16 Months of Cloth

Nothing is cuter than a fluffy baby bum!

 I’ve had a few friends asking about cloth lately and I keep typing out these mega long emails about what we have, what we like, accessories, etc. and finally said, “Self – time saver would be to just post about this.” So, here it goes!

THE STASH

I’ve slowly grown our stash over the last 16 months as I figured at some point we would have 2 littles in cloth. So, by no means do you need this much to begin using cloth, but this is what we are currently working with …

Helping with the dishes in her Clementine Flip

• 6 Bum Genius 4.0 one-size
• 10 Flip covers one-size
• 5 Econobum covers one-size
• 1 Thirsties size 2 cover
• 20 Flip stay-dry inserts
• 6 Flip organic inserts
• 7 Econobum prefolds
• 1 ComfyRumps with matching insert
• 2 Smartipants with matching insert
• 1 Katydid with matching insert
• 6 Hemp Babies diaper doublers – I fold these into an Econobum prefold for our night diaper

I have a few infant size diapers that Jemma grew out of pretty fast. She was 20 pounds by 4 months, so one-size diapers were a much better route for us. The infant diapers hardly got used.

ACCESSORIES
Most of these things are optional, I’ll * them if I think they are super necessary.

• Diaper Sprayer
• 30+ cloth wipes* – If you’re going to cloth diaper there is no reason why you shouldn’t use cloth wipes too. It’s way easier to toss everything into your wash pail instead of sorting diaper for the pail and wipes for the trash. Plus, it’s another money saver! I have a few brand names of wipes, but my favorites are the ones I made – one side flannel, one side bamboo.
• 2 Pail liners* and garbage can with flip or pop lid
• PlanetWise Wet/Dry Bag – I have a few wet bags, but this one is my favorite
• Wipe Warmer with replacement pillows
• Outdoor clothesline

IKEA bookshelf on its side serves as our changing table and diaper/clothes storage. Pail liners fit perfect in this type of garbage can.

THE WASH ROUTINE

Washing dipes in a red Smartipants

I toss in a load every 3 days, when Jemma was smaller and went through more diapers each day I washed every 2 days.

• Cold wash with no soap 
• Hot wash with 1 T Rockin’ Green 
• Cold wash/rinse with no soap  
• Air dry covers, toss inserts and prefolds into the dryer 

I’ve had trouble with our front loader and seriously can’t wait to get a top loader. With diapers, the key is to push as much water through them as you can. With an HE, it minimizes water and causes some trouble on occasion. If you toss in an old, wet towel with each load it can trick your machine into thinking there is a bigger/heavier load and will therefore use more water.  Sometimes I’ll also try this to encourage more water …

• Cold wash with no soap 
• Hot wash with 1 T Rockin’ Green 
• Soak cycle with no soap
• Hot wash/rinse with no soap  
• Air dry covers, toss inserts and prefolds into the dryer 

 Every 3-4 months I’ll do a deep clean or strip on all my inserts and pocket diapers (all my diapers are pockets except for the Flip, Econobum, and Thirsties covers). Funk Rock works wonders and a strop consists of this wash cycle …

• Start with clean and dry diapers
• Hot wash with 1 T blue Dawn dish soap and 1/4 cup of bleach
• 3-5 wash cycles (until you don’t see any bubbles) alternating hot and cold water
• Air dry covers, toss inserts and prefolds into the dryer 

Sunning diapers on a clothesline works miracles for stains, stink, and general refreshing. I do this more during the summer since Washington doesn’t give me a whole lot of sun from October-May :)

THE INVESTMENT

Econobum at 5 mo. still fits at 16 mo.

I honestly haven’t kept really good track of what we’ve spent on cloth. I registered for the Flip diapers when I was expecting Jemma and we were blessed with 3 day packs. This alone would have been a great start to diapering. I’ve bought used and occasional new diapers (only if I have a coupon or find a sale) over the last year and diapers/accessories are always on Jemma’s birthday/holiday wish list. Craiglist and eBay are super for finding deals and I’ve found great things on Etsy as well. Fluff Swappers on Facebook is a good resource and I’ve lucked out finding jems at the seasonal consignment sales (1 of my Smartipants and our Thirsties cover were only $5 each at the last JBF Sale).

On occasion, usually for a weekend away, I’ll pick up a pack of Seventh Generation disposables so I know how much diapers can be. There is no doubt in my mind that we’ve saved a bundle by cloth diapers and doing it with two soon (oh.my.word.) with only double the savings.


Have questions? Did I miss something? Let me know!


On a different, but related note, I’ve also been using fitteds and wool – I don’t have a full stash of this so we just mix it in here and there. You can read more about wool here! Scroll to the very bottom and start there, I did a whole week about wool so giveaway winners and such are at the top.