3 Months and Thoughts on Diapers

David is three months old today, and life is pretty quiet at the Olson house, but everything is good. Sadie loves holding baby David and never wants to let go of her baby.
David is still such a sweet guy, the only time he seems to get grumpy is when he'd rather be in his crib sleeping.
So, go ahead and think that I'm crazy but we've made the switch to cloth diapers. I'm sure the first thing that people think of when they hear cloth diapers are prefolds and plastic pants. Well, cloth diapers have come a long way since our moms used cloth diapers. I remember back about three years ago when my friend told me that she was cloth diapering her kids and thinking that she was seriously crazy (sorry Kristen.) After looking into cloth diapers, I have changed my mind.
I started out with a cloth trial pack (a local cloth diaper store has a pack of 6 different kinds of cloth diapers that you can try to help you decide on a brand/style for a month for $15.) I'd heard good things about bumgenius and fuzzi bunz, but in the end we choose bumgenius made by Cotton Babies. I LOVE my bumgenius cloth diapers, and don't tell Chris, but I'm pretty sure that he likes them, too (he was totally against it before we started, but he has slowly changed his ways.) I think that David likes them, too.
Some of the reasons I like cloth diapers:
- We haven't had any blow-outs or leaks (we were leaking through 1-2 diapers a day.)
- I think cloth diapers can be really cute (we have diapers in 7 different colors. Talk about accessorizing. . .)
- David was getting mild diaper rash from disposable wipes and diapers, but diaper rashes have been less frequent since we switched.
- Cloth diapering saves us money! It is a large investment, but considering how much we were paying for diapers they will pay for themselves at least 3-4 times before he is potty trained (saving us $1000-$1500)
- Cloth diapering is good for the environment. Although we use more water from washing, we save thousands of diapers from going to landfills where they pretty much never decompose.
-I love the thought of fabric being against his little bum instead of paper.
-Because David is breastfed, cloth diapers are very easy to use (when he starts eating solids we will have to use a diaper sprayer to spray his poop into the toilet meaning you only touch poop as often as you would using disposable diapers.)Like I said even Chris likes them. Our diapers have velcro, so it is just like changing a normal diaper. The only difference is that when the diaper pail is full I empty it into the washer instead of the garbage. Two quick washes later they are clean, and I let them air dry in our back yard (one of the benefits of Arizona is we almost always have sun.) When they are dry I spend 5 minutes or so stuffing the inserts into the breathable, but waterproof colorful covers and they are ready to be used again. We have enough diapers (30) so that I only have to do wash every 3 days, and I could probably go every 4 days no problem. Maybe it is because I am a stay at home mom, but I actually enjoy washing and stuffing his clean diapers.
-I've heard that cloth diapers help potty train faster/earlier!