Cloth Diapering

My boys are 19 months and 2 weeks, and have been exclusively in disposables for 19 months and 1 week. That means I branched out last week. I have always wanted to try cloth diapering. I brought it up to Alan several times while I was pregnant, but the thought of dirty diapers was already upsetting enough to him, without throwing cloth in (along with most other new dads, and probably plenty of new moms too). Then we found out we were having twins, and we decided to concentrate on just surviving.

Last week (as I was helping my beautiful sister-in-law (who is planning to cloth diaper) register for her baby), I saw some G-diapers at Babies "R" Us. On impulse I bought two of them: blue and green (Green for Adam, Blue for Matthew - have to stay color coded). They can be a hybrid diaper; it has a cloth cover, and you can stuff it with a flush-able, biodegradable liner, or a cloth liner. I decided on the cloth liner, because I wouldn't really be saving any money if I had to buy the disposable liners. Plus I wondered if that was really cloth diapering??

They took their nap when we got home, and I was literally counting down the minutes until they woke up so I could try their new G-diapers on them. I rinsed the cloth inserts 6 times while I waited (per the instructions), and watched tons of videos on how to use them. They looked so cute on the videos, why couldn't my kids just wake up?? (I assure you this is one of the only times I have wanted nap time to be shorter ;) )

They finally woke up, and I got to try them on!!

They were so stinkin' cute! I think this is the main thing cloth diapering mommas need to mention to disposable mommas about the benefits of switching. See how happy Matthew looks:

Matthew showing us where his chin is located:
Adam rockin' his g-diaper:
Matthew showing off his new diaper:
Little G-butts:
So these are the only cloth diapers I have ever tried. But since I really, really like them, and they are not as hard as I imagined (even with dirty diapers, they aren't too bad), I have researched more brands. I feel like all of the cloth diapering jargon can be overwhelming. Having at least tried the G-diapers now, I actually understood what they were talking about. I think I may like other brands even better than these, but I am just going to show you how a G-diaper works.

It comes with an outer cloth cover (left) and a polyurethane liner (middle). Then you either buy a disposable or a cloth insert (right).

Strap the liner to the cover:
Stuff the liner with your insert:
And if you are really scared of poop you can add a flush-able liner on top of the cloth, which will catch most of the poop. Then you can flush that and wash the rest. I used these for the first few days, and I still use them if I think they are due for a major blow out. But they are almost like tissue paper, and it ends up getting wet and sticking to my boys, which I have to wipe off. It doesn't seem very comfortable. And it's not as soft as the cloth:
Yay, we're about to wear our G-diapers again!

I got Charlie's Soap to wash them, and if there is a stain that doesn't come off in the wash, I set them in the sun and that does it (you aren't supposed to use bleach).

So I bought 2 of these diapers, and I have been washing them twice a day for maximum use (because I love them). But my sister-in-law got a pile of cloth diapers from a friend, and she is giving me 3. And I ordered 3 smartipants diapers. That will be a total of 8, which MAY be enough for full time cloth diapering. (They go through 4 diapers a day each, and we may keep using disposables at night). You can actually reuse the cloth cover and the the polyurethane liner of the G-diaper, and just change out the cloth insert if it's just a wet diaper, so that may help spread out the diaper use. I will probably write about those new diapers too when I get them. I know I am trying this way too late, but maybe IF we have another baby, we can start earlier ;)