This is for all you mommies with itty bitties...
Cloth Diapers and Homemade Wipes!
But Gillian, or chick with glasses, you have a 5.654 year old? Yes, you're correct but I'm fascinated by this concept and I hear it can save you dollar dollar billz y'all, plus my kid had SUPERSENSITIVETUSHTUSH so this probably would have helped her out a ton (ever seen the movie The Others?? with Nicole Kidman?) AND saved us money from buying Vusion. Oh and Leelah totally ate that $100 ointment during a nap sesh. So that was fun.
And I also have a healthy fear of handling human waste, WHO DOESN'T? But I've been assured by numerous peeps that it's about the same as the disposable ones....
Look, I'm skeptical too, which is why my friend, Allison (mother of 3, former pharmacist, running warrior, and overall cool chick) is going to break it down for us. Breaking it down as Andre 3000 from Outkast would tell us to. Break it down Allison!
When my daughter was born, I decided to use cloth diapers for her instead of disposable. My reasons were: she had incredibly sensitive skin (read-nasty red rash at all times when using wipes and regular diapers) and the cloth ones were sooo much cuter....
I paid about $17 per diaper (18 for small ones and bought 15 medium ones). I paid about $600 for all the diapers.
Approximate cost for Pampers for 2 years: $1600. I saved $1000. Plus, I sold my used diapers when I was finished with them for $6 a piece (who knew there was a market for used diapers??) So in total, I saved $1200.
Yes, there is extra laundry. But it was only 1 or 2 more loads per week.
Yes, cloth diapers are "gross". But is wiping poo in anyway not gross? The 1st 6-9 months when she was only breastfed, the diapers went straight into the wash with out touching anything (just shake out the liner). Once eating food, the more sold pieces are dumped into the potty before going into the wet bag to be washed later.
Does it smell? No. The wet bag keeps them contained.
How do you wash them? Dump out solid pieces. Take out liner. Place in wet bag. Once or twice a week wash. Do a prewash cycle with detergent. Wash with hot water and do a double rinse. Dry in dryer on medium or air dry.
I will admit, I am a diaper snob. With disposables, I only used the Pampers Swaddlers and Cruisers and then for cloth I bought FuzziBunz. You can get cheaper disposable and can get much cheaper cloth ones. I just liked the cute colors.
I also used cloth wipes. (a soft wash cloth wetted with only warm water. When out on the town, I used California Baby diaper area spray to wash her bum with a dry wipe. When using cloth diapers, cloth wipes are actually easier since you just wash them along with the diapers. I did not estimate the cost savings of wipes. The washcloths are cheap.
Here is what resulted.
1. Red butt eliminated
2. approximately 4680 diapers did not go into the landfill
3. I saved $1200
4. My daughter rocked the pink, lavender, hot pink, aqua, periwinkle or blue bum--super cute!
Yeah!! for doing my part to save the Earth, save my daughter's tender skin and save us $$$$$$$$! You can reuse them for your next child and then save yourself another $1600!
And for the wipes here's what she had to say:
I bought microfiber cloth washcloths for wipes. I like those much better than the flannel ones (less seam area touching babes skin). They are pretty cheap and I don't sew.
Thanks Allison!
We are prayerfully considering adoption here in the Nichols Cottage. Prayerfully. So this info on cloth diapers and wipes might come in real handy for us...
We attended a wonderful, informative conference in Katy called: Together for Them. It gave us some much needed info. More to blog on that...
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