Washing Your Diapers (AKA: OMG! It pooped!)

You've bought your diapers.

You've prepped your diapers.

You even put a diaper on the baby.

But then...IT happens. Your baby USES the diaper. And not as a hat. But for its intended purpose!

THE HORROR!

Actually, no. No horror! We promise. It is very easy to clean a cloth diaper, and the visions of a poop-filled washing machine you have in your head? Not gonna happen!

WASHING YOUR DIAPERS: THE BASICS

To wash your diapers, you will need a washing machine (or your hands and a bathtub if you are going to hand wash them!) and a cloth-diaper safe detergent.

WASH ROUTINES
Most wash routines consist of three parts: a pre-wash or rinse, a wash, and an extra rinse.  The specifics of each part can vary from person to person and machine to machine. Some people start with just a rinse, while some do a full wash. Some people use a small amount of detergent in the pre-wash, while some do not.  Much like the diapers themselves and the detergent, there is no one set solution that will work for everyone.

We recommend starting with some variation on the following:

1. Cold rinse (or quick wash) with no detergent
2. Hot wash with detergent
3. Extra rinse

That very basic wash routine is generally successful for a large number of people. The first rinse or wash on cold gets most of the poop off without staining. The hot wash (the hottest wash short of sanitary, which is too hot for the PUL in your diapers!) cleans the diapers. The extra rinse ensures that every bit of detergent is gone and helps prevent build up.

There is a wide range of what works within that basic set up. Some people do two full washes with an extra rinse. Some people skip the pre-rinse. Some do all cold washes; some do all hot washes. Some people use detergent in the quick wash and the hot wash. Some do two rinses at the end.  If you're having issues, you can usually tweak routine to fix them. For example, if you're having issues with buildup, you might want to try another extra rinse.

Some people find that their high-efficiency washers don't seem to work as well as regular top-loaders, because they use so little water to wash. There are a number of ways you can add extra water to your HE machine to ensure that the diapers are washed and rinsed thoroughly: you can usually add water to the cycle through the detergent drawer, you could stop the first rinse/wash cycle before it spins out so that the diapers are still soaking wet when you begin the hot wash (this tricks the machine into thinking there is more laundry in the drum, so it sends more water to wash them), or you could add a wet towel to the hot wash cycle (again, this tricks the machine into sending more water).

DETERGENT
There is a huge variety of cloth-diaper safe detergents out there, and they work completely differently from person to person. The hardness of your water, the exact chemistry of your child's urine (seriously!), the type of washer and dryer you have, the type of diaper you use...all of these factors come into play when determining how well different detergents work. Some people swear by Rockin Green; some find that it doesn't get their diapers clean at all.

You can find a list of cloth-diaper safe detergents here:

Regular washers
http://pinstripesandpolkadots.com/detergentchoices.htm

HE washers
http://www.pinstripesandpolkadots.com/hedetergentchoices.htm

Many people choose based on what is easily accessible and what is affordable for them. If you have friends that live nearby and have a similar washing machine setup, you may want to ask them for their recommendations. You can also check this table of different wash routines to see if there is a setup similar to what you have, and try the detergent listed there.

Unfortunately, because there are a number of factors that come into play when choosing your detergent, we can't make a blanket recommendation. Try one, and if after a period of time you notice your diapers don't seem to be getting clean or don't smell fresh, try another one. Many people don't have issues, though, and the first detergent they try will work just fine for them.

How much detergent? That's tricky. You want to use the least amount of detergent possible to get the diapers clean.  Most cloth-diaper safe detergents have good guidelines on the package (for example, Rockin Green recommends 1 tablespoon for HE machines and 2 tablespoons for regular machines, and that's a good place to start for most powdered detergents).  Watch the last rinse cycle - if there are still bubbles or suds at the end of it, you might be using too much detergent (or you might just need to add another rinse cycle). If you're using too much detergent, you may get ammonia build up. If you're using too little detergent, you may get a barnyard or dirty smell (smelling the wet diapers as they come out of the washer is a good indicator - they should smell fresh!).

Most people just use detergent in the main wash cycle, but some will throw in a bit during the first wash as well. Whenever you're using more detergent, be sure that there are no residual suds at the end of the extra rinse cycle!

ADDITIVES

If you talk to ten different people, you might hear ten different things that they add to their wash cycle. Vinegar. Bleach. Tea tree oil. RLR. Blue Dawn. Grapefruit Seed extract. Funk Rock. ecover.  They all have different purposes - softening, freshening, stripping, disinfecting, etc. Because there are so many, I'm not going to discuss them in detail here, and I generally recommend keeping your wash routine as simple and purse as possible. But you can Google any of the above with "cloth diapers" and find information.

DEALING WITH THE PEE

Pee diapers are a cinch. Throw them in the wetbag. Wash them. That's it! Some people do choose to rinse pee diapers out, as they feel that it lessens the buildup of ammonia (a natural byproduct of urine), but others see no difference.

DEALING WITH THE POOP

There are two stages of cloth-diaper washing: pre-solids (breastfeeding or formula fed) and post-solids.

PRE-SOLIDS
If you are nursing or formula feeding your child, just throw the soiled diaper in the wetbag. Then when you have a load's worth of dirty diapers, wash them. No, really, that's it.  No separating pee diapers from poop diapers. No rinsing or scraping. Breastmilk poo is totally water soluable and will simply dissolve away in the washer. Formula poop should be as well, but I can't personally vouch for that as I haven't dealt with formula poop.

You CAN rinse or use a liner, but there is absolutely no need to do so and you're just creating an extra step for yourself. Of course, some people are uber-paranoid about the thought of poop spinning around in their washing machine, and if that's you, then by all means do what you have to do in order to ease your mind! But you don't have to do anything other than wash the diaper.

Breastmilk poop (and I assume formula poop) may stain your diapers a bright orange. That's okay. Sun that stain away!

(Note about meconium - it will come off, though you may want to swish/spray/scrape the diaper [see below], and any stains will sun out!)

POST-SOLIDS
Depending on how you introduce solid foods into your child's diet, you may immediately see a change in their, um, output, or you may continue to see the breastmilk- or formula-type poop for several weeks or even months. We started solids using the baby-led weaning techniques, and it took two months for her poop to change from the seedy, sweet-smelling (seriously!) breastmilk poop to the "real" poop of people who eat real food. Some people, though, see the change almost overnight.

Once your child's poop has changed - and it will be obvious, trust me - you will need to start dealing with the poop. This is the point a lot of people bail. However, I promise - I've yet to get poop all over the place or even touch poop. I promise you if you were using disposables, you would have had to deal with a poop blowout at least once, if not regularly! Also, if you were using disposables correctly, you would be dealing with the poop anyway - you aren't supposed to put human waste in the trash, and are supposed to remove solids from the disposable diaper prior to throwing it away!

Eventually, your child's poop may become "ploppable," meaning you can just turn the diaper over the toilet and the solids will drop right off into the toilet.

In the meantime, your kid's poop may range from peanut-butter stickiness (um, you may not want to eat during this post) to hummus textured to mashed potato-like.  Those poops, you can't just drop into the toilet. They stick. They cling. They don't want to leave the diaper.

You have several options on how to deal with those types of poops.

1. Swish
You can hold the diaper in the toilet (by one corner, usually) and swish it around in the toilet water, eventually flushing the toilet while holding the diaper tightly so that the rushing water cleans off the diaper. Be sure to have a wetbag nearby, because you'll have a dripping wet diaper to dispose of! This is minimally messy, but it can be difficult to fully clean the diaper.  Plus? It's free and needs no additional equipment!


2. Spray
You can install a diaper sprayer on your toilet (or some enterprising cheapskates use their removable showerhead - brilliant!). You then use this sprayer to spray the poop off the diaper while holding the diaper over the toilet bowl. The key here? Don't use the full force of the spray, and spray DOWNWARD, not into, the diaper. If you spray into the diaper at full force, you will end up with a bathroom full of poop. There's a bit of a learning curve to spraying diapers, but they get diapers quite clean. You do have to purchase a diaper sprayer or make one yourself, however, and again, be sure to have a wetbag immediately available because the diaper will be dripping wet.


3. Scrape
Using a (I hope) dedicated spatula, you hold the diaper with one hand and use the other hand and spatula to scrape the poop off into the toilet, sometimes finishing up with a swish. This is a cheap and generally fairly un-messy option, though some blow-out type poops that get in the elastic areas may be difficult to get off this way. If you don't swish afterward, the diaper remains relatively dry.

No choice has a huge advantage over any of the other choices, and they can each work equally well at cleaning the solids off of the diaper. Once the solids have been removed from the diaper, you can put it in the wetbag and wash it as usual.

Solid food poop also stains, and also suns out beautifully.

DRYING YOUR DIAPERS

If you can, line dry the diapers in the sun. It helps the PUL and elastic last longer, and the sun acts as a natural sanitizer.  Your natural-fiber diapers and inserts might get "crunchy" (stiff and rough) when line dried. To combat this, you can toss them in the dryer for five or ten minutes on low to fluff them back up.

If you use the dryer, dry on low or extra low, and don't stretch the elastic until they've cooled down.

What's the deal with newborn cloth diapering?

What makes newborn cloth diapering special?

Well, to start....newborn babies are tiny!  Even though many one-size diaper brands claim that they will fit from the start, they often don't REALLY fit until your baby has reached ten or even twelve pounds.  Newborn waists and especially their little thighs are just too skinny, and many people end up with leaks until they chunk up a bit. The rise is also often too high to work for tiny babies, especially before their umbilical cord has fallen off. Even some so-called newborn diapers have a rise that will rub against the cord before it falls off.

Newborn wearing Little Joey with umbilical cord scoop snapped down (yes, that's a giant postpartum pad next to her!)

And in practical terms, any diaper that is designed to fit until potty learning is going to be extremely bulky on a newborn, even if it does happen to fit (hint: they rarely fit)! There are a few brands that are known for getting smaller and fitting newborns better, but the majority of one-size diapers are simply....not.

Newborn in WAHM newborn pocket diaper

Also, newborns go through a LOT of diapers. We're talking 12 diaper changes a day, on average. If you want to do laundry every two days...that's at least 24 diapers you'll need for a very short period of time.  Many people only use newborn diapers for about six to eight weeks, though some babies are out of them in four weeks and some not until four months.

So to cloth diaper a newborn, you need special diapers, and you need a lot of them. What's a mama to do?

1. Newborn rental program
Some cloth diaper stores will allow you to rent a full set of newborn diapers for much cheaper than it would be to purchase them (see packages here for an example).

2. Prefolds and covers
Prefolds and covers are by far the most economical way to cloth diaper at any stage! For little tiny babies, you'll want to be sure the cover has an umbilical scoop, like the Proraps covers in size newborn have. You can get special newborn prefolds that are tiny and will fit your small little newborn wonderfully. Larger infant-size or one-size prefolds may also work, but will be bulky. For some great picture comparisons of sizes, click here. Generally, you would want 4-6 covers to go with the 24+ prefolds.

3. Buy used
If you watch used diaper sites carefully, you can get some really fantastic deals on used diapers, and build an entire stash for about the cost of a newborn rental program or prefolds and covers.  Newborn diapers come up often since they're used for such a short amount of time.

4. Borrow (or beg or steal)
Did you have a friend who cloth diapered? She may have newborn diapers you can borrow (okay, let's not be sexist: maybe your male friend does too!). Since they are used for such a short time, you don't have to worry about wear and tear as much as you would with one-size diapers, so borrowing and lending newborn diapers is a great option.

5. Buy new
If you're independently wealthy, this could be a great option! And really, if you watch for sales, deals, and coupon codes, you can often get a good number of diapers for the same price you could get them used. And if you look for lesser known brands or WAHM brands on, say, Etsy, you can often get really great diapers for a really great price.

6. Disposables
As much as any die-hard cloth diaper-er hates to say it, a practical solution is to just use disposables until the baby is large enough to fit into their one-size stash of diapers. I used to hate condoning this for many reasons, but mostly because I worried that people would get into the "easy" disposable groove and not want to use cloth, but the people I know that went this route couldn't WAIT until their diapers fit their babies. Why? They didn't like the smell of disposables, and they were having a lot of blow-outs. So using disposables for a few weeks isn't the death knell you might think! And I promise, you won't get kicked out of the crunchy granola hippie club.

*********************

It might sound scary, but it's not! Newborn diapers are SO cute, and there is nothing cuter than a tiny baby with a fluffy butt! You  might be scared of meconium - but you don't have to be. It may stain, but it will sun out. And if you're really worried, you can use a disposable or fleece liner in the diaper to help "catch" it. And if you're really really worried, you can wait to use cloth until all the meconium has passed.

Newborn in Monkey Snuggles newborn fitted, no cover

What about washing newborn diapers? EASY PEASY.  Seriously. Until your baby start solids, you can just toss the diapers in the washer.  No rinsing, spraying, dunking, swishing, scraping, or second thoughts needed. Breastmilk and formula poo is completely water soluble and will just rinse away instantly. (Note: yes, it stains sometimes.) I personally have found that the poop of babies that are formula fed is slightly more, um, solid than the poop of breastfed babies, but that's in my baby-sitting-one-formula-fed-baby experience, so it hardly counts.  I was lucky enough to be able to nurse my daughter (and still am) so my experience is mostly with breastfed babies. Her poop didn't need to be rinsed off until after she'd been on solids for a good month (we use a diaper sprayer now, but that's a whole 'nother post).

Since most newborns wake up several times during the night to eat, you don't have to worry as much about finding an overnight solution, since you will change their diapers during those wake-up times. This is especially true since most newborns will continue to poop during the night for the first couple/few months, and you generally don't want your baby sitting in poop for hours overnight. Once they stop pooping overnight, many people stop changing them during the night, even if they wake up. After all, they'll sleep through the night eventually (right? right???) and you won't be waking them to change their diapers once that happens - so it's fine to let them "get used to it" and stop changing them during those late night feeding sessions.

The biggest thing with cloth diapering a newborn (or any baby) for the first time is that it may take some trial and error. You're both new to this! Give yourself some slack and some time to figure out the best prefold fold for your baby (for us, it was a simple fold-in-thirds-and-lay-in-cover) or what snap settings your pockets need to be on. What's the worst that could happen? A leak? It's no big deal if it does. That's what washing machines are for!

A newborn Goodmama fitted fully snapped, showing the umbilical cord scoop 

Newborn wearing Goodmama newborn fitted with umbilical cord scoop snapped down

Newbies and Newborns and Poop, Oh My!

A great round up of videos and articles at Dirty Diaper Laundry - articles for those new to the CD world, newborn vs. one-size comparison, even an article on the different types of poop and how to clean them!

(Update: She changed the way the articles are listed, so below are links to the tags involving newborns.)

Newborns
Newborn cloth diapering
One-size diapers and newborns

What's the deal with one-size diapers?

First, what ARE one-size diapers? Are they the same as fitteds?

No! Fitted diapers are a TYPE of diaper. See the FAQs in the tabs above for a low-down on the different types of diapers. One-size diapers are a SIZE of diaper.

Diapers generally come in two types of sizes: sized and one-size. Sized diapers fit a very specific, limited weight range. For instance, they might be available in x-small/newborn (fits 6 to 12 pounds), small (fits 8 to 16 pounds), medium (fits 15 to 22 lbs) and large (fits 22 to 30 pounds). All sized diapers have adjustable waist options to fit both skinny and chubby babies (either using a hook and loop closure or snaps); however, the rise is set. Because your child is constantly growing out of one size and into another, going the sized diaper route can be pricey. Because they don't have any extra fabric to deal with, they are usually quite trim.

One-size diapers (often abbreviated as OS) are designed to take a child through multiple weight ranges and stages and often claim to work from birth to potty training.  One-size diapers have adjustable rises that allow the diaper to fit multiple weight ranges and child sizes.

They can go from very small to quite large:

A Rumparooz diaper on the smallest setting

 A Rumparooz diaper on the largest setting

A Rumparooz snap diaper on the smallest setting (left) and largest setting (right).

The rise usually adjusts in one of three ways:

Snap-down rises are the most popular. They have multiple rows of snaps on the front of the diaper that allow you to snap down the front of the diaper to different size settings.  To make the diaper the smallest, you would snap the top snaps to the very bottom snaps, causing the diaper to fold onto itself and become much smaller. To use it on the largest size, you just leave the rise snaps fully unsnapped.  Here's an example on a BestBottoms diaper, showing the rise snaps fully unsnapped all the way to fully snapped down:

Fold-down rises are most common on fitteds.  These diapers usually have a row of snaps on the waist that face the inside of the diaper. You simply fold down the top of the diaper to the correct height and use the inside snaps to close it.  Here's an example on a DoodleDypes diaper - on the top, the diaper as it normally looks; on the bottom, with the top folded over.

Some fold-down rises are snapless and must use a Snappi or diaper pins to close, as the SBish fitted below shows.

Toggle/button rises are the least common, used by only a couple brands. It's the hardest to explain! These don't have rise snaps, but rather allow you to adjust how tight the elastic is at the leg of the diaper, which also adjusts the rise by scrunching the diaper together and making it longer or shorter. In the picture of a FuzziBunz below, you can see the leg elastic sticking pulled out in the top picture, and if you look very closely at the bottom picture you can just barely see the hint of the elastic on both wings at the top of the diaper - this is how it looks for normal use when not being adjusted. You can pull this elastic tighter or make it looser to fit a variety of babies. This particular system uses buttons to lock the elastic in place; other systems might use toggles like you find on jackets.

Crossover tabs are another feature of many one-size diapers. To further the customization options of one-size diapers, most one-size diapers allow you to overlap the waist flaps to create a very small waist. You can see these crossover snaps in some of the pictures above, and below, you can see the wing has both male and female snaps that would allow the opposite wing to snap to this wing instead of the main part of the diaper.

In this Doodle Dype, you can see the white snaps on the bottom wing 

that allow the top wing to snap onto it.

The crossover wings snapped at the smallest setting.

Aplix, or velcro, diapers usually also offer the option of crossover tabs. As you can see in the picture below, the velcro tabs are two-sided, allowing the tabs to be fastened to each other.

Many one-size diapers also offer multiple inserts that allow you to customize the absorbency (and therefore the bulk) depending on the age of the baby wearing it and how heavy of a wetter they are.  Often this is in the form of a regular large insert paired with a smaller insert that can be used alone for newborns or with the larger insert overnight or for heavier wetters.

A bumGenius newborn insert/doubler (left) and regular insert (right)

Some all-in-one diapers such as the GroVia below have inserts that can be added and removed depending on the needs of your baby (you can see the smaller, snap-in insert laying across the bottom of the diaper).



Fitted diapers also usually offer a number of inserts and doublers. This Goodmama could be used alone, with the smaller insert alone, the larger insert alone, or both inserts.

 This bitti tutto comes with three separate inserts that can be snapped together in a huge number of configurations to customize your diaper as needed. 

So one-size diapers are GREAT, right?? One diaper to get me from birth to potty training? What a great investment! What a great amount of savings! How easy!!

Not so fast! One-size diapers ARE great and they do save a ton of money, and the vast majority of people use them for the bulk of their diaper stash. However, there are a few things to note:

1. One-size diapers will not fit newborns as a general rule. Despite the fact that they often claim to start fitting at 7 or 8 pounds, they usually will not fit a baby well until the baby hits around 10 or 12 pounds. If you have a very large, chubby newborn, you might be able to use them immediately, but don't count on it! If you are planning on having the majority of your stash made up of one-size diapers, you will need something different for the newborn stage. Many people use prefolds and covers during that time, since they're so cheap. Some people use disposables until their child fits into the one-size diapers. Some people buy x-small or newborn sized diapers. It's up to you!  Note: Some brands do have one-size diapers that get much smaller than other one-size diapers. Rumparooz, Happy Heiny, and Softbums are brands that are known to get smaller than most of the other brands. However, that doesn't mean they'll fit your baby immediately - you still might run into fit issues even with them, so you still may need a newborn solution.

2. One-size diapers can be bulky on anything other than the largest setting (and very bulky on the smallest!).  This might not mean anything to you, but some people are looking for trim diapers. Cloth diapers are already bulkier than disposable diapers, and one-size diapers are bulkier still, particularly when on the smallest rise. All that extra fabric has to go somewhere! If you're looking for trim, smooth diapers, you might want to consider sized diapers, or check out the review spreadsheet for one-size diapers that are rated highly for trimness (i.e. GroVia all-in-ones are known to be one of the trimmest one-size option).

3. One-size diapers may not last as long. Because they are used SO much and for SO long, one-size diapers may wear out faster than sized diapers. If you're going the one-size route, you may want to have a fairly large stash to spread out the wear and tear on the diapers (for instance, rather than using 12 diapers over and over and over, you could use 36 diapers in your rotation, which would mean each one is used less frequently).

If you like the idea of sized diapers but don't like the bulkiness or ill fit of one-size diapers, you can look for diapers that are hybrids. Some diaper companies, like AppleCheeks or Thirsties, have created diapers that come in two sizes, which offer a more customized fit (i.e. one size fits for 8 through 20 pounds, and the second size fits from 15 to 45 pounds) but also are slightly less bulky than one-size diapers.  However, again, there's a drawback - both of those companies are known for having a fairly significant gap between sizes. While they claim to overlap, a baby who has outgrown their size one diaper may still be too small for their size two diaper.

Despite the drawbacks, one-size diapers are a popular, economical choice that work well for most people. Almost all brands offer a one-size diaper option. Check them out!

Building a Stash, Part 2.

Continued from Building a Stash, Part 1

Ok, so you now understand why it might not be the best idea to drop a few hundred bucks on thirty of that diaper that looks super cute and has good reviews without trying it out on your little one first. But you want to start building your stash! Your baby is going to be born soon (or is already here) and those dresser drawers are just BEGGING for some fluff to fill them up!

You have a couple options.  One, you can do a diaper trial like the one offered at Jillian's Drawers.  These trials let you try a variety of types of diapers and brands, usually for a fairly low initial cost.  The one downside is that there aren't enough diapers in the trial to cloth diaper full-time, so you can fill in the gaps with prefolds/covers or (gasp) even disposables.  You can keep the ones that you like and send back the ones that you don't like - or send them ALL back and only be out $10!  It's a really great way to be introduced to multiple brands and styles of diapers. For a list of trials, to read more about them, and for some things to keep in mind when doing a trial, click here.

(pictured: Jillian's Drawer's trial)

Another option is to watch sales and used diaper sites (see the "Favorite retailers" tab at the top for a list of used diaper sites) and slowly build your stash one diaper and one brand at a time. It's like doing a trial in that you get a bunch of different diapers, except you can try even more brands and you're not limited to the diapers included in the trial package. On the downside, since you're buying the diaper outright, there's no one to send it back to or to refund your money if you don't like it. It also takes longer to get a good number of diapers. However, you can eventually easily get enough to diaper full time by doing this, and if there's a diaper that doesn't work for you, you're not out an entire stash - just that diaper! Often, you can even sell the diaper on one of the used diaper sites for the same price you paid if you have taken care of it.  Many moms will collect a number of diapers of every brand, shape, size, and type with the plan of trying them, keeping what works for them and eventually selling off those that they don't like.

You can also see if there's a local cloth diaper co-op or even a friend that is cloth diapering. If so, you might be able to borrow a few diapers at a time...for free!  You don't like it? No loss! You like it? Great! Return it and grab a bunch of your own!  Like the trial, this won't give you enough to cloth diaper full time at the beginning (unless your friend has a TON of diapers for you to borrow), but it's a great and CHEAP way to try as many out as you want to with no obligation!

Regardless of the route you go, I don't recommend trying more than a handful at a time - sitting and looking at 40 different diapers can be overwhelming. Keep it simple and try a few out at a time.  Otherwise, you might get frustrated and overwhelmed and confused (this is especially true for daycares and significant others, who often just want consistency!). If this means you don't have enough diapers to cloth diaper full-time, I recommend prefolds and covers to fill the gap while you experiment with finding your permanent solution. They are cheap and usually work well, especially if you get covers with double gussets at the legs.  You don't have to learn complicated folds and work with pins - just trifold the prefold and place it in the cover. Easy!

Of course, some people...like me...love looking at a pile of 40 diapers and experimenting, so diving in with dozens and dozens of diapers works for them.

Once you've played around and found diapers that work for you, you can start filling your stash with more of those brands, whether you buy them new, used, or on sale.

Will you end up with a stash that is 100% of that favorite brand or even 100% of a specific type of diaper? Often, the answer is no.  Many people end up with a large number of a specific brand or system that works for them, but then have other types thrown in for specific circumstances.

For instance: you might be an all-in-one (AIO) user 90% of the time, but use fitteds and covers overnight. Or you might use fitteds and covers 90% of the time, but use AIOs at daycare and on outings. Or maybe you prefer snap pockets, but your DH prefers aplix AIOs, so you have a 50/50 mix of the two.  Or you might have some cheaper brands on hand that you don't mind messing up (like if your baby needs to use antibiotics that will turn his poop atomic green and stain your diapers - it happens!).

(Note: When building a stash, keep in mind that most one-size diapers will not fit newborns at birth! For more about that, read this post. If you plan to cloth diaper from day one and you plan to use one-size diapers, you will need something different for the newborn stage.)

One last hint: take it slow, especially if you're still pregnant and your kid isn't here yet! Let me say that again: take it slow! When you start buying quickly and impulsively, you often end up with diaper regret. It's sooooo tempting to buy a bunch if diapers right away, when you first start thinking about cloth diapering, but try to resist.  Instead, watch for good used deals and sales and diapers that you really like. Otherwise, you could end up like me and have more diapers than you know what to do with (so much for saving money!) and diapers that you got at full price sitting in your stash that are now on sale for 10%, 20%, or even half off - or that you see in EEUC (extremely excellent used condition) for pennies on the dollar.  Diaper sales happen all the time and are usually great deals! Of course, if you read this blog you're way more educated at this point than I was, so you probably won't make the same impulsive mistakes I did! 

Also, keep it simple. Don't overthink it. Try a diaper. If you like it, great! Get more! If you don't, you can save it for later (if, for example, you don't like it for a reason that might be overcome with time, like it's too big for your child) or sell it. If you're ambivalent about it, try a couple other brands. You might find that in comparison, you really like it, or you may find another brand that you love more.

It can seem overwhelming and it can seem confusing, but you can do it! Just buy a diaper. One diaper is all it takes to start the process!

Finally, it can be addicting. Watch out and put a limit on yourself if you think you might get sucked in...it happens to the best of us!

(Once you have your diapers purchased, click here to see what to do next!)

Building a Stash, Part 1.

One thing you'll often hear as a newbie to cloth diapering is to not spend a ton of money on one brand or type of diapers before you're able to try them with your child.  The reason for this is because different types of diapers and different brands of diapers work differently for every baby.  Until you know for sure that a brand works for your kid, it's smart to hold off on buying three dozen of them, even if they ARE on sale.

But WHY exactly? You've heard great things about Brand X diapers and you know you want to use them!

Well, let's look at Suzy. Suzy was sure she was going to love all-in-ones (also called AIOs...they're so easy - they're just like disposables!), so she bought a ton of GroVia AIOs on the advice of a friend, who uses them and just adores them. However, when she started using them, she discovered that they take WAY too long to dry, and she hated not being able to adjust the absorbency easily, and she slowly realized that AIOs just aren't for her family.  Or maybe she loves everything about AIOs and that type of diaper is working well, but the GroVia brand specifically just doesn't fit her baby's thighs and they leaked every time. So all that cash Suzy invested in GroVia? Down the drain while she tries to figure out what DOES work best for her baby. They worked great for her friend, but not for her.

And this holds true for every brand and type. There is no one type or brand that is going to work perfectly for every family!

Another example: Jane thinks that she's going to love pockets (the benefits of AIOs but they dry faster and you can switch out the inserts!), so she did a bunch of research and found that bumGenius are well reviewed - and she found a great sale! - so she buys two dozen. But she soon discovers that she just hates having to fish out inserts from poopy diapers. Or maybe she discovers that she hate stuffing the pockets after washing them. Or maybe after using them she finds out that her child has a suedecloth sensitivity and can't use bumGenius diapers because of that.

On the other hand, Mary thought she would be frugal and got all prefolds and covers. But in using them, she discovered that the process of trying to fit a prefold and a separate cover on her wiggly kid who hates getting his diaper changed is just too much of a struggle. Or maybe she finds that with her kid's sensitive skin, she needs a diaper with a stay-dry feeling.

So Mary, Jane, and Suzy now have to try to find a brand that works for them, figure out something to do in the meantime, unload the stash that they have (and possibly lose money in the process), and buy more diapers.  Now COULD you get lucky and find that the brand and type you invested so heavily in work perfectly for you on the first try? Sure! Of course! But it doesn't always work that way.

(Note: Prefolds and covers generally get an exemption from this rule because they're SO very cheap (i.e. you can get an entire newborn system for less than $75 if you look for used diapers and deals) and even if you hate them, the prefolds can later be used as doublers, inserts, burp cloths, changing pads, etc., so you'll get use out of them no matter what.)

So what should you do? Your baby isn't here yet so you can't figure out what works for you, but you really want to start building up your stash! Or maybe your baby IS here, but you're still not sure where to start, and reading all this didn't clear things up at all.

It's time to move on to Building a Stash, Part 2!