Chaz Moms and Moms-to-Be Chat (everyone welcome)

haha see that's the theory! lol I'm home so I can do more laundry... yeah... I never do more laundry hahaha. I honestly think I'd rather clean the toilet than do laundry. I don't know why but I hate laundry. BUT I'm sure I can do it or talk Brian into doing it for me LOL. As it is he does half my laundry anyway. I manage to get it into the washing machine and then OOPS I forgot... BABE can you throw my wash into the dryer for me *bats eyes* LOL

Hahaha I'm thinking the same thing! I'm sure Brian will help out, though! Show him the savings from cloth vs. disposables, too, and I bet he'll volunteer to throw them in the washer or dryer.

I'm not sure why I hate laundry so much... I guess because it just piles up so quickly. We have a 2 story house so we have to bring everything up and down the stairs. Ugh.

He will lol he's a good helper he's all about the potential savings of cloth diapers.

yeah our laundry is downstairs and while it's really only about 12 stairs away it's still DOWNSTAIRS. My mom's house is one floor and so she just walks to the back room and throws in the laundry and no stairs. So nice. I don't like hauling it up and down the steps.

we started with cloth, switched and I will never go back any money saved is lost in time and washing, and washing and washing and water and heating more water, and soaking, and other other laundry piling up because more diapers need to be done, then tossing them in the dryer, more electricity and or gas to heat. I don't think there's any "real" savings.

We sold all our stuff after about a month. That was enough for us we're wimps. But i'm glad we did.

Its been a bit, but yes, I used cloth on both of mine. When both were in them I was doing a load probably every 1 1/2 - 2 days but even I, who hate laundry and am awful at cleaning etc, had no problem doing them. I didnt restuff them each time or fold them and put them "away" so that may have helped. I had PUL diaper pail bags that I used to hold dirties. Then when it was full the whole thing got dumped into the wash, bag too. Wash, dry (line drying is better but only place I had good sun was front yard so didnt do that...would throw a couple out on the fence here and there that needed it though) and then stuff all back into the now clean bag. I pulled from the bag as needed. Sometimes I would go through and stuff them all and organize, more often I would just pull from the bag til empty.

We definitely saved money even with the extra washings. Environmentally I felt much better using them as well. Now, if I lived in a high drought area that may have changed a bit but I dont, so water wasnt a real concern for me.

I found them much easier to use as well. I used disposables a couple times on vacations and we had blow outs and wet throughs..and the kids were uncomfortable in them. Lilah called them the scratchy plastic pants lol.

eta: on the washing, at the time I still had a top loader. I would put them in and run a rinse. Then fill and soak overnight usually. DH would then start the load in the morning before he left for work so usually by the time I had the kids settled from waking up and kind of did our morning thing, I could throw them in the dryer and then do any other loads throughout the day

for us it was the opposite, we had wet thru's and blowouts pretty much any time he went to the bathroom. We were changing pretty much every 1 hour, by 2 it was too late. That's a lot of diapers to be washing and a lot of clothes that were only worn for an hour or two.

I know a lot of people do it, didn't work so well for us.

I've heard that disposable diapers have more occurrences of blowouts and soak throughs.

I know that certain brands of cloth diapers fit better than others depending on the baby, so that's why I'm trying an assortment of brands in the beginning to see what works best with Nora. If we end up hating cloth diapering, we'll use disposables but I'm really hoping that cloth works for us.

Besides the cost of disposables, I don't like the idea of the chemicals and the difficulty to determine wetness in disposables. I've also heard that diaper rash is more common while using disposables.

I don't know anything about diapers but Nora is such a lovely name!

Thank you! I love it! Her full name is Nora Grace

It's fairly easy to tell with disposables what's going on by feel it's an acquired skill, plus they puff out a bit.

We use 7th generation, they look like recycled paper, but work great. We heard the blowout thing too, reality was different for us. I don't what brands we had, but we had a lot of new and used. i'd have to ask my wife what kind we had, but I know it was several.

We haven't had any issues with diaper rash thus far. He's only 5 months so I guess there is still time I think people would probably get into trouble with rash because they leave the diaper on too long. From our experience, the storage capacity of a disposable has blown away that of our cloth So I can see why people would have more issues with disposable. I think they just leave them on longer.

But cloth does work for a lot of people. 2 of my wife's paralegals use cloth and love them. But they too admit, it's 2 hour absolute max between changing. We know about 3-4 others personally that have used or are currently using cloth and they work well for them. I think we were just too lazy

That's really good to know. I'm definitely open to using disposables if cloth doesn't work for us. I feel like I'm in foreign territory with all of this baby stuff. You can plan and plan but you really can't know what works until you're actually in the midst of it all. I wish there was a one size fits all handbook

I haven't been around in forever- but I heard there is a group of moms to be here now (I remember when we were all much younger and not even considering kids- crazy!) and so I'm also expecting (adopting a baby girl from Ethiopia) I wanted to chime in!

I went with cloth diapers for baby on the way- I have a good stash of about 75 (overkill??? Probably- that's my style hah!) over here waiting for her.

My favorite person for information was on youtube- ObbsandLala. She has so many great CD videos- here's her playlist of 33 videos about them:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2CE681574C00E83D

Ironically I was convinced I would go with pockets because of her- but I ended up with fitteds which I think I'll really love! I didn't go with the "see what works for you approach" that a lot of people do- I have a ton of friends that use the same fitteds I use - so I trust their experience

I'm actually not saving money on cloth diapers due to the expensive brand I chose- but the benefits to me are:

-Better for babies skin (you are less tempted to leave them in a diaper for a long time since cloth does not generally wick the moisture away from their skin- so you know when they need to be changed)

-No chemicals

-If I was a baby- I asked myself what I would prefer- and cotton seemed a lot better than fake materials!

-Cuteness factor (I'm sorry this was totally legit for me)

-Becoming more self sustainable. I switched to everything cloth in my house because I'm sick of having to buy things I need at the grocery store all the time. (and yes this includes TP- insane- I know)

-And most importantly for me was my carbon footprint. I thought not only about the thousands and thousands of diapers babies go through from age 1 to about 2.5 (the average potty training age) but also about what energy it takes to MAKE those diapers. The factories, the packaging, the trucks dropping off at wal-mart and all the gas used in that, etc.

Hope this helps some people! I don't think there's one wrong or right what to do it- I just know what felt right to ME. I do have the luxury of mostly getting to stay home with DD due to running a flexible business so that definitely comes into play- I don't know if I could choose cloth if I couldn't be around quite as much. Gonna read this thread more and see if there are any other questions I can help with because I literally did I would say like 100 hours + of research hah!

And one more thing- it's INSANE! Of my friends who are having babies right now- none of them particularly crunchy- of the 10 or so I know- about 7 are planning to CD. These are friends from all walks of life- not just one group. Times are a-changing- and I'm psyched about it!

Ps. Jessie if you have any questions about CDing- I seriously went NUTS with the research! PM me any time on FB. CD moms love to talk diapers with other CD moms hah!!

I LOVE CDing. We started with Sun Baby brand (cheap!) and switched to Apple Cheeks because they're Canadian and fit better and I love it. She's in disposables over night and at daycare and otherwise she's in fluff.

Thanks, Erin!

I've done a good bit of research and CD'ing isn't as confusing as it was when I first started reading about it. I really hope it works well for us.

What are you putting over your fitted diapers? The AIOs and pockets seemed to be a better fit for us, so we're going to start with those and I'm hoping they'll work out.

My SIL and cousin and have used cloth diapers and love them. Personally I already detest doing laundry for 2 adults and have no interest in adding to that more than necessary. I prefer the idea of changing them, throwing them out and being done with it. Howver, I do know lots of people love then, and the covers are cute.

I hate doing regular laundry but I hate having SO MUCH GARBAGE even more. Even just doing disposables part time, I'm astounded at how fast they add up.

Also, I seem to never mind doing diaper laundry. I'm one of those weirdos now who can't wait to hang the diapers on the line and let those flags fly. Lol

Wool for daytime and fleece for bedtime I think! Pretty pretty gorgeous addicting wool (sloomb - mostly under woolies or base woolies) that is pricey and annoying to care for- but I am addicted for how gorgeous it is and how it's so natural. Cheap fleece covers for bedtime since she'll just be sleeping and style doesn't matter Haven't decided where I'll buy the fleece yet.

If I didn't pick Sloomb- I would have chosen LoveyBums- similar price- but at least not as addicting to have all the colors hah!

http://www.amazon.com/Loveybums-Han...1403310617&sr=8-10&keywords=wool+diaper+cover

This is the sloomb page I love on FB.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/sloombfanchat/?ref=br_tf

It's the same company as Sustainablebabyish / Sbish - they merged

Also the fitted company I use (goodmama) does make some All in 2s so I have a bunch of those for errands- although I plan to go coverless a lot of the time around the house for simplicity and breathability

Too funny- everyone I know loves their diaper laundry for some reason! It makes sense to me- because I love my cloth napkin, cloth paper towels, cloth TP laundry- but hate ALL other laundry.

What brand are you leaning towards Jessie?