Cloth diaper brands?

[Big B]

With my wife being pregnant with our first kid we have been researching all the normal baby stuff.

We are planning on using cloth diapers as much as possible. What surprised me was number of brands out there.

My question is, is there a big difference in the different brands? Does anyone have a preference with one type over another?
Actually, any cloth diaper tips could be appreciated.

[Kutter_0311]

We ran cloth diapers for quite a while. IMO, it royally sucks, but I was doing the wash.

Do you comprehend how much a propperly nursed/fed baby shits? Cloth is ZPAW only, IMO

[phil_in_cs]

We ran cloth diapers for quite a while. IMO, it royally sucks, but I was doing the wash.

Do you comprehend how much a propperly nursed/fed baby shits? Cloth is ZPAW only, IMO

I didn't mind washing too much. Just keep up with it - do it daily. We used Mother Ease, with plastic snaps. They fit from 10lbs up to when she was potty trained.

[El Bandito]

We used a brand called Thirsties. They worked well and made in the good 'ol USA!

[Chantrea]

We used prefolds, pins, and wraps.

I think you are asking about fitted diapers/systems? I do think there is a suprising difference between brands at times, but more because of the fit. It's one of the reasons why we went semi-old school because with a prefold you can do different folds to custom fit your kid. I had one chubby belly baby, one chubby thigh baby, and one skinny baby. So I had to be careful about what wraps went on what kid too, if it doesn't fit well you have leakage which is kind of icky.

Bummis, Proraps, and Imse Vimse wraps worked the best for us. Prefolds are prefolds, I don't know that they even have a brand. I tried the all-in-one cloth diapering system but it sucked for 2 of my babies and they were too expensive to buy to diaper 3 at once (I had twins 17 months after giving birth to my singleton), and really they weren't any easier (IMO) than the plain old prefold and wrap route.

So. If you are genuinely interested in cloth, here's what I would advise--
DO NOT buy a complete system until your baby is here so you can actually try out a small amount on them. If you have a diaper service in your area, sign up for the first month--it will buy you some time and cut down on the laundry when you are already adjusting/exhausted. Also, if you find you hate CDs then you will not have invested in it beyond your fee for the month.

I found cloth diapering to be far more pleasant than disposable diapering. The laundry was not hard, even at the height of diapering three. One of my children had extremely sensitive skin and sensitivity to adhesives (this makes disposables a real problem); once I figured out the right detergent/additive combo I never had to deal with skin reactions from her again. But...you do have to be prepared to spend the time to figure out how to launder your stuff if you do have a sensitive kiddo because cloth diapers can exacerbate that if you're not careful. They are not a panacea.

I also think it's a myth that they help you potty train 'early'; all three of my kids were exclusively cloth diapered and were toilet 'learned' at pretty different ages.

Cloth diapering saved us a ton of $$. I'm not sure that the payoff is that great for 1 vs. 3, though.

[TacAir]

We used prefolds, pins, and wraps.

I think you are asking about fitted diapers/systems? I do think there is a suprising difference between brands at times, but more because of the fit. It's one of the reasons why we went semi-old school because with a prefold you can do different folds to custom fit your kid. I had one chubby belly baby, one chubby thigh baby, and one skinny baby. So I had to be careful about what wraps went on what kid too, if it doesn't fit well you have leakage which is kind of icky.

Bummis, Proraps, and Imse Vimse wraps worked the best for us. Prefolds are prefolds, I don't know that they even have a brand. I tried the all-in-one cloth diapering system but it sucked for 2 of my babies and they were too expensive to buy to diaper 3 at once (I had twins 17 months after giving birth to my singleton), and really they weren't any easier (IMO) than the plain old prefold and wrap route.

So. If you are genuinely interested in cloth, here's what I would advise--
DO NOT buy a complete system until your baby is here so you can actually try out a small amount on them. If you have a diaper service in your area, sign up for the first month--it will buy you some time and cut down on the laundry when you are already adjusting/exhausted. Also, if you find you hate CDs then you will not have invested in it beyond your fee for the month.

I found cloth diapering to be far more pleasant than disposable diapering. The laundry was not hard, even at the height of diapering three. One of my children had extremely sensitive skin and sensitivity to adhesives (this makes disposables a real problem); once I figured out the right detergent/additive combo I never had to deal with skin reactions from her again. But...you do have to be prepared to spend the time to figure out how to launder your stuff if you do have a sensitive kiddo because cloth diapers can exacerbate that if you're not careful. They are not a panacea.

I also think it's a myth that they help you potty train 'early'; all three of my kids were exclusively cloth diapered and were toilet 'learned' at pretty different ages.

Cloth diapering saved us a ton of $$. I'm not sure that the payoff is that great for 1 vs. 3, though.

^^^ True words of wisdom, that.^^^

[Kutter_0311]

I second. Motion goes to a vote...

Chantrea, I wish we had a service in our area, I may have managed to keep up with things.

As it stands, Sarah has a hard time going into the basement, so laundry is entirely my job, but not my only job. Things pile up.

Fit is a big factor, too. I doubt any CD's would have worked for our first, he's so skinny. The others are chubby.

[Chantrea]

I second. Motion goes to a vote...

Chantrea, I wish we had a service in our area, I may have managed to keep up with things.

As it stands, Sarah has a hard time going into the basement, so laundry is entirely my job, but not my only job. Things pile up.

Fit is a big factor, too. I doubt any CD's would have worked for our first, he's so skinny. The others are chubby.

Yeah, I can't imagine doing CDs if you have to haul a ton of stuff up and down stairs--we do have a multilevel house but did all changing in the downstairs area except for at night so I did not have to haul a huge sack of soaked diapers up and down the stairs, yuck. There is so much laundry involved with baby twins it was unreal, so adding in a daily load of diapers just wasn't a big deal. I have to laugh at the moms I knew who claimed to 'fold and put away' baby and diaper laundry, for me I just had a piled up basket of clean ones that I grabbed stuff out of.

Fit can be a factor in disposables too I guess, but with the beads it's not quite as noticeable. I think a lot of people do not realize how important fit is in CDing (so they have horrible problems with leaks and assume it's all because of the cloth, not the fit), and how important it is to ignore the claims of cloth diaper makers (AIO makers were particularly bad with this back in my day, it's been awhile as my kids are 10, 8, and 8 now) who say that their cloth diaper 'fits all babies'. It won't--it's just lucky if it fits all of the children in your household.

[Big B]

I appreciate all of the information so far everyone!

We are planning on using cloth diapers to save money and for environmental reasons. My parents used cloth diapers with me and my siblings. They used prefolds and have given us a lot of info about them, but it has been 25+ years since they had a kid in diapers.

This gives us a good starting point.

[Kutter_0311]

I have to laugh at the moms I knew who claimed to 'fold and put away' baby and diaper laundry, for me I just had a piled up basket of clean ones that I grabbed stuff out of.

Sarah gets all down on herself because most of our clean laundry never gets folded and put away.

I'm just glad I can keep the kids in clean clothes!

[GunnerMax]

great info guys, our second is due to pop out in August. We will use disposable diapers, but I will stack up a nice bit of cloth ones, with clothespins for any shortfalls (SHTF)

[Chantrea]

If your SO knits, it might be worth keeping some patterns (or whatever the knitting equivalent is, sorry, i don't do knitting) for wool soakers if you're keeping prefolds and pins for SHTF purposes. That way you have the means to have covers instead of having to have multiple sizes of plastic pants or wraps.

The one problem I would mention with soakers is that since they are technically NOT moisture barriers, you may have dampness in modern fit baby clothing (baby clothing these days tends to be tighter fit since disposable diapers are so thin). If you have tight pants over a wool soaker, you're going to have moisture wick through. But in a pinch you use what you need to use. You can also use microfleece to make soakers and soaker-type wraps--we had some fleece wraps with my daughter (she was my sensitive skin child, so any kind of airless barrier was a real problem) that were nice, but only used them at night so I could put her in a gown rather than close cut pants/tights. I also cut up fleece to put on the inside of the diaper, next to the skin, to wick moisture away from her skin--that helped at night (but we still changed her often--she was just the type of kid to get a rash really easily though).

[prtp3warrior]

We used cloth diapers for our kids. I assume that you are going to use an insert with a plastic/polyester type cover. They are actually pretty easy to sew yourself. The patterns are online I believe. As for the inserts, things got much easier for us when we switched from cotton to a bamboo cloth.

For the bamboo cloth, just buy a good quality bamboo towel from the store, cut it into about 12 by 8 squares, fold it into thirds so you have a 4x8 and sew it closed.

Bamboo seems to clean up much much better than cotton does. Perhaps less penetration into the fabric. They are soft for little bottoms too.

[Clout]

great info guys, our second is due to pop out in August. We will use disposable diapers, but I will stack up a nice bit of cloth ones, with clothespins for any shortfalls (SHTF)

I took "shortfalls" as Shit Hit The Floor! With a diaper-wearing human, that would be a short fall.

My wife's nickname is "The Eco-Freako". It doesn't get in my way, so I let her be. We have our first on the way, with the arrival set sometime in mid-June. She is on 4,000 different discussion boards for hours each night researching to no end. One thing she has been adamant about, and which has gotten the most push back from me, is the whole cloth diaper scene. She makes good points (cheaper, better for the planet, kids potty train quicker, less rashes, blah, blek, blag) and my chief rebuttal is that I'm friggen lazy. I'm also thinking practically. We never sit still, we're always going somewhere or doing something. How nasty is it going to be to tote around a steamer while you're at the state fair all day? There comes a point where you want to ball that fucker up in a Wally World bag, swing it around by your side and give it the ol' heave-ho into a dumpster.

As far as brands go. My wife has picked up 1-2 of a couple brands to try before investing all-in on one type. A friend of ours has their kid in Bum Genius and it's worked out well for them. I do know my wife has ordered some from Etsy. When we were registering at the local Babies R Us, I took it upon myself to add some "daddy diapers". A medium sized pack of Earth's Best disposables for the times when I'm in charge. Otherwise, what was supposed to be a cost savings with the cloth ones, will become very expensive when I start pitching every blowout into the trash.

Funny how priorities have changed....I went from 40% beer and 60% guns to 90% baby shite and 10% saving money.

[Babidoll85]

We've used thirsties covers with refolds, bumgenius, but a great one that is a "one size fits all" and cheap, is Sunbabys.

[prtp3warrior]

great info guys, our second is due to pop out in August. We will use disposable diapers, but I will stack up a nice bit of cloth ones, with clothespins for any shortfalls (SHTF)

I took "shortfalls" as Shit Hit The Floor! With a diaper-wearing human, that would be a short fall.

My wife's nickname is "The Eco-Freako". It doesn't get in my way, so I let her be. We have our first on the way, with the arrival set sometime in mid-June. She is on 4,000 different discussion boards for hours each night researching to no end. One thing she has been adamant about, and which has gotten the most push back from me, is the whole cloth diaper scene. She makes good points (cheaper, better for the planet, kids potty train quicker, less rashes, blah, blek, blag) and my chief rebuttal is that I'm friggen lazy. I'm also thinking practically. We never sit still, we're always going somewhere or doing something. How nasty is it going to be to tote around a steamer while you're at the state fair all day? There comes a point where you want to ball that fucker up in a Wally World bag, swing it around by your side and give it the ol' heave-ho into a dumpster.

As far as brands go. My wife has picked up 1-2 of a couple brands to try before investing all-in on one type. A friend of ours has their kid in Bum Genius and it's worked out well for them. I do know my wife has ordered some from Etsy. When we were registering at the local Babies R Us, I took it upon myself to add some "daddy diapers". A medium sized pack of Earth's Best disposables for the times when I'm in charge. Otherwise, what was supposed to be a cost savings with the cloth ones, will become very expensive when I start pitching every blowout into the trash.

Funny how priorities have changed....I went from 40% beer and 60% guns to 90% baby shite and 10% saving money.

Very funny and all very true.

[Kutter_0311]

We've used thirsties covers with refolds, bumgenius, but a great one that is a "one size fits all" and cheap, is Sunbabys.

We found Sunbabies late in the game, and bought a pile. I would rate them a good value, with pretty good performance. Both our babies are bladder holders who gush when they let it go. I watched my daughter splash over a disposable diaper one morning, yet we had no such problems with cloth, Sunbaby, Bum Genious, or others.

She makes good points (cheaper, better for the planet, kids potty train quicker, less rashes, blah, blek, blag) and my chief rebuttal is that I'm friggen lazy. I'm also thinking practically. We never sit still, we're always going somewhere or doing something. How nasty is it going to be to tote around a steamer while you're at the state fair all day? There comes a point where you want to ball that fucker up in a Wally World bag, swing it around by your side and give it the ol' heave-ho into a dumpster.

This is easier to deal with than you think. I keep half a dozen 1gal Ziploc freezer bags in the diaper bag, and 1 will contain most of a day's daipers very effectively.

As far as brands go. My wife has picked up 1-2 of a couple brands to try before investing all-in on one type. A friend of ours has their kid in Bum Genius and it's worked out well for them. I do know my wife has ordered some from Etsy. When we were registering at the local Babies R Us, I took it upon myself to add some "daddy diapers". A medium sized pack of Earth's Best disposables for the times when I'm in charge. Otherwise, what was supposed to be a cost savings with the cloth ones, will become very expensive when I start pitching every blowout into the trash.

Funny how priorities have changed....I went from 40% beer and 60% guns to 90% baby shite and 10% saving money.

Cloth will get you big savings. I wish I could have kept up with it, I would have cash for the pair of Ultimaks I need.

[Anianna]

A lot of the companies will sell one or two as a sample pack to try so you don't buy the whole lot right off. We used Mother Ease diapers that grow with baby instead of having to buy different size diapers as baby grows. It's a little bulky on them when they are itty bitty, but that doesn't last long and was not a big deal.

[GunnerMax]

Good news,

The wife and I agreed on a diaper service. So, we will have 80 cloth diapers on hand at any given point for SHTF. Also, benefits of this include: less trash, no midnight diaper runs, supporting AMERICAN jobs and not machines, and better for the environment.

[owlnest]

A diaper service is a great option, especially during the first few months! We used a service for the first few months with each of my 3 boys before switching to washing our own.

[Draugjeger]

We used/are using prefolds, snappies (instead of pins, much easier:http://www.snappibaby.com/images/570_Snappi_on_Diaper.jpg) and woolen shorts or trousers (http://www.greenmountaindiapers.com/disana.htm). We also used some other brands, but prefolds dries much quicker than the others and are possible to use through the whole period, so actually , it's cheaper.

The good thing about prepping and cloth-diapers is that you don't have to bring along a mountain of paper diapers. Instead, you need two to tree days of cloth diapers and soap, and you can wash off the zombie ooze-blood-brain matter in a stream somewhere.

Draugjeger