Diapers, Diapers, and more Diapers!!!
Over the past three years I have spent over $3000 alone on disposable diapers. Outrageous. This does not include the cost of baby wipes, or any other items for diapering. Two weeks ago while we were reviewing our budget, we decided to try something new.
We told Lydia she was no longer wearing diapers. I had several pairs of the padded training underwear that we had used for potty training Kara, so I began putting underwear on Lydia with the idea that I would just treat them like I would cloth diapers. Well, she began sitting on the toilet, and now she is completely potty trained -- and it only took four days (what a blessing after spending over a year in attempting to potty train Kara).
We have also begun using cloth diapers for Andy. I must admit that this is not nearly as nice as the underwear we used for Lydia -- having to fiddle with diaper pins and everything. I am certainly not a pro at folding the diapers yet, but I think I might be getting better.
How about you? Do you use cloth or disposable? If you use cloth, please leave any tips or preferences that you like. Is there a certain type of cloth diaper you like? Have you found any of the fancy ones at a decent price? Please share your words of wisdom? Thank you!
We told Lydia she was no longer wearing diapers. I had several pairs of the padded training underwear that we had used for potty training Kara, so I began putting underwear on Lydia with the idea that I would just treat them like I would cloth diapers. Well, she began sitting on the toilet, and now she is completely potty trained -- and it only took four days (what a blessing after spending over a year in attempting to potty train Kara).
We have also begun using cloth diapers for Andy. I must admit that this is not nearly as nice as the underwear we used for Lydia -- having to fiddle with diaper pins and everything. I am certainly not a pro at folding the diapers yet, but I think I might be getting better.
How about you? Do you use cloth or disposable? If you use cloth, please leave any tips or preferences that you like. Is there a certain type of cloth diaper you like? Have you found any of the fancy ones at a decent price? Please share your words of wisdom? Thank you!
3 comments:
OK, I just wrote a huge comment and then somehow lost it all . . . so here goes again! :)
I use both cloth and disposables. I'm trying to use cloth more and disposables for church and sometimes at night. (I'm still figuring out exactly what works best for stuffing the cloth ones for nighttime.) I use the bumGenius pocket diapers, which are really nice, but not cheap. I got a fairly good deal on them back when they came out with the new version (2.0) and were selling off the original 1.0s cheaper than usual. But I still paid around $300 for 20 diapers, which included the inserts. They seem to be holding up well, and they are nice and easy to use. I also like the fact that they are one-size, meaning I can use them from birth to potty-training for any future children that we have.
My sister uses cloth as well, and she does the prefolds/wraps, which is probably about the most economical. I think she's been happy overall with doing that. I've heard good things about Bummi's Super Whisper Wraps and I think there are a few other brands out there, too.
A couple websites that are full of info. on cloth diapering are www.diaperpin.com and www.pinstripesandpolkadots.com.
A couple recommendations that have worked well for us--invest in (or make your own) diaper sprayer that hooks up to the toilet. It makes cleaning those poopy diapers so much easier. I also like using a dry pail system rather than a wet pail. I just use a large trashcan with a lid, and line it with a nylon bag (from the camping section at Walmart), and then just empty the whole thing into the washer, every day or every other day. I have two bags so that I can always have a clean one ready when the other one goes in the wash.
Well, sorry for the length of this comment, but I just wanted to share what has worked for me. Isn't it fun to save some money?!! :) And congratulations on getting Lydia potty trained!
No words of wisdom here...This is interesting to me since we may go the cloth route while in Cameroon because disposable are double to triple the price there of what they are here. I will admit that if we stayed here in the States, we would go the disposable route again because it didn't feel that expensive to us. We buy the White Cloud brand, the big box, and even using size 4 now, it's only $5 a week -- I remember when she was in size 2 and it was around $3 a week. That's not even a $1 a day, and it's so convenient and lots less laundry/work. I know -- I sound really lazy, don't I? If I had two in diapers at the same time and the cost doubled, I might change my mind. :-)
I'll have to look at those websites because I may need to go the cloth route once we go overseas. I just need to find out for sure that I'm going to have a reliable washing machine.
Very interesting about Lydia potty training herself -- how old is she and could she teach Kayla how she did it? We're going to start potty training next week if I make myself do it to see if she is ready to be potty trained before the baby comes.
We used cloth also for Chloe but now Chloe has outgrown all our cloth diapers. I did the old-fashioned and cheapest method of cloth diapering - prefold diapers, diaper pins, and gerber plastic pants. Not the easiest system out there, but by far the cheapest! (Also, once we got our system perfected it wasn't very time consuming.) We did two wet diaper pails; one in the bathroom and one downstairs near the washing machine. That really helped us not to be washing diapers all the time. We did one big load every 3-4 days.
I whole-heartedly recommend going cloth for not only the cost-savings but also for the stewardship of the earth factor! It's so encouraging to see other Christian mommy bloggers switching to cloth!
Whoa, you're totally convincing me to get Chloe going on potty training this next week. I've been going slowly at it but maybe just diving in and putting undies on is the fast (albeit messy) way to go!
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