A Year of Cloth Diapers

Back by popular demand (who knew cloth diapers were such an interesting topic!) here is my cloth diaper follow-up after using them for about a year.

New red snap "Fuzzi Bunz". These are super adjustable for smaller babies too.

After the Experiment

• We bought 6 one-size Bum Genius diapers (the really fancy kind) after completing the diaper experiment.
• We had a few bumps figuring out how to reduce staining/smelling but now they almost never stain and I have less smelling issues.
• I love how easy it is to put these on and off with the Velcro. However I can tell the Velcro won't last forever with repeated washings. So I bought 1 snap Fuzzi Bunz and 1 snap Happy Heiny in December. There are things I like about each of these. The snaps are harder to use but the baby also can't get them off as easy, and they won't wear out in the wash as easily as Velcro.
• I still mostly just use them at home. I will admit for about a month and a half I didn't use them at all because I was so sick and tired at the beginning of my pregnancy with the twins. Now I'm back to using them.
• It also seems harder to get pants on her now. The bigger size pants seem to be made more trim. I try to put sweat pants or leggings on her with the cloth diapers and her regular pants and jeans with disposables.
• The longer I use cloth the easier they get.
• As long as I'm home I actually prefer cloth even on the "dirty" diapers. I put a liner on top of every diaper then I usually just have to turn it over and flush- hardly any dunking (but I do still want a diaper sprayer) and the diaper pail smell is really minimal. I can't say the same for disposables. With my new pregnancy-induced-superhuman-sense-of-smell I can't find a place far enough away to throw them away. I used a diaper champ most of the time but with solid food that wasn't cutting it anymore, then I tried plastic bagging each one and putting them in the trash. Then I tried the diaper champ in the garage but I couldn't stand to even go out there. Now I take them bagged right out to the outside garbage but now I don't like walking by that either! What do you do with their super smelly diapers? I know a lot of the problem is just my nausea and elevated sense of smell, but until I can figure it out I prefer the cloth- less smelling overall. Hard to believe I know- but true.

New cute aqua snap one size "Happy Heiny" I realized I had the snap undone on one side after I took the picture and had to fix it!

I am NOT going to attempt cloth diapers with twins at the beginning because:

• Who has time to do EXTRA laundry when you have 2 newborns
• Buying enough cloth diapers for 2 newborns would be a TON of diapers

I AM considering continuing to use cloth with Charlotte and possibly doing it with the twins when they get a little older because:

• When they get past the first stage I wouldn't need nearly as many diapers
• Charlotte will hopefully potty train in the next little while after the twins come and cloth is better for potty training prep
• Think of how much I'll save having two in cloth!
• I'll be able to wash the diapers more often with 2 (or 3) of them going through them so they won't sit in the diaper pail very long at all- which is nice as far as less smelling/staining
• I won't be able to get out of the house as much anyway with 3 little kids and cloth is super easy to use at home
• I even went as far as to register for cloth diapers. I realize most people don't like to buy "boring" diapers, so I'm not getting my hopes up. We would definitely get our use out of them though.

So that's the plan for now- but I reserve the right to change my mind.