Family Alive

Diaper Confessions

Alright, it’s time I confessed. You may think I’m terribly weird, and that’s fine. But believe it or not, we’ve been using cloth diapers with Analise since she was about a month old. I’m sure you’re thinking any or all of these: “Cloth Diapers? Gross laundry! What a hassle with pins! Ug – disposables are so easy, what are they thinking?!?” I do understand, as I thought it was a bit too “green”-minded at first. But let me tell you our experience…

At our childbirth class in California, we practiced diapering dolls. The teacher only had a couple disposables, but she also had a couple cloth diapers and covers. She told us a bit about them, and Brian thought they were super easy to use. The thought of using cloth diapers had NEVER occurred to us, and it seemed so old-fashioned. But these diapers were NOT what we had imagined, and there were no pins. She shared with us many of the advantage: cotton – not chemicals – next to baby’s skin, many cloth diapered babies potty-train earlier, and others. She also told us about a diaper service that would drop off clean diapers each week, and pick up and pick up the dirty diapers. So no laundry! The diaper service provided prefold diapers, that you simply fold in thirds, and lay into a velcro diaper cover – no pins! It’s honestly about as easy as a disposable to put on, and it looks nearly identical. Cost-wise, it would be about equivalent to using disposables and maybe even a bit cheaper. To us, the thought of not creating hundreds of pounds of diaper waste to add to landfills was very positive. And, I love the feel of a super cushy cloth diaper butt:)

We found the diaper service to be great, and we used it until December. When we were moving to Alabama and there wasn’t a service available, we decided we’d try laundering on our own and continuing with Cloth diapering. Could we do it???

I had heard of some great diapers on the internet called FuzziBunz – www.fuzzibunz.com… DEFINITELY not the cloth diapers you imagine. There is an outer waterproof layer (with great color choices!), and an inner fleece layer. There’s a pocket to stuff an insert in between the two layers. The liquid goes right through the fleece, keeping the baby soft and dry, and the insert absorbs the liquid. Honestly, if you’d feel one of these versus a disposable diaper, you’d choose to put fleece against your butt – or your baby’s – too!

Ok, so that sounds easy enough… but you’re asking, “what about laundry? And poop? And what do you do when you’re not at home?” Well, I’ll spare too many details, but here’s the basics:

• After you take off the dirty diaper, you shake out the insert into the diaper pail (a waterproof bag with a zipper keeps any smell inside) and toss the diaper into the pail as well. To wash, dump the diapers and toss in the bag. We wash diapers about every other night, with a simple cold-hot-cold cycle with a little detergent (too much causes buildup and smell) and tea trea oil for disinfecting, and line dry the diapers overnight. SUPER easy! If I’m short on time and out of diapers, I can toss them in the dryer on air dry.
• I’ll admit, dealing with poop isn’t fun, but it’s not much different than with a disposable. Simply shake it off into the toilet, and put the diaper in the pail.
• When we go out, I simply make sure there’s an extra diaper or two and a plastic bag in the diaper bag. If Analise needs a change, I put the wet/dirty diaper in a little plastic bag and toss it in the diaper pail when we get home.


I have to say, we’ve loved this. Brian will go to any length to avoid using a disposable diaper. Analise tends to start looking rashy after even a couple hours in one. They’re very cute, they have several snaps so they can fit from 15-25pounds, and we honestly save money doing this. Though Fuzzi Bunz are about $13-14 each, and it costs a bit to start using them, in the long run, we’re not buying a package of diapers every couple weeks (or every week? I’m not sure even how long one would last!), AND there’s no last minute-middle of the night mad dashes to get more diapers. If I get lazy and haven’t washed diapers soon enough so that we’re out, we have a stash of prefolds and covers like we used in California. These are an even cheaper option, but we prefer the fleece of Fuzzi Bunz. You’d be amazed at how dry the fleece keeps a baby’s bum… sometimes when I change her, I can’t even tell Analise is wet! Above- Analise likes to help me take care of the clean diaper laundry.

Here’s a few of my favorite cloth diaper info sites (each link opens in a new window and I’ll add more when I find my links!):
• No Pins 4 Baby – Why Cloth Diaper
• Fuzzi What? What are Fuzzi Bunz anyway?