The Cloth Diaper Chronicles

 
We have decided to use cloth diapers with Merry Ellen. Before you think, ugh NO WAY, these are NOT your mother's diapers. They are super cute and quite easy to use. I am going to blog about my adventure with cloth diapers: the good, the bad, and the stinky. There is an upfront cost with cloth that you may not have with disposables BUT it will save you money in the long run which is the major reason I decided to go with cloth. When all is said and done I probably will have spent $300-400 on cloth diapers. I plan to have about 25 diapers on hand. I am in the process of ordering my diapers and getting them in. Then I will prep them for sweet Merry Ellen to wear when she gets here. (That will be an entirely different blog post.) I have ordered quite a few different brands and a few different kinds of cloth diapers. This will allow me to determine which works best for me and different diapers have different strengths. (some diapers are better overnight than others, etc)  I am very thankful for the advice and help of Raymond's cousin's wife Stephanie. She owns a natural parenting store in Baton Rouge called Angel Britches. Check out her facebook page here.  The majority of the diapers I have came from her store. Most of the diapers I plan to use are pocket diapers that can go from birth to potty training. They don't require an outer cover and you can stuff them more for extra absorbency. I will leave you with the websites for the brands of diapers I am using. Click on the name to be taken to their site.

Happy Heinys--These are super cute and I love the way they adjust. They also have an organic diaper created from hemp that is super absorbent. I ordered a few hemp diapers.

Fuzzibunz--These are so soft and super cute as well.

Bumgenius--I haven't actually gotten these in yet but I have ordered them.

Flip--These diapers are really neat. This is not a pocket diaper. This diaper is a cover and an insert. You just change the insert and not the entire diaper. If there is a little leak onto the cover you have to change the cover as well, so I can imagine this might not be my favorite diaper when Merry is little because of the consistency of dirty diapers of babies who are breast fed. (Sorry for the descriptive words...:)

Sunbaby Diapers--I ordered a very few diapers from this company. They are super cheap and I'm sure in the cloth diaper department you get what you pay for. I don't have high expectations for the quality of this particular diaper or it's performance, I just thought they would be good to have on hand for emergencies and those sorts of things. That being said I looked up reviews on these diapers and many of the reviews I read said they were pleased with them. We shall see. :)

So I suppose that's it for now. I begin my cloth diaper adventure. Please comment with any questions or advice you might have. Especially if you have an opinion on how to wash them and which detergent you use. (I currently have and plan to use Charlie's soap. Different people have different opinions on Charlie's soap.)  I don't want to have to go through a complicated process. (I know different things work for different people.)

Happy Diapering!