Real Diaper Week: Cloth Diaper 101

This week is Real Diaper Week. Did you know there was one? Cloth diapers are a great alternative to disposables. I'll post more later this week on environmental. Today is about the ease of cloth diapering and getting started.

1. Do your research and ask around to see if you have friends, relatives, or neighbors that cloth diaper.

2. Find a local retailer or online retailer that is great for answering questions. My favorite is Abby's Lane. You will want someone that will help with upfront decisions and if you have issues later with fit, etc.

3. Decide if you are going to purchase everything at once or buy a few things at a time. When we started, we set aside a little money each week and then made one huge purchase.

Cloth diapers have come a long way. They now are much closer to a disposable for putting on your child, are made with waterproof materials to keep the wetness in, and come in super cute colors and prints!

So what the heck do you need to get started? The basics are some covers & prefolds, pocket diapers or all in one diapers. My favorite: pockets for daytime and covers at night. You will also want wet/dry bags for the diaper bag, pail liners & trash can for dirty diapers.

 My favorite cover by Flip and also my favorite pocket diaper by BumGenius

Another pocket diaper. This one by Tiny Tush.

Other great items: cloth wipes (can just use water for cleaning), disposables liners (for those that don't want to spray solids out of the diaper), diaper sprayer (for those that don't mind spraying out the solids and don't want to spend the extra money on the liners!).

When we first looked into cloth diapering we heard things like: "it isn't worth the trouble," "you'll probably give up soon after starting," "your hubby won't help with changing the baby. Today, a year later, we are still going strong and plan to continue with any other children that we have.

Happy CDing!

My RC in his BumGenius. 1 year