On 9/9/09, my daughter was born. She weighed a whopping 9 pounds and 5 ounces and as her slimy, beautiful little body was placed on my belly, my world changed forever. When a friend came to visit us in the hospital bearing the kind gift of three one size
bumGenius One Size 3.0 cloth diapers, my diapering philosophy was also irrevocably changed.
The thing is, I had the intention to cloth diaper while I was expecting – I intended on using
prefolds because I didn’t know that there were any other options. Then, I talked to a friend of mine who was using
FuzziBunz; they sounded so cool I had to look them up online for myself. WOAH! I couldn’t imagine myself shelling out $15-$20 per diaper—especially since the reason I wanted to cloth diaper in the first place was so I could save money.
I resigned myself to stick with Gerber
prefolds and rubber pants I could find at Wal-Mart, Target, and BabiesRUs, although I was less inclined to use them after seeing how much cloth diapering had changed. However, I just couldn’t bring myself to buy them. I registered for some
Kushies but unfortunately no one bought them for me and I knew my husband and I would never be able to shell out that amount of cash at one time on our own.
Thankfully my friend walked into our hospital room bearing the gift of three, adorably amazing diapers (along with a special coupon), and I was hooked. Seriously, it was the one of the best baby gifts I received, and that’s after four—no seriously, four baby showers.
My daughter was big baby, as mentioned above, so my
bumGenius diapers fit her right away—though the rise was a little high. As soon as her umbilical cord fell off I started using all three of her cloth diapers. I loved them so much I’d wash them twice a day just so I could use them more. Obviously, though, full time cloth diapering wasn’t an option at this time. What I discovered, though, was it wasn’t necessary to shell out the big bucks for these amazing diapers all at once. Sure, $13-18 a diaper seems steep when you look at all the diapers a baby needs at once, but if you take small bites out of that chunk just a little bit at a time, it really isn’t that bad; and that’s what we did.
With each paycheck, we bought 1-3 diapers. At first, I was unaware of all the different types of diapers that were out there. I was only aware of one website that had
bumGenius diapers - so I gradually bought all of their great colors. One day, as I was online, I decided to do a Google search for “cloth diapers.”
I was delighted to find the
Smartipants One Size diapers for only $14.95 each. I bought a 3-pack, bringing the price down to only $13 each. I wanted to pay it forward, so I kept two of those diapers and set one aside for a friend of mine who was expecting and interested in cloth diapering. I didn’t know what kind of diaper she’d prefer, so I went ahead and bought her a
bumGenius and a
Happy Heinys One Size diaper as well the next time I made my orders so that she’d have three different diapers to try. Once I touched the Happy Heinys for myself and saw how stinkin’ adorable they are, I had to have some for my daughter, so I bought a couple of them with my next paycheck.
I finally discovered websites like
Kelly’s Closet that offered tons of different types of diapers; searching through these sites to find the perfect cloth diaper for my family became an obsession. I now have a stash of 24 one-size pocket diapers (26 once my recent order arrives) including many different brands such as Haute Pockets,
Knickernappies,
Gro Baby (which I thankfully won from
Kelly’s Closet),
FuzziBunz, Tweedlebugs, Rocky Mountain and even some Indian
prefolds (which I have yet to master). And yes, I have found the perfect diaper to suit my needs. I absolutely adore the
FuzziBunz One Size diaper because of its durability and great—no I mean great—fit.
It’s funny. Originally my husband and I never intended to cloth diaper fulltime. We fully intended on using disposables outside of the house. However, with the purchase of a small wet bag, I discovered cloth diapering while outside of the home is surprisingly easy! I’ve even gone so far as to make my own baby wipes—double sided flannel wipes stitched together with a zigzag stitch that work better than any disposable (see
The Cloth Diaper Whisperer Tutorial for DIY Wipes). I wet the wipes with wipe solution I make from wipe cubes I bought online. After I made some for myself, I sent a couple of these homemade wipes to two friends who cloth diaper.
To make a long story short, our Diaper Genie is officially retired and gathering dust in the basement, and it’s been weeks since my daughter donned a disposable. To tell you the truth, my husband and I have never wasted a dime on disposable diapers ourselves. The ones we have are still left over from my baby showers! And as for the $6+ I was spending on wipes every week? That money is now saved for better purposes as well. Our daughter is happily diapered in cloth diapers all the time, and we’re so pleased that she has the best material imaginable next to her sensitive skin. I’m sold on cloth diapers 100% and I will never go back!
My aforementioned friend had her baby and is also cloth diapering with a preference of Indian unbleached
prefolds and some
Thirsties Diaper Covers. Cloth diapers are truly the gift that keeps on giving. I’m certainly glad someone thought to give some to me!
By Rebecca G.
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