Cloth Diapering 101: Cloth Diapering Essentials

Cloth diapering seems to come with a lot of stuff. It makes the whole process seem overly complicated. When it really comes down to it, you just need the diapers, somewhere to stick wet diapers, and some kind of detergent to wash them in. In reality, if you add a few more essentials cloth can be a simple process. Really, you need most of these things if you use cloth or disposables. 

Here's the 7 things we loved that made cloth a great experience for us:

1. BumGenius 4.0 

You'll need a stash of diapers. We had 20 at the newborn stage and (because I found two cute new colors) grew to 22 a couple of months in. With this size stash, we were washing every day and a half in the first couple of months and every two to three days for the majority of her diapered life.

2. Grandma El's Diaper Rash Cream

As I said before, Emma got far fewer rashes when she was in cloth than in disposables. But, we still needed a good rash cream. And this sucker was a miracle in a jar. I give Grandma El's as apart of every single shower gift these days. This stuff is just too amazing to keep secret. 

3. Disposable Diaper Liners 

If you're using rash cream, you should be using a liner. Liners are disposable. They can be thrown in the trash or flushed after use. Liners add a protective layer between the goop and your diapers. Non-cloth diaper safe creams have been known to stain, cause build up, or even void diaper warranties. I found that even "safe" creams still caused a bit of build up. Liners are cheap and easy to deal with, so we used them whenever we used creams.

4. Travel Wet Bag

If you're going to use cloth out of the house, then you'll want a travel wet bag. Wet bags are used for dirty diaper storage while you're out and about. Mine holds three wet diapers. If we were going to be out longer than that, I tended to use disposables. Wet bags are also great for things like swim suits and swim diapers!

5. Diaper Pail

You'll need somewhere to contain all your wet and dirty diapers between washings. A simple pail with lid (or trash can with lid) worked well for us. Because we were washing every two to three days, there was little problem with smell. 

6. Pail Liner

Pail liners are like wet bags for your home storage. They keep in the wet and help contain smells. I washed my pail liner once a week. Some people keep two on hand and wash the liner each time they do diapers. 

7. Rockin' Green

Laundry routines are one of the most unnecessarily confusing parts of cloth diapering. Ask three cloth diapering parents how to wash diapers and you'll get three different answers. We tried several different detergents and kept coming back to Rockin' Green. It made our wash routine simple and effective. A bag lasted us about three months. Not a bad price, overall.

Does anyone else have a cloth diaper product that they loved?

  

Here's some places I like to party at:

Nap Time Creations, I Should be Mopping the Floor, Uncommon Designs, Tip Junkie, Living Well Spending Less, and Tatertots & Jello