Cloth Diapers - Easy & Inexpensive!

Most people I meet who see my cloth diapers are intrigued by them and find them adorable. However, there seem to be a few things that hold people back from cloth diapering. The things I hear most are:

"It's too much work."
"I don't want to touch poop."
"They're $25 each? I don't have the money to get started."
"I don't think there's enough cost savings to justify all the work."


I love cloth diapering. I think more people would do it if they knew more about it and realized just how easy it is to get started. 


Cloth diapers are simple. 


Although I'd be lying if I said they were as easy as disposables. What's easier than just throwing something away? Let's face it, eating on paper plates is easier than washing dishes or loading & unloading the dishwasher. Yet, most of us do not use paper plates for every meal. I look at cloth the same way. I do three extra loads of laundry each week. That's all. I do not put my diapers in the dryer (though you certainly can), because I like to hang them out. I enjoy the way they look hanging on the drying rack and I like seeing them drying in the sunshine on sunny days. I have a total of 15-20 minutes invested in loading the washer each week, 15-20 minutes hanging the diapers out, and 10-15 minutes stuffing pockets or putting the diapers back together. That's less than an hour each week devoted to cloth diapering. I never run out of diapers. I never have to go to the store late at night or early in the morning to get diapers. I never have to call my husband and say "Please pick up diapers on the way home - we're about to run out!" For me, that extra hour each week is well spent. There's just something very rewarding about putting a poop stained diaper in the wash and bringing it out all nice and clean and fluffy and white, ready to be worn again!


As for changing them, most cloth diapers these days are as easy to put on and take off as a disposable. No pins, no pull on rubber pants. Even using the cloth diapering staple, prefolds, is easier with fitted waterproof covers. Just fold the prefold, lay it in the cover, and velcro the cover around the baby's waist. Easy!

Are you a parent? Then you will touch poop. 

This will happen - I promise you. You don't have to use cloth diapers to be a poop toucher. You may be changing a disposable and you put your hand in it accidentally, not realizing the diaper leaked onto the baby's outfit. It might happen when you're wiping him, and the baby wipe isn't quite strong enough to contain that poop and it comes through the wipe onto your hands. You may touch it when your baby poops in the tub, and you scoop it up with your hands to keep the baby from scooping it up with his. You may touch it when your toddler removes a diaper and paints the wall, crib, and herself with the contents of that diaper. All of these things have happened to me or my friends (and all happened while we were using disposables). Unless you wear gloves to deal with your child, you'll get poop on your hands (and maybe your clothes, too!) Kids find a way to get poop and other gross substances all over the place.   

I don't touch poop any more now that I'm cloth diapering than I did when my first baby was in disposables. For the first 6 months when Jaxon was exclusively breastfed, I threw the poop straight into the washer and never thought about it again. Now, for most changes, I shake his poop into the toilet and I'm done. Occasionally that poop needs a little help getting off the diaper and I just use a piece of toilet paper to help it off and let the washer deal with the rest. 

Now you might be saying "eww, you put poop in your washer?" Yep, I do. And the diapers come clean. Our clothes still get clean. No one has ever thought our clothes smelled like poop. What do you do when your child vomits in the middle of the night? I throw my kid's sheets into the washer, vomit and all, and let the washer deal with it. I've never once thought about bleaching my washer after something like that. To me, vomit is as nasty or nastier than poop. My washer handles vomit just fine. It handles poop just fine too.

If you want to get rid of the poop before diapers enter your washer, get a diaper sprayer from Cotton Babies or use disposable liners so you can just remove the liner and flush the poop. 


You're going to wash your hands after every diaper change anyway. You'll be fine. I promise. 

There are cloth diapering options for every budget.


One of my favorite diapers to recommend is the BumGenius Elemental. 

BumGenius Elemental Artist Series

You can purchase it from Cotton Babies, which is one of my favorite places to purchase diapers from because they always offer free shipping and low prices! The Elemental is organic cotton and is the easiest type of diaper to use because it's an all in one diaper. It goes on just like a disposable, comes off and goes into the wash. They are easy to wash because they have natural fibers. When it comes out of the dryer, it's ready to go back on the baby again. No snapping inserts in, no stuffing pockets. These diapers do cost $25 each. A full supply of cloth diapers is considered to be 24: that's 12 diapers per day, washing every other day. So for all 24 diapers, you'll pay $600. Considering that these are one-size diapers that will last you from birth through potty training, they are all you will need. You don't have to be a mathematician to know that it will cost you more than $600 to diaper a baby in disposables for 2+ years! Purchase one cloth diaper every two weeks from the time you find out you're pregnant and you'll have about 17 diapers by the time your baby is born! 

BumGenius 4.0 Artist Series prints

In addition, there are plenty of less expensive options for cloth diapering. You can choose the BumGenius 4.0 for only $20 a diaper. The Econobum diapering system offers a cloth diapering kit for just $48.95, which includes 3 covers, 12 prefolds, and a wet bag to store dirty diapers in. Two of those kits will have you cloth diapering full time for less than $100! Want to just try out cloth diapering before you invest a substantial amount of money in it? Purchase an Econobum cover and prefold for just $9.95. 

Econobum cover over a flat cloth diaper

For just $13.95, you can get a Flip cover that is a one size cover that will fit baby from birth to potty training. You can place almost anything absorbent inside this cover to use for a diaper. Target sells flour sack towels for about $1.25 each. Fold them to fit inside the diaper cover, lay in place, and replace when wet. Both the Flip & Econobum covers are wipe clean, so you can reuse them all day long. With a couple of covers, and $10 worth of flour sack towels from Target, you've got a day's worth of cloth diapers that can be used over and over again. 

Flip organic cotton insert, secured with Snappi

Remember, you don't have to start with a full supply of diapers. Pick up what you can afford right now. Use 1 cloth diaper each day instead of disposables. Use cloth diapers only on weekends. Try it out. You'll love it and you'll begin looking for ways to replace more of your baby's diaper changes with cloth.

What would you do with an extra $20 each week?


As I mentioned before in a previous post, saving money was not my primary reason for using cloth diapers. It really wasn't a reason at all at first. But I've learned that most people who show interest in my cloth diapers mention cost savings as a reason for their interest. I always say to them that we will save money by cloth diapering, but I was ashamed to realize I didn't know how much we had saved, or really if we had even saved money at this point.


So I sat down and did the math. We have saved more than $150 at this point by using cloth diapers, and even more if you calculate what we have saved by using cloth wipes! Considering that Jaxon is just 10 months old and probably has at least 14 months before I even begin to attempt to potty train him, we stand to save more than $1200 on diapers before this is all over with. Side note: I've got big plans for those savings (beach trips)!


Disposable diapers costs about .25 each. Each day, I change Jaxon 8-10 times. He has this habit of pooping as soon as he gets a fresh diaper, so sometimes it's even more than that. I save $2-$3 each day just by using cloth diapers. That's $14-$21 a week! 


Know what else? When Jaxon potty trains, I'll be able to sell his diapers. Yes, really. We had a few newborn diapers. I sold them for 2/3 what we paid for them. Cloth diapers retain their value very well.  


Interested in switching?  
Need help navigating the seemingly endless world of cloth? It's more popular than ever and it can be overwhelming to someone just checking it out.
Here are some great resources: 


Cotton Babies- there are great articles on the site about clothdiapering and you can buy everything you need to get started there.


Dirty Diaper Laundry - trying to find the perfect cloth diaper for you? Kim's cloth diaper finder on dirtydiaperlaundry.com will help you find whatever you are looking for. Need a diaper with Velcro closure for less than $13? You've come to the right place. 


All About Cloth Diapers - great articles on everything cloth related, including some to help you get started.


Still overwhelmed and just want to ask questions of a real, live person? Email me at shakymommy at gmail dot com. I'm not an expert, but I've been doing this for 10 months now and I'd be happy to help!


Now it's your turn to talk -tell me what you think about cloth diapering. If you currently cloth diaper, tell me why you love it. If you're not cloth diapering, tell me what keeps you from trying it! As always, I love your comments, but this time, there's a little something extra in it for you - be sure and read the fine print below!




I received no form of compensation for this post, but I am entering this post into a contest. The winner of the contest receives 12 BumGenius diapers! If I win, I'll get to choose one random person who comments on the winning blog post to receive 12 BumGenius diapers, too! So if you comment here and I win, you could win free diapers! How cool would that be?

Traveling with Cloth Diapers

Even though we have only been cloth diapering for 4 months, I feel like I have become somewhat of an expert on traveling with cloth diapers. In the short time since Jaxon's birth, we have been on two week-long vacations and two extended weekend trips. We moved out of our house for four days following the tornadoes in our area. We have stayed in condos, hotels, and with family. I've travelled by car and plane.

For our first two trips, Jaxon was less than 3 weeks old. We only had a small stash. So I just brought everything that fit. Since my 2 Applecheeks, 4 Rumparooz, and 4 Lil Joey's fit him best, I did laundry every night to keep those washed and ready for use while we were out and about during the day. 

Jaxon with his daddy at the beach - 2 weeks old

Wearing a Gro-Via on vacation at the beach

On our fourth trip, I had a larger stash, so I didn't have to do laundry every night, which was great because I ran into an issue: no laundry facilities in our condo. We had stayed at this complex before and had a washer/dryer in our condo, so I thought we would have them this time. There were facilities on site, at least. But walking down the hallway to do laundry was a pain, especially at night. It didn't make me want to go out and get disposables, but it did make me wish I had confirmed that we would have a washer and dryer in our suite.


After the Flats & Handwashing Challenge, I felt like I had found the missing piece for traveling with cloth: flats. I normally take a lot of prefolds, which are great for inserting inside all kinds of covers and don't take up a lot of space to pack. But prefolds take FOREVER to dry and I've found that dryers in vacation condos, especially those at the beach, do not usually work very well. Discovering flats has solved that problem for me. Flats also solve the issue of no laundry facilities because you can, if necessary, wash them in a sink. I would have preferred to handwash in the sink over using laundry facilities outside of our room. 


I personally would not want to deal with flats on an airplane or in airports, because except for the pad fold, I don't find flats easy to put on the baby. Since changing on an airplane is cramped and changing in public facilities is always something I want to finish quickly, I would prefer a pocket diaper. The good news is, you can use your flats as an insert for your pocket diaper, which would be easier to handwash than a microfiber insert.  


Here are a few of my recommendations for traveling with cloth:


1) Decide how often you want or will be able to wash and then calculate how many diapers you need to be able to go that long between washings. Then, pack more than you think you need. Vacation is a popular time for upset stomachs or your plans may change and you may not be able to wash on schedule. You don't want to run out of diapers. 


2) If space is an issue (isn't it always when you're packing for vacation?), take diapers that allow you to reuse covers for multiple changes. This could be a system like Gro-Via or Flip (with reusable or disposable inserts) or flats used inside Bummis, Econobum, or Thirsties covers. Other systems that offer the ability to reuse covers are Applecheeks and Itti Bitti.


4) Don't forget your detergent and make sure your wet bag will hold all your dirty diapers. Sample packs of detergent are great for travel.


5) Bring diaper rash cream (and liners if your cream is not safe for cloth diapers). Like upset stomachs, rashes are also common on vacation.


6) For an easy drying rack on vacation, use clothes hangers - most hotel rooms and condos provide some. Each hanger can usually hold two covers and you can hang them from almost anywhere (chairs, shower curtain rods) and they will typically dry within a few hours. Hotel rooms typically have very dry air which is great for allowing diapers to dry quickly.


7) Don't worry about stains. A quick spray of Bac-out on the diapers can help prevent stains (and will also help with odor from your wet bag), but the important thing is to get the diapers clean. You can sun the diapers when you get home to get the stains out. I bring my Bac-out along in a travel size spray bottle.


8) When we have a long car ride, I keep a few diapers in my diaper bag, along with my medium sized wet bag. I also bring my hanging wet/dry bag with clean diapers packed on the dry side. After my smaller wet bag gets full, I move the dirty diapers to the large wet bag & replenish the diaper bag with clean diapers from the dry side.