Saturday, May 22, 2010

Diapers, diapers, diapers...

The time has come for the (inevitable) diaper debate.  Cloth or disposable?  I have decided to use cloth (that depended on whether we would have our own laundry in the place we rent) but am now wondering what type to get.  If you have any experience in diapering at all (children of your own, babysitting, grandchildren, etc), let me know what you know! 

What did/would you choose, cloth or disposable, and why?

Which brand of diaper did/do/would you go with?

If you went with cloth, how many did you buy, where did you get them, and how much did they cost?

Did you choose diapers with snaps or velcro?  One size or multiple sizes? 

And those of you who chose disposable, feel free to throw in your two cents too.  If disposable really were that much better for you, let me know why!

8 comments:

Karis Brandes said...

Is it weird that I'm jealous that you're cloth-diapering? I wish I could (well, I guess I could... but I'd be doing multiple loads of laundry a day since I use about 24 diapers a day and since we don't have our own machine...)
As far as what's best, I've read that what Erica is using is the best (but I don't remember what they're called)

Marsha said...

I have not had any experience with the diaper decision, but I have friends who have opinions for both.
At this point I'm not sure what I would choose.
I mean neither are great for the environment, disposables fill our landfills and cloth diapers use our water.
I think the decision is a personal one. It has to be what fits your life choices and lifestyle.
The only advice I've recieved is to not invest too much money into cloth diapers until you know they work for you, and you know which type works for you. Some websites give free trials, or find some on consignment, etc.
You'll have to let us know which type of cloth diaper ends up working for you.

Tara said...

Hey! this is Tara (used to be Zacharias...), I came across your blog a little while ago, not exactly sure how!
Anyways, we use cloth diapers with our kids. We decided to use Fuzzi Bunz (fuzzibunz.com) and generally they work great. We use size small and medium and figured it was worth spending extra on fitted diapers since we can use them for more than 1 kid. The inserts are the tricky part!!! Plain old microfibre inserts - leak. Hemp inserts - absorb more but not as quickly - so they leak. We found until our kids were about 10 months they were fine but after that when their pee volume gets bigger, well, we had to improvise. So what I did was cut out a square from the microfibre insert and sew it onto the hemp insert right where they pee to absorb more but not have as much bulk as having 2 inserts in there.
Another thing is that we bought size small inserts for our small diapers but they are too small and the medium inserts fit perfectly into the small diapers. And the small diapers only start fitting great at about a month so we use disposables for the first month or 2!

ok that was long!

Brad and Karla said...

We use cloth (when we are at home) and disposable when we are out and about. But I can't give you any advice on type because my mom made mine. They work great. But as mentioned before I know Erica bought a few so you could ask her which ones she got. I know the name but can't think of it right now. I would say to get about 15. At least this is a good number for me if I just use them at home. And I only have to do laundry about once or twice a week depending on home often I am out. I figure it is the best of both worlds.

Jo Funk said...

We opted for disposable, just because we'd have to pay for 2 wash cycles at our apartment to wash cloth(they need an extra rinse usually). That said, a friend of mine is huge into cloth and I used to do respite for her so I got a lot of experience with cloth. The best advice I can give you is to try a whole bunch of different brands on your baby and see what works best. Just like disposables, one brand will fit one kid great, and fit another kid horribly. Look for a website or shop that offers a trial pack rental so you can try a whole bunch of different ones before committing. Also, do some research into what kind of detergent you use with them.

There's tons and tons of online stores for diapers now so google will become your friend.

Mrs.Johnson said...

We used disposables for the first year and have switched to cloth in the last month. Now i am wishing we had started out with cloth. We went with GroBaby diapers. They grow from newborn size to toddler size.They have a pad that snaps into a shell that you can reuse a couple of times. We really like them so far.We ordered them from an online store. We got 12 shells, 24 pads, and 16 booster pads for $375.

Stacey said...

You know I use cloth too :) They key for me is to not think of it so much as an environmental issue, but as a health issue. Do you really want you baby sitting in a chemical filled diaper all day? So far my girls have had very sensitive bums, and they do much better in cloth anyway.

As for what brand/type of diaper, that's a huge personal preference thing. Depends if you want to save a ton of money, or don't really care about finances.

I hate most types of velcro. However, Bummis has a new diaper called the Easy Fit that I LOVE and it has awesome velcro. Usually I stick with snaps.

I like sized diapers better than one size, because they aren't as bulky under clothes, but it is definitely cheaper to go with a one size diaper in the long run, as long as you can handle the extra bulk when the baby is small.

If you have any specific questions about brands, prices, etc, you can always email me! keithandstacey[at]gmail.com

K said...

We've used disposables. They're really easy, but I do wish that we could have gone with cloth from the beginning... unfortunately apartment life doesn't really agree with cloth diapering your baby, unless you want to be hand washing and hanging them to dry in the shower. Anyway, good luck finding a brand that you like!