My biggest challenge with cloth diapering, and the main reason why I suppose it took me so long to decide to do it, was the whole poop aspect of it. I didn't want to be scraping poop off of cloth and into a toilet when I could more easily wrap it up tightly and drop it into my diaper genie, to be forgotten forever. But in all that time that I was wrapping up used diapers into neat little packages and dropping them to be sealed forever inside an interpretable blue bag I was thinking just that... I was dropping them into a bag that would remain somewhere forever, and if not forever, for a very very long time. Certainly, longer than I will be alive.
Another thought that would pop in every now and then would be the cost of the diapers that Max was wearing and using six of or seven of a day. Sometimes the diaper would be on his bum for 10 minutes before he pooped in it, then I would take it off and throw it away. What a waste of a diaper, I would think... I should at least get three hours out of each one before sending it to the landfill.
Still, with all the negatives about disposable diapers I was struggling with the poop thing. I know a diaper sprayer would make things easier and probably ease my mind, but I didn't want to attach one to my toilet. I needed to let the idea sink in a bit more before feeling like I could move forward. I decided to give myself as much time as I needed, which in my case, just happened to be almost 20 months.
Once I felt ready, the next step was to dive into the wide world of cloth diapers and to try to figure out which ones would work best for me. There are so many to choose from. This step took months in itself to complete. I used different sites to educate myself on the subject, but here is a video that I found especially helpful in making my decision, Different Types of Cloth Diapers. (If you don't know anything about cloth diapering, take 5 minutes to watch the video before reading the rest of my post)
Before I continue on to my decisions, I would like to share some of the "diaper math" that I did. I put Max in Huggies because they are the cheapest good diapers that I could find (Luvs are cheaper, but they are horrible). A case of size 4 Huggies costs me $58.95 and contains 104 diapers. That comes out to .55 cents PER DIAPER. Then, multiply that by 6 (which is the average he uses in a day) and it's $3.30 a day or $99.00 A MONTH!!! I SPEND ALMOST $100 ON DIAPERS IN ONE MONTH! This blew my mind. This doesn't include the cost of wipes or Diaper Genie refill bags. Once I did this math I was 100% certain that I was going to switch to cloth, or at least work my way there.
I decided to start out easy and wanted to try gdiapers (a hybrid). My girlfriend gave me a few along with a bunch of disposable liners. As a beginning this was a good place. I was half cloth diapering and I was able to sort of establish a washing routine and feel the whole thing out. For me, this wasn't scary, I could flush the poop so it worked for me until...
Until I did more math and realized that I would not be saving any money if I decided to gdiaper. The liners actually cost MORE than an entire disposable diaper!! Then add in the cost of a plumber for when you get a liner stuck in the toilet and your cost increases substantially. Saving money is high on my list of reasons to cloth diaper and if this wasn't going to save me money, then it wasn't going to work for me. I needed to get over my poop issue fast.
That's when I decided to just get over it. To just suck it up and forget about it. I read a few blog posts and got some ideas for dealing with poop (without buying a sprayer) and made the final decision to go ALL CLOTH. Oh, and I also made the decision that a pocket diaper, an AI2 diaper and a hybrid (with a cloth insert) would be the way I wanted to go. I would get a few different ones and use each when I felt it was appropriate. I also planned to get them all ONE SIZE that way we could use them again with baby #2.
So here I was ready to go all cloth when I realized... holy shit, cloth diapers are expensive!! Trying to save money and spending hundreds on cloth diapers was not going to cut it. I needed to get all these diapers CHEAP! My first stop was Craigslist where I realized that used cloth diapers, ones that other babies, babies that you don't know, pooped in, are not that much less expensive than new ones. Some moms where asking only $2 less than a new diaper would cost! Some people were asking $15 a diaper! I decided right then and there that I would not pay more than $10 for any diaper. Next stop was Ebay, where I was unable to win any auctions that I bid on. Then I tried sites that sell "gently used" cloth diapers, nope... more expensive than Craigslist and then I was back to Craigslist. By this time I am obsessively monitoring Craigslist and calculating the savings of buying her diapers or his diapers and I stumble upon a diaper brand called Kawaii. Armed with this new information I went to one of my Facebook mom groups and ask about this diaper. It seemed too good to be true... a pocket diaper that has all snaps and is a one size for under $8 NEW!!!! Compared to all the others that were almost $20 new there had to be some sort of scam in progress... But apparently there isn't. According to friends, acquaintances and strangers the Kawaii diapers are just as good as their $20 competitors. I was sold. I wanted these Kawaii diapers and I found someone on Craislist who was selling them. I arranged to meet, but alas was stood up. This turned out to be a good thing. While he was asking almost $6 per diaper, I was able to find some on clearance on their site for $5 each. Yeah, that's right. You read that correctly, $5 each! Granted, they are hideous things yellow with princesses and teddy bears, but they will get the job done. (See photo, I think they are growing me... I'm kinda starting to like them.) Best part about getting them so cheap is that no one has pooped in them yet. Max gets to be the first! I bought the sale, which was 15 diapers for $75.
Knowing that 15 diapers wouldn't be enough I contacted a seller on Craigslist and purchased some more from her. As a bonus I received a Bum Genius for free from a Facebook friend.
Here is an inventory of what I was able to score along with what they cost new. I spent $175 for all the diapers, covers and liners listed below, (to be as consistent with pricing as possible, I took all prices from Amazon.com, with the exception of the Kawaii because Amazon listed them for $10 each)
8 One Size Bum Genius Diapers, two liners each (17.95 x 8 = $143.60)
1 Flip Diaper and liner ($16.95)
4 One Size Mother-ease diapers ($13.60 x 4 = $54.40)
2 Mother-ease diaper covers ($12.25 x 2 = $24.50)
15 One Size Kawaii Pocket Diapers (their site: $6.99 x 15 = 104.85)
2 Boosters (adds absorbency) ($1.00 x 2 = $2.00)
1 extra long Bum Genius Insert ($3.49)
4 extra short Bum Genius Inserts ($1.80 x 4 = $7.20)
NEW, all these diapers, covers and inserts would have cost me........... drum roll please...... a whopping $357. Remember, I paid $175. I saved 49% buying all my diapers used and on clearance.
What is the moral of this story, or otherwise, the purpose of all this ranting and bragging about how much money I didn't spend? The moral is... be thrify, shop second hand. Don't buy new stuff just because you don't want something that someone already pooped on. It's just going to get pooped on again so who cares? That's the moral.
Oh, and during the writing of this post, I cleaned my first poopy cloth diaper. It wasn't THAT bad and It's already been washed and smells fresh and is all white again. I think this is all going to be okay. And maybe now I can even cancel my BJs membership since I won't be spending $99 a month on diapers anymore :)
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