Cloth Bottom Boy

Cloth diapers aren't just for burp rags... Here are some pictures from the past months of cloth diapers. We have several different kinds (Happy Heiny, Fuzzy Buns, Bum Genius...). If I were starting from scratch and had to pick based on money and reliability, I think I would just buy Gerber plastic pants and prefolds. I have different kinds of fancy ones and I keep going to back to the tried and true. Some of the all-in-ones are really cool but way too expensive. I love the wool covers but these are also expensive -unless you have a friend making them for you ;) .

If you are trying to decide between cloth and disposable there sure is a lot of info. out there. This morning I was reading on Huggies website that the environmental impact of disposable diapers more damaging than cloth. I don't buy it. Independent study or not, I can't imagine that my water and energy use is coming close to the money I would spend using disposables exclusively, or having the impact that disposables would sitting in a landfill. What about the energy and materials it's taking to produce those diapers? Also, I use environmentally friendly detergent with no bleaching agents so surely the environmental impact can't be that significant. There is a cloth/disposable calculator here. I don't know how accurate it is but it's pretty interesting. I did my own price comparison a while back but it's probably a little outdated as well. What I do know is that I bought Huggies (they were cheaper than Pampers at Kroger) on sale with a $1.50 coupon and spent .26 per diaper. My brother bought us some Huggies at CVS with $1.50 coupon and they were .31 per diaper. I am pretty sure my cloth ones are not costing us that much. Even if I buy the cheap, crummy disposables that I used with Anara they are still over .20 per diaper. Olivia was wearing her cloth diapers this weekend and I forgot to take some pictures of her - so cute with those tiny diaper covers and little legs.

This isn't meant to guilt anyone into using cloth. I am mostly reassuring myself and opening a conversation about cloth vs. disposables. It's kinda fun to cloth diaper. I feel like I am "doing" something by washing and folding and reusing. There is potential to go really crazy with it if you have the money. Here are a few of our diapers.

Plain white cotton prefold with a snappy instead of pins

Wool "longie" - believe or not these don't need washed

often and don't stink at all

Another wool cover (only been washed and lanolinized once)

Purple "Happy Heiny" from Vi's collection
All-in-one

Gerber plastic pants Another wool cover from Julie