I wrote this ages ago:
ADVENTURES IN CLOTH DIAPERING
I’ve been asked almost a dozen times on FB about our cloth diapers, this was my most recent message to an expecting friend. It is not for everyone depending on your “PT” poop tolerance but below you will find our experience. [name_m]Feel[/name_m] free to ask any other questions and check out www.gdiapers.com.
I really struggled with the cloth diaper issue. My husband begged me not to “do that” to him and a number of friends who had tried them hated them and said I was crazy. I also didn’t like how much laundry is required - from a sanity perspective but mostly an enviro perspective. That much laundry seemed a really poor use of water. But I also couldn’t stand the thought of throwing that much plastic in a landfill and most importantly, exposing my baby’s little bits to such brutal chemicals. You would not seriously believe what they put in diapers to make them so absorbent.
I was totally overwhelmed with the options too, and spent MONTHS applying my best legal skills to researching the problem. I am happy to say I am convinced I found the perfect system for us. We use Gdiapers which used to be very expensive to ship and find in [name_f]Canada[/name_f] but are now super accessible. Most cloth diapers are one or two pieces whereas G’s are three which I have found cuts down significantly on the laundry and water use. There is a little cotton outer “pant” and then you snap in a plastic pouch that has a scrunchy elastic around it and inside that pouch you have the option of using Gcloth as the main asorber (called soaker or doubler in CD speak). The Gcloth is made of fleece and hemp and wash beautifully, I don’t have one stained one and I bought have of mine used. OR…and this is the genius part…you can use a chemical free disposable insert sold by Gdiapers. These aren’t super cheap and will run you the price of non-sale diapers but we only use one at night and the odd one if we know we will be out of the house or a grandparent is babysitting. The disposable inserts are biodegradable and if they only have pee on them can be tossed in the compost and if they are poopy they can be tossed in the trash OR they can also be flushed. Now, I wouldn’t necessarily flush them if your plumbing is a bit unreliable…but they have perforated side tabs and you just tear the sides away, swirl around in the toilet bowl (with a little stick that comes with them that hangs on a hook on the back of the toilet tank) and flush. It’s worked great for us.
Some of my considerations were that I know some people who have spent a fortune on CD’s and they either didn’t like them or they didn’t fit their babies, I really think fit is the deciding factor for success for most. Gdiapers has absolutely fabulous customer service and they will help you get the best fit. But, more importantly, you can get started quite cheaply in Gdiapers and if you don’t like them the resale is amazing…just have a gander at the "Gdiapers selling and trading”FB page. I have used it with great success.
The age of your baby will depend on what you need to get started. We bought a newbaby bundle with the tiny G’s (the smallest size you can buy for newborns)…but these are really only good for very small babies. We had a 7 lb 11 oz baby but she was very long and she wore them for about three weeks, and we only ever used six of them (the pack comes with twelve…so you may want to buy used). I am glad we had them but lots of people just use disposables for the few first weeks. She then went into size small. We had six Gpant, 12 Gpouch (six extra because these get dirty), and 24 Gcloth and used one pack of disposable inserts a month (if not longer). We do laundry every four days or so and what we do is take off the dirty Gcloth, rinse in water (you can use a sink or diaper sprayer which sells for about $45 and connects to the water line on your toilet very easily, wring it out and the give it a quick spray with Bum Genius disinfectant (or not, we never did this with my son) and throw it in a dry diaper pail in her room, once the pail is full we wash on one rinse cycle with no detergent and then add an all natural detergent (you can’t use normal detergent or it will impede absorption) and run a “stain” cycle on our washing machine but any normal cycle is fine.
Once she started solid food, I added a liner over the Gcloth, which looks like a bounce sheet. It “catches” the poop and you can just throw it in the toilet and flush. Lots of companies make them but I love the Gdiaper brand, it is much sturdier, the others get all bunched up. (again, never used this with my son)
I absolutely love our diapers and I have spent under $500 for everything she has worn and they are all resellable for a good portion of that. I have sold and bought on the FB page and kijiji and now Gdiapers has very cheap shipping but if you spend more than $125 it is free and delivered usually in a couple of days. Gdiapers are also really low profile so you don’t need to size up their clothes which can be a problem with other CD’s.
CDing can be a bit cult-like (like baby wearing, guilty on that one, too) and for some reason traditional CDers don’t seem to like Gdiapers. I think the disposable option seems like sell-out to them…even though you can use 100% cloth. I have tried well reviewed pockets and some old style BG Elementals and Freestyles but I always go back to Gs. I made a deal with my husband that if he didn’t like them or using the cloth he could use the disposable inserts or just straight up disposables (if he is home, I never touch a diaper). He has never taken me up on it. He loves Gdiapers and we used them for 25 days on the road while training around Europe with an 8 month old. Our second child is now 18 months into the same set of Gs and the inserts still look pristine. The velcro does wear (but I bought a comb for it, and that helps). I do replace the pouches size large every year of wear.