Cloth Diapering-HamakerLove's Perspective

I have been asked by a few of you to post on our cloth diapering experience. I have been waiting to do this post because we are about to upgrade from prefolds to pocket diapers, and I wanted a more experienced opinion on what we thought, but since so many people have been asking we will give you atleast a part one of our experience.:) Updates to follow I AM SURE.:)

Before you get our perspectives some really good cloth diapering resources of info are:

http://www.punkinbutt.com/
I have bought a few things from them; mostly the info on cloth diapering they have is really helpful.

Also my cousin made a cute blog about her diaper experience(scroll down all the way to the bottom for the best info).
http://nappybabybums.blogspot.com/

Ok Here are the HamakerLove Perspectives on cloth diapering:

The Mumma's perspective~
We started cloth diapering a few months after Denny was born for a few reasons. Being a naturally minded person I liked the idea of cloth diapering but was SUPER intimidated by it. But at a post partum birthing class I attended the teacher had her 2-month-old son with her and totally showed me HOW EASY AND WONDERFUL CLOTH DIAPERING IS! Her son happened to need a diaper change and so she changed him in front of us, and it was all so natural looking. She didn't even have disposable wipes, but used serger-edged flannel squares and a little squirt bottle with lavender, tea-tree oil water(she had made herself). I was totally sold.

Other reasons for cloth diapering, for us, incuded money savings. We had two babies in diapers and were spending almost $80 a month just on diapers and wipes! The fact that disposable diapers don't biodegrade super grossed me out. I won't give you the statistics, but the amount of poopy diapers in America alone is really, REALLY gross.
You can look on http://www.gdiapers.com/ for all the gross info. My babies have really sensitive skin and I was excited to know cloth diapers would help them not have rashes all the time. And I am just a texture person, and I just loved the idea of my children feeling cloth against their skin instead of the plastic.

So I did a lot of internet research and we decided to start by using the cheapest cloth diapers: chinese prefolds (with a cover). We decided to start out still using disposable wipes to make the transition easier (though that will change when we make the upgrade:) ). We bought a cloth diapering kit from http://www.clothdiaper.com/ because it was the cheapest. We got the package which had diapers in sizes small and medium. The small diapers worked on Denny until he was about 6 months, and then we had to buy more covers because both he and Jane were then in the medium sizes. To be more specific, the package had 3 dozen infant prefolds, 2 dozen premium(bigger sized) prefolds, and eight covers (four small and four medium). We also had to buy some snappis (really cool alternative to pins for fastening the diaper to stay on the baby), a small diaper pail, two diaper pail washable liners, and two small washable bags for the diaper bag (one for clean diapers, the other for dirty). We spent about $200 upfront, but you have to remember with two babies in diapers, we QUICKLY got our money back from the investment.

So prefolds are really easy to use, although they look intimidating at the beginning. Basically you have the cloth diaper part, either pins or a snappi to fasten it, and a cover. I had a friend recommend YouTube for prefold diaper folding instructions. (I won't try to explain it here.) You put the prefold on the baby, then the cover, and make sure the whole cloth diaper prefold is tucked inside the cover. SUPER EASY! Then later when the baby has need of a diaper change you take off the dirty diaper, put on a clean one. If it was just #1 you put the prefold in the diaper pail and hang the cover to air out (if you are laundering your diapers every day or every other day the cover should not stink, if it does there are a few things that might have happened. Either you are using too much detergent and you need to "strip" your diaper-see punkinbutt.com. If you aren't laundering every day or so you might need to start doing that). :) If it is #2 then you dump the poo in the toilet(you can buy disposable cloth diaper liners that make this SUPER EASY). We have a little shower-head-like spray nozzle thing we bought with the diapers that hangs on the side of the toilet that helps rinse the poo off if needed--no dunking required! Then you put the used prefold in the pail. We wash our diapers about every day or every other day. My kids are super heavy wetters so they get changed a lot. Laundry instructions are really easy--see punkinbutt.com. As an aside, I have found that with our energy efficient front-loading washer that powder detergent doesn't work well so we use a high-efficiency, biodegradable detergent made by All.

Overall with prefolds, I like them for little babies who can't fit pocket diapers. (Pocket diapers work much more like disposable diapers, they just have a liner inside you need to shake out of the diaper before you wash it. You also do not air out the cover with pocket covers; you have to wash the whole thing every time. So you need A LOT more of these than you would prefolds, which is more costly. My friend Kacy bought one and then tore it apart and made her own, using the first one as a pattern. She says this is really easy and much less expensive.) Prefolds don't seem to hold as much liquid as the pocket diapers. I have read of people having success using extra-absorbent liners made from hemp, fleece, etc., to help with absorbtion, but I haven't had a lot of success with that. Pocket diapers seem to use liners MUCH more easily. Pocket diapers are also my preferred diaper because they are just easier to use. There is no folding, no snappis, it goes on just like a disposable (which is easier for babysitters, friends, etc. when they are watching my kids). You can put the pocket diapers together (put in the liners) in the morning or right after they are laundered, put them in a basket, and they are ready for the day!

Cloth diapers are really cute. You can get them in all sorts of cute patterns. They WILL make your baby's bum bigger than with a disposable, so they WILL go up a clothes size, but I think it is super cute. :)

gdiapers are a really awesome alternative for when you are out and about. We have used disposables when we go out on vacation or are going to be gone all day--it's just easier--but I think we are going to switch to gdiapers this Fall for those times.
gdiapers are a hybrid diaper that combines all the goodness of cloth and disposable. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND looking at their site: http://www.gdiapers.com/.
They are definitely more expensive than disposables, and I would mostly recommend them if you are doing cloth already and want an easy alternative for those few times when disposables are more convenient.

I feel like this post is already too long, but I want to make sure I am answering everyone's questions.
I love cloth diapers.
I like prefolds for the beginning, and pocket diapers for the rest of the time.
Also, BABYKICKS makes a really awesome hemp fleece prefold diaper that I really really love because it absorbs TONS of moisture and is super soft. Chinese prefolds are not super super soft.
My children have had better skin since using cloth and fewer rashes, but I have to make sure I am still changing them often enough.
I feel like cloth diapering is one way I have power to do something for the Earth. I can't be perfect, but this is something anyone can do.
People ask about water usage because we launder so much. One load of diapers is the equivalent of flushing the toilet 7 times. All the friends we talk to about their water bills seem to say the same-it is not that much. To make one diaper in the factory uses as much water as washing one load of cloth diapers.
I don't know what else to say except that if you are going to go this route I HIGHLY suggest trying to find a local class to learn more. This will especially help with user error you will have in the beginning.



The Daddy's Perspective~

I don't hate changing diapers. It's not my favorite thing to do, but hey, it comes with the territory. I changed most of my younger siblings' diapers from time to time and we used cloth diapers growing up, so I was a little surprised when, once we had our first child, we didn't start using them immediately. But the transition for me was easy to the prefold system we've been using for many months now. My favorite thing about the way we're doing it is that we're using skin-friendly materials all around. When I was changing cloth diapers in my youth, we used the white Gerber diapers you see on movies and cartoons, plastic diaper covers with elastic bands, and the classic diaper "safety" pin. All three items are problematic. The white diapers, be they Gerber or otherwise, are bleached, and bleach is not good for the skin, especially for babies. The plastic pants trap in all moisture, which is advantageous in the sense in that things don't get wet, but also prunes baby's skin--and the elastic band can be very uncomfortable against' baby's tender, pruned skin. The safety pins' problem is manifest with every slip of the wrist and lanced, screaming baby. I felt so guilty every time I stabbed my little baby sisters! These problems are easily avoided with the better-thought-out prefold, velcro cover, and snappi we use now. Though, buyer beware, I have sliced my finger open once with a snappi; they use a very sharp little set of teeth to latch onto the cloth diapers.

As the diposition of human waste goes, it's not a big deal to me, but Clair and I have had a recent thread of conversation I think you'll find amusing. Clair went to another cloth diapering class a week or so ago at which several men were in attendance. The instructor asked the men about their diapering experiences. Apparently the reaction was of deep disgust and a history of avoidance. I can understand that--its poop--but for grown men to behave hysterically in this way made Clair laugh at their shame. She came home and told me about it, asking why manly men unafraid of poisonous arachnids and reptiles should cower at a poopy diaper--an article each of them had produced in his infancy several thousand times. I thought about it and couldn't come up with a good response, but today we had a conversation that turned the tables a bit, though not completely. We were talking about our future plans for a farm and what livestock we planned on keeping. Clair read a book about chicken farming recently and is keen on the idea of fostering yardbirds. When I asked whether she'd butcher them, she objected. I asked why a woman, so brave in cleaning diapers day in and day out, which are definitely full of such biohazards as e-coli, should cower at a pile of meat. Perhaps the principle of gender spheres does apply to the matter. Anyway...

Cloth diapering is no big deal, expecially if you can clean a fish, parse a chicken, or skin a deer. :) I've never used the pocket/insert method Clair wrote so much about, but I'm sure it will be just as convenient and simple as can be. Plus, I got to be handy when installing the little diaper sprayer thingie--plumbing is fun.