Cloth Diapering: HELP!

[Febe]

Hi all!

I'm sort of new here. I live in the US, in the south. (Just moved down here from New England). My hubby got a new job, so we packed up our lives and moved 1100 miles away. In the next few months, we are going to start TTC and as first time hopefully-soon-to-be parents, we're researching all our options.

We are thinking of cloth diapering. I've seen a bunch of YT Moms vlogs on cloth (Obbsandlala) and while I think she is explanatory in her vlogs, she doesn't exactly SHOW me when I'm looking for. If that makes sense? I was curious if you could recommend any YT moms that cloth diaper OR if you cloth diaper, maybe guide me to a link that might be helpful?

I have heard of Alva Baby being really inexpensive, and working okay. I know other brands are said to be better like Bum Genius, but I just can't fathom paying that much for a diaper. I watch a YT Mom (Mand627) and she just did a review for clothdiapers.us.com but people were saying in the comments that it was just Alva diapers.

So I guess what I'm looking for are some good recommendations of channels and diapers. Any information is very much appreciated! Thanks!

Oh ps: whenever I mention to family we think we're going to cloth diaper, we get so many negative comments. If you cloth diaper, how do you deal with the comments, if you get any?

[TheEnd]

I don't know about YouTube channels about cloth diapering except one (kdhoney01 or something like that... She runs the blog Dirty Diaper Laundry and has done a million diaper demos) but I have about a thousand different types of diapers. Honestly Alvas are close to my favorite. They have a lot of cute prints and work just as well as any other diaper I have.

In my opinion, if you aren't sure what you like you should buy a couple types of diapers and try them out before committing to one syetem. I thought I would love Bumgenius but I didn't. There were a lot of brands we tried that we have since sold off.

[Spoby]

We cloth diaper, we have for a little while now. I suggest buying a wide range of different diapers. It depends on whether you want to do prefolds and covers, pockets, or you could do fitteds and covers. We personally chose pocket diapers, we like Charlie banana, alva's, and applecheeks.
They're super easy and most resemble the disposable diaper.

We have gotten a whole heap of comments about people thinking I touch a whole heap of poop/pee. (When we honestly don't)
I just brush the comments off and think 'well my baby's diaper is cuter than yours and we're saving a ton of money'.

[Febe]

Thanks you both! One of my husbands cousins is going to give me some of her Charlie Banana to try out (once she is done/we are pregnant) I was thinking about buying a few of each brand. I'm mostly looking to use pocket diapers, but maybe once I am into it a bit more I will expand my stash haha.

[briannaspeaks]

There's a mom vlogger by the name "08jaydensmommy08". She cloth diapers and does reviews for them, she has quite a variety of diapers (or so I think) and she has a good amount of videos that have to do with cloth diapering.

I second getting a variety of diapers, because you never know what will truly work for you and/or your baby until you try it. I never liked Alva diapers, I prefer Bumgenius and Soft Bums but those are pretty pricey. There is also a brand called Gdiapers and they are fairly cheap, I personally don't like those either but some people do. Also try Ebay, I get some of my diapers from there. And you can find some pretty cheap.

The negative comments... I just remember in the back of my head that I'm saving money, helping the environment and putting my daughter in something better. And if people keep snapping at me I just tell them those things and then they usually turn away.

[Febe]

I watched her a long time ago but I unsubbed. I will have to check out her videos again!

I think I will get a variety. I mean if I don't like a certain brand, and love a specific one, I can always sell, or give away the ones I don't like.

Did any of you buy newborn diapers? I see a lot of companies offer "one size" would those fit a newborn? I tried finding youtube videos with one size on a newborn and I think I only found one.

[briannaspeaks]

I used all one sizes. When my daughter was born I used disposable diapers because I didn't want the meconium to stain the diapers. And after about 2 weeks I started cloth and she fit into the one sizes and she was about 7 lbs 10 ozs or something like that.

I liked the idea of one sizes better, I don't exactly know why.

[BaileyBoo12]

Heidi Kim also has a lot of CLoth diapering videos

[Febe]

I like the one size too! Seems like getting the most out of the diapers!

Thanks everyone! I will check out all the channels you mentioned.

[Chevbowlyn]

I cloth diaper and have for over 2 years. I highly recommend buying the better brand name cloth diapers instead of the "China Cheapies"(Alva, Sunbaby) because you get what you pay for. Paying $18 a diaper that lasts until potty trained and even longer is a good investment. Plus retail value is good as well. I have 12 Sunbaby diapers that I only paid $60 for all didn't even last me a year and leak like crazy. Just remember, you're only paying $500 the most for diapers if you do pockets instead of $1500 to $2000. You also want to do prefolds and covers in the beginning, because OS diapers don't really start to fit until after 10lbs. You can actually buy those used and then resale them again. also, you need to figure out what type of water you have. I have hard water, so not any brand will work for me. I tried Rockn' Green Hard Rock and it sucked. I'm not the only ones in my area said the same thing. In my area, most use Lulu's in the Fluff but it didn't work out for me. I've tried Tide Original and most like it, but I got bad ammonia from it, and it is the reason that my bamboo diaper and hemp inserts deteriorated(found someone else who had the same problem). So far Country Save is working great.

For good brand of diapers that also have good resale value are: bumGenius, Rumparooz, Fuzzibunz, AppleCheeks, Best Bottoms, Swaddlebees, and those too damn expensive fitted diaper companies. I personally love bumGenius and have "collected" every print and color minus noodle, white, and two of the Artist series. I've tried Fuzzibunz, but haven't tried the new Elites(the old Elites suck!!) As soon as I have fluff money, I want to try out grovia, Rumparooz, applecheeks, the new Elites, and TotsBots.

There are some sales as well going on right now. Too bad you're not pregnant because you could snag some retired bumGenius colors/prints and Fuzzibunz retired color/prints for an awesome price.

[Febe]

ichigo8504: I've been trying to convince my husband to let me start collecting some now but he thinks it's bad luck lol. I did go ahead and make a "wish list" on Target of the cloth they sell so that I have a list I can take a peek at once I get to a Target. My husband works crazy weird hours, and we're still a one car family (there is no way my old car would have made it to our relocation, and I didn't want to spend the extra money to ship it). So once I get a second car I will be able to check out some places that sell cloth around here, as well as Target and Babies R Us.

We have hard water here. I actually just googled that to find out. There is a YT Mom that lives sort of close by that I watch, and she makes her own detergent and says it works fine for her. I was thinking of doing the same possibly. We already make our own laundry detergent anyway, so it won't be a big deal to make a small batch of the one she made to see (eventually) if it works.

I am liking Charlie Banana and Apple Cheeks (just from what I've gathered my research on). I also watched a YT Mom that uses Flip/Flipp? I don't know if that's spelled correct. I think it's a hybrid diaper. Originally, I really liked G diapers, but a lot of people were telling me that it's a lot more expensive (we would use the cloth inserts) and to just try cloth. Have you ever tried the G diapers?

[TheEnd]

I cloth diaper and have for over 2 years. I highly recommend buying the better brand name cloth diapers instead of the "China Cheapies"(Alva, Sunbaby) because you get what you pay for.

I used to totally agree with this except now I have been cloth diapering for 18 months and my Alvas look great! My Totsbots, however, delaminated, and two snaps cracked on my Bumgenius 4.0. I don't even dry them in the dryer! I think the Chinese cheepies are getting better and better. I have tried at least 20 brands and I like them as much as some of my $25 dollar diapers. We'll see how they hold up over the next year, but I figure if they only last through one kid, they're only five bucks! Plus it's an excuse to pick out new prints! Alva just came out with some new prints that I'm drooling over but my husband will divorce me if I buy any more diapers.

As for OS vs newborn diapers, we really only got a good fit on the one size when my son was over 9 pounds. Even then, his clothes didn't really fit over our OS diapers. We did newborn prefolds and covers and that worked well for us until he was around 3 months old and fit the OS better. Honestly though, if we didn't plan on reusing the newborn diapers for future children, we just would have used disposables. We cloth diaper to save money.

[Febe]

How many diapers do you think is a good stash? I was considering the 50 pack of Alvas lol but I don't know if that's too much. (That was before I was recommended to try a few other brands and not just one). My husband says you can never have too many haha

[old_soul_here]

How many diapers do you think is a good stash? I was considering the 50 pack of Alvas lol but I don't know if that's too much. (That was before I was recommended to try a few other brands and not just one). My husband says you can never have too many haha

He is right, you can never have too many! I wish i had more (especially when the weather is horrible for getting them dry!), I have fifty, and could do with a dozen or so more, and that's with a three time a day change half potty trained two year old I'm going to try and make my own soon.

[skeptic]

I've tried out a bunch of brands of one-size pocket diapers before settling on one. Each brand had its pros and cons, and some suited my daughter at certain age stages but not at other stages. Bumgenius, Happy Heiny's, and Fuzzibunz were my top faves. Alvas never fit my daughter right, bunched in the front, and were outgrown before most other brands we tried. We settled on Fuzzibunz OS (old style and old Elites) because we got the best fit with the buttonhole elastic. When my daughter outgrew all one-size diapers, we switched to large Fuzzibunz Perfect Size. We double stuff our diapers with a microfiber insert and a hemp insert (purchased separately) because our daughter is a very heavy wetter.

I think we have about 30 diapers in our stash for our 1 child. We go through about 8-11 diapers per day (more frequent changes than the average for her age of 29 months). We wash diapers every other day. However, when we started cloth diapering, we only had about 8 diapers, so we washed daily and used disposables until clean diapers were dry.

I second Dirty Diaper Laundry. The retailers http://www.diaperjunction.com and http://www.kellyscloset.com have some helpful articles/blogs. I highly recommend http://www.PaddedTushStats.com (and their FB page and FB discussion group). They have informative articles, reviews on hundreds of brands/models, stats from cloth diapering parents (on how they would rate the diapers they've used), and a retailer database with a list of those hosting special offers and discounts (updated monthly). They've even reviewed some brands by work-at-home-moms.

[Lunchlady]

Hi all!

I'm sort of new here. I live in the US, in the south. (Just moved down here from New England). My hubby got a new job, so we packed up our lives and moved 1100 miles away. In the next few months, we are going to start TTC and as first time hopefully-soon-to-be parents, we're researching all our options.

We are thinking of cloth diapering. I've seen a bunch of YT Moms vlogs on cloth (Obbsandlala) and while I think she is explanatory in her vlogs, she doesn't exactly SHOW me when I'm looking for. If that makes sense? I was curious if you could recommend any YT moms that cloth diaper OR if you cloth diaper, maybe guide me to a link that might be helpful?

I have heard of Alva Baby being really inexpensive, and working okay. I know other brands are said to be better like Bum Genius, but I just can't fathom paying that much for a diaper. I watch a YT Mom (Mand627) and she just did a review for clothdiapers.us.com but people were saying in the comments that it was just Alva diapers.

So I guess what I'm looking for are some good recommendations of channels and diapers. Any information is very much appreciated! Thanks!

Oh ps: whenever I mention to family we think we're going to cloth diaper, we get so many negative comments. If you cloth diaper, how do you deal with the comments, if you get any?

I don't have kids but my niece was cloth diapered at 2wks old. There is the cloth diaper channel on yt that my sister watched when she was pregnant w/ my niece. I was on board w/ the cloth diapers, my mom liked velcro better cause it was easier for her. The extended family thought it was weird and would comment on it when they saw her in a cloth diaper. At my sister's baby shower my mom got her some cloth diapers and some people commented and said yea lets see how long that (cloth diapering) last. Well cloth diapering lasted 2 years until she potty trained.

[Chevbowlyn]

ichigo8504: I've been trying to convince my husband to let me start collecting some now but he thinks it's bad luck lol. I did go ahead and make a "wish list" on Target of the cloth they sell so that I have a list I can take a peek at once I get to a Target. My husband works crazy weird hours, and we're still a one car family (there is no way my old car would have made it to our relocation, and I didn't want to spend the extra money to ship it). So once I get a second car I will be able to check out some places that sell cloth around here, as well as Target and Babies R Us.

We have hard water here. I actually just googled that to find out. There is a YT Mom that lives sort of close by that I watch, and she makes her own detergent and says it works fine for her. I was thinking of doing the same possibly. We already make our own laundry detergent anyway, so it won't be a big deal to make a small batch of the one she made to see (eventually) if it works.

I am liking Charlie Banana and Apple Cheeks (just from what I've gathered my research on). I also watched a YT Mom that uses Flip/Flipp? I don't know if that's spelled correct. I think it's a hybrid diaper. Originally, I really liked G diapers, but a lot of people were telling me that it's a lot more expensive (we would use the cloth inserts) and to just try cloth. Have you ever tried the G diapers?

You could try www.nickisdiapers.com to buy a single diaper without paying for shipping... I think most pockets are free shipping.

Remember that just because the detergent worked for one person doesn't mean it will work for all. Tide original has worked for so many without problems like needing stripping or ammonia. I had to strip mine so often with only using a TB of detergent and still had problems. Trial and error is what getting a good laundry routing is all about.

Never tried gDiapers but they seem expensive to me. I also wouldn't want to deal with the velcro. My son was only 3 months old when he was taking off his Thirsties covers.

[Febe]

Thanks Skeptic! I will definitely check those articles out!

Lunchlady- that is exactly how people reacted when I said that! I went back up north to visit family this past summer, I was holding my cousins baby and people were asking when my husband and I were going to have a baby (then told us to wait and enjoy our "free time") and I mentioned cloth diapering, and people were like "yeah okay, good luck with that" "ew, why would you want to put yourself through that" "why would you cloth diaper when they make disposables?" I just pretended I didn't hear anyone and went on holding the baby.

[Febe]

ichigo8504: I've been trying to convince my husband to let me start collecting some now but he thinks it's bad luck lol. I did go ahead and make a "wish list" on Target of the cloth they sell so that I have a list I can take a peek at once I get to a Target. My husband works crazy weird hours, and we're still a one car family (there is no way my old car would have made it to our relocation, and I didn't want to spend the extra money to ship it). So once I get a second car I will be able to check out some places that sell cloth around here, as well as Target and Babies R Us.

We have hard water here. I actually just googled that to find out. There is a YT Mom that lives sort of close by that I watch, and she makes her own detergent and says it works fine for her. I was thinking of doing the same possibly. We already make our own laundry detergent anyway, so it won't be a big deal to make a small batch of the one she made to see (eventually) if it works.

I am liking Charlie Banana and Apple Cheeks (just from what I've gathered my research on). I also watched a YT Mom that uses Flip/Flipp? I don't know if that's spelled correct. I think it's a hybrid diaper. Originally, I really liked G diapers, but a lot of people were telling me that it's a lot more expensive (we would use the cloth inserts) and to just try cloth. Have you ever tried the G diapers?

You could try http://www.nickisdiapers.com to buy a single diaper without paying for shipping... I think most pockets are free shipping.

Remember that just because the detergent worked for one person doesn't mean it will work for all. Tide original has worked for so many without problems like needing stripping or ammonia. I had to strip mine so often with only using a TB of detergent and still had problems. Trial and error is what getting a good laundry routing is all about.

Never tried gDiapers but they seem expensive to me. I also wouldn't want to deal with the velcro. My son was only 3 months old when he was taking off his Thirsties covers.

I will definitely check out nickis diapers! It would be really helpful to have one around here so my husband could actually see and feel it. He is on board with the cloth diapering, but he has never really seen one in person lol.

Yeah the gdiapers seem expensive. If I was going to try it, I may only get one pack, on sale or something.

[Chevbowlyn]

How many diapers do you think is a good stash? I was considering the 50 pack of Alvas lol but I don't know if that's too much. (That was before I was recommended to try a few other brands and not just one). My husband says you can never have too many haha

I wouldn't put my money in a whole stash of just one type of diaper; you might not like them. When I first started, I wanted to get the old Fuzzibunz Elites because people I followed on YT said good things about them. Bought 6 and had to resale them because they leaked like crazy(which is why FB went back to microfiber). I also bought 6 Freetime bumGenius diapers. They are good diapers but they suck when it comes to toddler(or if you formula feed) poop. Also, how do you replace the elastic?!!