Diapers- Cloth vs. sposies...how much do you spend per week? - Page 3 « Back to Group Discussions

[BaileyB]

Originally Posted by nstewart 

Well, I didn't have to change dipes by the time DS was eating solid food.  So for BF poop, I just dumped what would easily come off in the toilet then threw them in the wet sack with the wet dipes and then threw them all in the washing machine.  

Oh yeah, I forgot about the wet pail vs. dry pail thing. We used a wet pail.

[adventuregirl]

I CD'd exclusively with my DD, no attempt at EC. I didn't like the prefolds, I felt they were too bulky and my beginner skill was poor with getting them to fit and not leak. I fell in love with fitteds and used those for the newborn stage. I switched to pockets after that and used those until the end - and finally had a use for those pesky prefolds. The biggest thing I can say about the cost savings that I haven't heard here yet is that when you are done with them, if they are in decent condition, you can sell them! I ended up only spending about a dollar for my newborn fitteds that we used for ~4 months because they were bought new and I kept them in good condition. After that I took to buying used (unless I found some good deals), so I pretty much only used the return on the sold dipes, and was able to re-sell probably 90% of those (some were just simply at the end of their life when we were through with them) and often with not much of a loss. But of course I was not planning on more kids. But I do love hearing how some of you don't have to spend anything at all on additional kids, that is SO worth it!

So for THIS time, I am struggling... I want to do cloth, but will be going back to work so am concerned about the extra work of CDing. Of course reading this thread is motivating, so I think I may start looking around for my wish list of new dipes. I can certainly rationalize 2 extra loads a week and am hoping to hire a nanny for baby care, so I could just make that part of her job (haha).

[BeagleMommy]

Kawaii Diapers are really nice and really inexpensive. If I needed more diapers, I'd get more Kawaiis.

I just checked and this week, you can get a dozen of the kind I like best for $5.83 each.

[BabySmurf]

I did part time CD'ing.  Well I went through phases of sposies and phases of cloth.  I HATE spending money on diapers since we "have" the cloth, but I tend to really have a lot of stink issues.  To the point where i need to take a break from the cloth because our bathroom and hallway start to smell really bad.  For me it's an issues of the volume of pee my DS does vs the small amount of water I am able to get in our HE washer.  I am working on a way to get back into the cloth to make PL a little easier.  Part of the reason we have so many stink issues is that my DS was almost exclusively BF until about 18 months, and only started to really eat a lot since I've been pregnant.  That's a LOT of milk for a LO to be drinking, and his pees were massive - he would leak through a diaper in one go, even tripple stuffed.  (He doesn't seem to have an issue holding his pee).  And I can't get enough water to combat all of that pee, so they never really get clean, and they stink of ammonia. 

I used fuzzibunz, and since they have the fleece liners tend to have more issues with stink, but my DS wouldn't sit still long enough for me to figure out the prefolds.  I bought a bunch of one sized and they paid for themselves in a couple of months.  Then DS got really big and since I needed tons of liners in them, I had to buy more in a bigger size.  But I learned my lesson and I bought some used diapers.  So that is always an option.  I know it sounds kind of weird, but it wasn't gross at all, the diapers were all totally clean and in good shape.  Over all I surely spent more money on sposies than cloth. (But I did use the cloth enough to offset the cost of them, so I didn't loose money on it).  And DS grew so fast I couldn't really buy dipes in bulk because he would grow out of them too fast!

The other thing with the cloth is that if you are planning to have more kids, you can definitely re-use them, so even if you try out CD'ing and it doesn't work, it's not all for a loss.  And if you buy a one-size type diaper (usually it will snap to accommodate a range of sizes), you can still use them when you get a new place, even if it is a year later.   Or you can resell them, if you truly hate it!

[SplashingPuddle]

I did cloth in the day, mixed with elimination communication, and compostable disposables at night (more expensive than regular ones but we watch them compost in our garden which is great). Even if you cannot compost them yourself, I would imagine they compost quicker in a garbage dump than a plastic ones would. I did try some elimination communication at night but I find it tiring. I also bought g-diapers and then would stuff them with anything at hand (not necessarily pre-folds - socks worked great, so do rags, or a too small t-shirt)