Buggies and Babies

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

My Economical Choice of cloth diapering!


I started cloth diapering when I had by 2nd daughter who was born September 2008. I had used many cloth diapering brands and systems with her. Overtime, I found that the most affordable for me were the prefolds and the covers. Fast forward three and half years later, now I have my third baby who I’m cloth diapering and am loving the prefolds and covers again. I was not sure about doing the prefolds at first so I did buy about a dozen XS Fuzzi Bunz which have been great! My son is about 10 pounds (or more) now at 4 weeks old and fits perfectly in the XS Fuzzi Bunz. (SIDE NOTE – my daughter fit in her size Small Fuzzi Bunz until she was 18 months.)
However, a dozen XS Fuzzi Bunz are not enough so I started on my prefolds when my lil guy was 2 weeks. We use the Bumkins Indian Unbleached Cotton Prefolds, which, of course, we carry at Buggies and Babies :) Why Indian Unbleached Cotton versus the other prefold type known as Chinese Unbleached cotton? Because they’re
  • soft and very absorbent
  • take less washing time to get soft and absorbent
  • unbleached cotton because it retains much of their natural cotton  and are softer and more durable than bleached prefolds
  •  bleached prefolds which are white tend to be less absorbent as the bleach weakens the fiber of the cotton
Keep in mind that to get the Indian Unbleached Prefolds ready for cloth diapering you do have to wash/dry the prefolds at least 3 – 5 times. I washed mine with each load of regular clothes laundry rather than washing alone and wasting all that water and energy. Also note that after the many washes and dries the prefolds will shrink to 95% of its original size. Thus, if you’re planning on folding your prefold like a diaper than the infant size is best for a newborn. I will post pics soon! My new camera is acting up on me!
My all time favorite cover is the Thirties Wrap. When I was diapering my daughter over 3 years ago Thirsties did not have the Duo Sizes. I thought the Duo Cover Size 1 would be too big for my newborn but it fits perfectly!
Anway, back to my point, how is this economical? Well in one day I am able to use one Duo Cover for the 10 – 12 changes we do in one day. Here is how the numbers break down:
One Thirsties Cover = $12.75
Two Packages of 6 Infant Size Prefolds is $13.95 x 2 = $27.90
So…for one day of diapering you could do it for only $40.65. If you wanted to have 3 days of worth of covers and prefolds you would be spending about $125. Wow, on a budget someone could spend only $125 for 1 year+ worth of cloth diapers?
Compare this total to 1 box of disposables which at Costco are about $41 for only a 3 week supply or $710+ for a year supply – OUCH!! For me, switching to cloth was an environmental choice. Of course, I needed to be economical about it as well!! I also love how much cuter cloth diapers are than disposables.
If you do opt for disposables or prefer to do part time cloth then I highly recommend Seventh Generation Cloth Diapers. They do not have any of those artificial absorbent bubble or bead things in their diapers. (What are those things?) I haven’t done too much research on the Seventh Generation Brand but they do seem less harmful than other disposables. What are your thoughts on disposables? Does anyone recommend a particular brand for us parents who may need to do the occasional disposable?

 
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