Hi Everyone – Every since I started following Fen’s blog, I’ve been curious why she chose cloth diapers and how the whole thing works…. and being the super-mommy she is, Fen didn’t just answer my question, she wrote a guest blog for everyone! Oh and I couldn’t let Fen show me up, so I wrote her a guest blog about finding baby steals on Craigslist here.  And now I’ll hand it off to Fen…

Thanks Meghan for letting me be a guest on your blog

I can’t say I’m an expert at cloth diapering… just an expert at how I cloth diaper. haha.

The primary reason I chose to cloth diaper was… of course, finances. It saves us money. Based on our initial investment of $230 of 24 diapers, we save about $300 the first year. And if continue diapering the 2nd year, we save $500. If course, with future children, it is all savings. I came up with these numbers based on the diapers that I purchased (not big name brand), the average number of changes my baby needs, and the average cost per disposable diaper. Our water bill went up about $10/month but that includes bathing baby and the baby’s normal laundry (which had to be done almost everyday in the beginning). If we split that up, the washing of the diapers was probably about $3. I didn’t notice much of a change in our normal utilities.

I am amazed that I had all these diapers sitting there and they were not destroyed by the Caleb.

If you’re considering cloth diapering, here are some pros/cons.

PROS:

• saves money
• no chemicals on baby’s bum
• less rashes
• better for the environment
• looks super cute
• less stinky (to me anyways)

CONS:

• bulkier than disposables so baby will need one size up in onuses/pants.
• makes traveling more challenging. I use disposables if I know we will be out for more than 2 hours. It takes up space in the diaper bag.
• you must use a free and clear detergent
• you must use a cloth friendly diaper rash cream (but can use regular creams if using a diaper liner, see below).

MYTH BUSTER – Most people are against cloth diapering because they think that they’ll touch more poop. That is not true. I don’t touch more poop than if I were to use disposable diapers. I use a disposable diaper liner to line the diaper. If there’s poop, I throw the liner with the poop in the toilet. If it is just pee, I wash and reuse the liner. I can probably get a good 2 to 3 uses from one liner. There are cloth liners also but I prefer to be able to flush it. Plus, it’s cheap enough.

You can see more of how I cloth diaper on my blog.