store to buy them. I also do it because it is healthier for my baby (and three year old who still wears a diaper at night). And I suppose the last reason is because I think cloth diapers are so stinking cute on my baby's little bum plus, for some reason I think doing diaper laundry is way fun even though I despise doing all other laundry.

So I cloth diaper to save time and money, but you know what? I also think it's cool because it makes me different- I don't like to fit in, I like to be edgy (if you can call a suburban mom of three who cooks, cleans and drives a cliche SUV edgy...).

Disclaimer: This post contains my affiliate link.

My Stash is Complete...

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I feel like I am finally at peace with my cloth diaper stash.

-For the daytime I use Flip and Econobum covers with Econobum prefolds or Osocozy pad folded flats.
-At nighttime I use pocket diapers (I have a mix of Alva, Kawaii and Bum Genius 4.0's) stuffed with a pad folded regular or hemp flat/pad folded flour sack towel combo for the baby and for my three year old I just stuff the diaper with a regular pad folded flat (she only wets occasionally and when she does it's not a lot).
-On Saturdays when I am at work my husband uses pocket diapers stuffed with flats or Bum Genius Elementals.

Simple, simple, simple- just how I like it. I put all of the microfiber inserts away because they just made the wash routine too difficult- I would think they were clean but when the baby would wake up in the morning her diaper would reek of ammonia which means the microfiber was just not getting clean enough. I have too much other stuff to do than to try and figure out a new wash routine so my motto is if it can't get clean the way I want to wash it then it has no place in my stash.

Eventually I would like to replace my cheapie pockets with all Bum Genius 4.0's but I'm going to take the wait and see approach as Cotton Babies has seconds sales throughout the year that I have scored some great deals on. After the holidays I am planning on selling a bunch of the stuff I'm not using and then I'll be able to see how much I've actually spent on cloth diapering and how much I will be saving myself. Having a spreadsheet keeping track of every cent I spend really helps to ask myself if I really do need something because I'll pop in the price of what I want to buy and when I see my total go up I usually decide that I don't in fact need what I am looking at.

Cloth diapering really can turn into a slippery slope. Many have started doing it to save money but then get sucked in by all of the cute fluffy diapers that are out there and end up spending way more than they wanted to. I find myself drooling over things but that is all I do- drool. I want to save money and buying tons of cuteness is not how I am going to do it which is why I am glad I have my spreadsheet to slap some sense into me.

And by the way- if you are a microfiber hater like me, Cotton Babies is having a sale on their Elemental diapers. You can get five for $95 which comes out to $19, this is a good deal considering these things go for about $25 normally. This is an all in one diaper that has an organic cotton inner so it's great for daycare, grandparents or dads to use because it's simple and it's good for you because it is so easy to wash (zero stink issues). If you spend over $100 you can get twelve free cloth wipes with the code LEFTOVERS.

Free Diaper Cover at Cotton Babies with $29 Purchase

For any of you cloth diapering moms out there, here is a good deal (and if you don't cloth diaper- why not try?).

Currently at Cotton Babies if you spend $29 you will get a free one size diaper cover. Shipping is always free.

I love my one size diaper covers- right now I am using the Econobum line with prefolds and they are what I reach for over any of my pocket diapers. We also have the Flip one size cover and inserts which are my number two pick from my stash.

Cost of Washing Cloth Diapers

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I decided to cloth diaper my daughter because I was sick of being a slave to the disposable diaper companies. Yes, there were times I got diapers for super cheap after sales and coupons but there were many times that I had to bite the bullet and pay more because there were no deals to be had. I have enough to deal with than to hunt for diaper deals and to drive around town getting them- plus I hate taking my kids to the store with me and have you seen how much gas has been costing lately?

My cloth diaper stash is pretty modest compared to others- I mainly used prefolds or flats with covers during the day and at night I'll use pockets or all in ones with an added doubler. I have enough diapers to get me through two days diapering my 11 month old full time and my three year old only at night- even if I had more I would not recommend going more than a couple of days without washing because the more time they spend dirty in the wet bag more time they have to stink.

I have done numerous calculations to justify that cloth diapering will save my family money compared to disposables and I always come out way ahead. But then I thought- what about the cost of washing them? I mean, washing the diapers is one of the most important parts. My favorite laundry to do is washing the diapers so I was really hoping that the thing I looked forward to wasn't detrimental to my savings.

I found my answer from Mr. Electricity. He has a nifty Laundry Costs Calculator that I plugged in all of my pertinent information into and it told me that my cost per year of washing diapers is about $30 a month- I rarely use the dryer for them but if I did the number would shoot up to $65. $30 a year comes out to $2.40 a month which is really not much at all and this all means that even with the cost of washing my lovely diapers I am still coming out ahead. I know this figure is not exact but it at least gives me a good guideline to how much I am spending on each load and that if I use the dryer it costs me dearly.

So yes, my new frugal endeavor is saving me money which makes me happy- but that is not the only reason I do it. I actually think it is fun! Plus it feels good to be self sufficient- I will never run out of diapers and have to run out to CVS and pay full price for a jumbo pack again. Take that Huggies and Pampers!

Cloth Diapering...

Cloth diapering has been pretty easy- but keep in mind this is my second time around doing it.

I have mostly been using prefolds with diaper covers though I do have a healthy stash of pocket and all in one diapers to use at night and for my husband to use when I am at work on Saturdays.

I do have to say that things are exponentially easier this time because I have my own washer and dryer. I wasn't able to clean my diapers properly before which resulted in my son getting rashes and me having to repeatedly strip the diapers- that was a huge pain in the butt. Now I can run a quick wash to get the pee and residual poop out and then run a full hot wash with an extra rinse to clean the diapers. They come out super clean and then I hang them up on my ghetto diaper drying rack, otherwise known as the metal shelf above my washer and dryer in the downstairs bathroom.

My new total for cloth diapering is at about $250, here is what I have:

6 Bumgenius Freetime all in one diapers
4 Alva pocket diapers
2 Fuzzibunz Elite pocket diapers
1 Flip Trainer with three inserts (for my three year old to wear at night)
1 Flip cover with three inserts (bought as seconds from Cotton Babies)
2 Bumgenius 4.0 pocket diapers (bought as seconds from Cotton Babies)
3 Econobum Covers
12 Econobum prefolds
2 Hemp Babies Flats (bought as seconds from Cotton Babies)
1 Snappi
1 Kushies Cover
2 Wet Bags (from Ebay)- these are larger ones
1 Alva Wet Bag- this is a smaller one

I am done buying diapers- I feel that my stash is complete and I have everything I need to get me through to Jillian being potty trained. It is really hard to say no to a great deal but I just have to keep telling myself that I am doing this to save money and if I keep buying stuff then the whole endeavor was pointless. That doesn't mean I can't sell some of my stash on DiaperSwappers to fund buying new stuff though...

For Me To Poop On...

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So I have been cloth diapering for a full day and I now consider myself an expert... just kidding (about the expert part).

I have been using my Econobum covers/prefolds on Jilly and it has been going well. No leaks to speak of and it's been almost as easy as using disposables. Jilly doesn't seem to mind and dare I say that she is enjoying her new ba-dunk-a dunk bum; that baby's got some junk in her trunk now!

I bought two Fuzzibunz Elite pocket diapers to use on Alli at night- tonight was the first night she used one and she seemed to like it though they are snug on her. I also broke down and bought six Bumgenius Freetime all in one diapers, mostly due to the fact that I know that my husband will not be able to handle the whole prefold/diaper cover thing when I'm at work on Saturdays.

I am totally not going balls to the wall on the cloth diapering thing because I am not using cloth wipes- I have a mega ton of baby wipes stockpiled right now and want to use them all up. When I run out I may switch to the cloth ones but that won't be for a long, long time.

So, with my mania of purchases I crossed from the doing-this-as-cheap-as-possible route to the spending-it-up route. Because I believe in total transparency, here is what I have and what I have spent:

4 Econobum Trial Packs (total of 4 covers and 12 prefolds) $24 (after $23 in credit card rewards)
6 bumGenius doublers $12
1 Snappi $4 (may or may not use this)
2 Fuzzibunz Elite pocket diapers $27 total
3 Alva one size pocket diapers and one wet bag $18 total (coming from China- could be awhile)
2 large wet bags from ebay $20
6 bumGenius Freetime diapers $92.50 (coming this week)

Total: $197.50 (I didn't include laundry detergent because I use the same stuff I wash our clothes in- Charlie's Soap)

That is a lot of money- yikes! When I put it down in black and white it's a little shocking. Now I am going to talk myself off of the ledge- even with spending $200 I am still saving money in the long run and even better, I can sell my stash when I am done cloth diapering and recoup most likely at least half of the money I spent.

The only thing I need to do now is avoid every website that sells cloth diapers so that I don't buy anything else- how pathetic and boring is my life that I have to curb my obsession to buy things that my baby pisses and craps in?

See You Later Huggies...

The other day I decided to take a looky-loo into the linen closet (just the fancy name I call the non-fancy closet in my upstairs hallway) and take inventory of my diaper stash. I had tons of overnight diapers for my five year old son who still wets the bed (I splurge on them because pull-ups make him feel like a baby) and not too many baby diapers.

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What a shock it was because I usually have a butt-ton of diapers. I swear when we moved here in the middle of July my husband was chastising me for all of the damn diapers he had to schlep from our old house to our new place. The deals for diapers just have not been plentiful and my motivation for finding deals for things that get pissed in and then thrown away have been non-existent.

While at work on Saturday I went onto Amazon to buy a big box of diapers and was not too happy with the prices- I am a ten cents per diaper kind of girl and the lowest price I could find anywhere was sixteen cents, which was for generic diapers which I have never used before. You know what I said to myself? I said screw this, I am going to go back to cloth diapering.

I cloth diapered my son for a about a year (from when he was a little over one until he was almost two) but ended up quitting- I was pregnant with my daughter and we lived in an apartment that I had to go down to the basement to do laundry so it became too much of a pain. Plus I began to coupon like a mad woman at the time so I was able to get diapers for super cheap and sometimes even free. I sold off my stash that included flats, prefolds, various covers, Happy Heinys and Bum Genius and that was it.

Recently, Amanda at Babies and Bargains decided to cloth diaper the baby she is expecting and that put the whole cloth diapering idea into the back of my mind. Then when I saw how much diapers cost I was sold on trying it all over again.

I am strictly doing it to save money so I am avoiding at all costs being sucked into buying tons of cute diapers- it is hard because I have zero willpower but I keep telling myself that I want to spend as little as possible. I decided to go with prefolds with diaper covers because it is the cheapest option; I bought four Econobum Trial Packs from Amazon for $11.95 each and bought three Alva Baby pocket diapers for $4.59 each. I also bought six doublers to add extra absorbency at night. I figure this should be good for now to diaper my ten month old daughter and also diaper my three year old daughter at night (she doesn't usually need one but I'd rather be safe than sorry). If I need more maybe I'll buy a couple more of the pocket diapers.

All in all I've spent about $50 on my diapering needs (I had $25 in rewards points from our Amex card that I used at Amazon) and after doing the math I will have saved us $650 if the baby wears diapers until she is two and a half, but most likely she'll wear them until three because that is about when my other two kids were potty trained (I based this on each diaper costing sixteen cents and using seven diapers a day).

As far as laundering goes I am going to use Charlie's Soap. I used it on my son's cloth diapers back in the day and I now use it for all of our clothing. Using it for everything means that I won't have to worry about residue from non cloth diaper friendly detergent building up on my diapers. Washing the diapers will be so much easier this time because we have our own washer and dryer, plus I do laundry 24/7 anyways so another load every couple of days is no dig deal.

I should be receiving my prefolds today so after prepping them I'll be good to go on my path to saving a  bit of money. Now if only I could not spend a bazillion dollars at the grocery store I'd be all set...