CLOTH!

     We are a cloth diapering family.  One of my friend's sister cloth diapers her children.  On a weekend getaway, I stayed at her house and watched how easy it was for her to use cloth diapers (with no washing machine, I might add).  It was intriguing, and I totally wanted to give it a try when I had a baby.

     Well, 6 months later, with a baby on the way, the decision to use cloth was made.  I didn't think twice about using cloth (and figured I would just be super positive and extremely excited for the 40 weeks of pregnancy to get Nate on board).  Nate and I are pretty environmentally friendly.  We recycle EVERYTHING and compost.  We produce about 1 plastic grocery bag of trash every 7-10 days.  We don't use paper towels or paper plates, plastic ware, ect.; we bring reusable bags to the grocery store and when we go shopping; we take Styrofoam back to the grocery store to be recycled (because the recycling center doesn't take it), and we try to reuse as much as possible.  It was a no brainer to use cloth for an environmental aspect.  Financially was another pro to the cloth diapering decision.  As a pre-school teacher, and Nate working at a school as well, we are not rolling in dough, as you might imagine!  So, saving money was also a HUGE perk to use cloth.  Not only is it environmentally and financially smart to use cloth, it is also so much better for our precious baby!  We try to use natural and organic products at our house for ourselves.  Why wouldn't we want to use the best for our new baby?  The amount of chemicals in a disposable that would rub on our baby's precious parts for 2 and a half years was not appealing to me.  Please refer to this site for loads of information on why cloth is sensational!

     I did a lot of research and figured out that we would need about 24-36 diapers to make life not crazy stressful with laundry.  I registered for about 48 Bum Genius and FuzziBunz diapers at Target and Buy Buy Baby.  I received 12 new Bum Genius All-in-One's with snaps and 6 new FuzziBunz.  I was given 6 used FuzziBunz (size large) and 3 Bum Genius Velcro with inserts.  The same friend who inspired the use of the cloth diapers also loaned me 6 newborn cloth diapers.  I was SET to begin the cloth diapering journey!

    I spent hours watching videos and researching everyone's way of storing, washing, and using cloth diapers.  I planned and planned and of course, like everything else with a baby, you won't know what works best for you until your little one arrives!  Here is how we cloth diaper at the Kivett's:

The bin that we store the diapers in is labeled so that other people who change him know where to find the diapers!

I store the diapers in a cloth bin from Target.

Target storage bin

This bin works great because I lay all of the diapers stuffed, open, and flat, one on top of the other.  It is somewhat angled so they all fit nicely.  

This bin holds about 14 stuffed diapers. 

 The bin holds about 14 stuffed diapers and a few more if I squeeze them in! This is perfect because I rarely have all of the diapers washed and ready to go.  Also, he has outgrown the 6 newborn cloth ones that we were using and he doesn't fit in the 6 large FuzziBunz yet. 

Disposable liners, Antibacterial soap, Aquaphor, Boudreaux's Butt Paste, & Trader Joe's Coconut Oil.

This is what the shelf over the changing table looks like.  It is ready to go for someone who is new to cloth diapering.  Labeling is essential because putting Aquaphor or butt paste on a cloth diaper is recipe for disaster and it's better to be safe than sorry.  We use the coconut oil daily to keep his precious bum nice and smooth and it is also cloth diaper safe! He has had two pretty serious (serious in our book because we haven't really seen too many diaper rashes and we are new parents and I worry about everything) diaper rashes and we used the disposable liners and Aquaphor and Butt Paste and it cleared it up in no time.  The rash happened when we were using regular unscented wipes.  So, of course that led us to use...

warm cloth wipes.  We received about 500 24 washcloths at baby showers and I had to keep them all because anything with little duckies and monkeys on them are so cute.  We also received a wipe warmer as a shower gift.  Well, if you fold those precious washcloths in half and wet them, they are just the right size for the wipe warmer.  Now, when your already washing about 12 cloth diapers every other day, washing 12 precious cloth wipes doesn't make a difference.  They work so much better (for us) than the disposable wet wipes.  He hasn't had a rash since we started using the cloth wipes.  When we are on the go we use regular disposable wipes because dry washcloths do not get the sticky, mustard, curd-like, breast milk poop off of a squirmy baby bottom. 

monster wet bag!

 We use this adorable monster wet bag to store dirty diapers.  It has a zipper closure and it hangs on the nursery door.  Much to my surprise, it doesn't smell.  All of the research I did said that I should leave the wet bags unzipped so that there would be some airflow and let the diapers dry out a little bit.  I did not (like everything else I have been told and read about raising a child) believe that it would not make our nursery smell like a huge butt hole.  It's true.  Keeping the smelly diapers zipped into a bag is not a good idea, and you will pass out when you try to unload them into your washing machine to be washed.  

We use Publix Free & Clear for our detergent.  It is about $3.50 and we wash all of our clothes, Leland's clothes, and cloth diapers with the same detergent.  This makes life way easier, especially since we do our grocery shopping at Publix and it is often BOGO which I am a HUGE fan of!

I empty all of the diapers into the washing machine and then do a rinse cycle.  When the rinse cycle is finished i do a Hot cycle and add an extra rinse at the end.  We have a front loader so I make sure that the "heavy" soil button is selected so that the maximum amount is used so the diapers get clean.  I have been doing this for 4 weeks and I have not had any problems yet.  He is EBF so I only have experience with one kind of poopy! I am sure that once he starts on solids I will need and entirely new post! Once the cycles are finished I throw the inserts and washcloths into the dryer and then hang the diapers on these fancy hangers.  I got them at Bed Bath & Beyond for about $6.00.  They are perfect for cloth diapers.  They hang great inside on our laundry room curtain rod and we are putting 2 shepherds hooks on our fence to hang them on so the diapers can dry in the sun!  The AOI diapers take about 12 hours to dry (at most).  It works best for us to wash the diapers before bed and hang them to dry and by morning they are all dry and ready to  be stuffed and put away.

 

I hope this helps, and as I get more experience and learn from mistakes I will update with more information!

leaving you with a reminder that poop happens and life will go on!

**all of the cute words and graphics on the pictures were made with the app a beautiful mess! check out their blog too!