After doing a great deal of research, we are using cloth diapers with our kids. There are many benefits including saving money, potty training earlier, no diaper rash, no full trash cans, less pollution in the land fills, etc. We never run out of diapers or have to go buy more. The laundry isn't bad. We store the diapers in a giant wet bag (15-20 gallon size). When the bag gets full we dump the entire thing in the washer, including the bag. Wash, dry and ours are ready to go. There's no sorting, folding, ironing, etc. It's one of the easiest loads of laundry we do.
The only diaper photo I can find. We called them both "little baby, big bum" for awhile.
Everyone asks about the smell. This was a huge concern of my husband's co-workers. They didn't want him coming to work wearing clothes that had been washed in the same machine as dirty diapers. My family was certain the entire room would stink because you can't put dirty diapers outside like disposables. Babies who are only fed breast milk don't have smelly poop. It's also not solid, so for the first 6 months their diapers went straight into the bag and could sit until we did laundry. Once we introduced solids the smells arrived. Most people don't realize that you are supposed to dump solid waste in the toilet even if you use disposables (it's written somewhere on the package if you look). For wet diapers, it's the same process as before. For those smelly diapers, we simply dump the poo in the toilet. When it's solid this is simple. When it's not solid, it takes a little more work. Some people use a diaper sprayer, we just use a baby wipe to push it into the toilet. Once you flush that, the smell is gone and the diaper goes in the bag. Their room doesn't smell and the clean diapers don't smell. Our other laundry also doesn't smell (we have had people outside our house verify this).
Slightly bigger babies, still big bums - Notice the "come hither" pose from sweet son.
If you are picturing taking a large white piece of cotton, folding it into shape, pinning it, and then putting a pair of plastic underwear on over it then you are about 15 years behind. There are many types of cloth diapers. They cover all price ranges and effort levels. We went with the ones that require the least effort. I'm only going to talk about the ones we are using because this is about how we are doing things, not a list of all options. :) We are using Bum Genius All-in-One, One-Size, Organic with Snaps. The all-in-one means there isn't an insert. No separating, stuffing, folding, etc. The one-size they say fits kids from 7-35 pounds. Our kids were right at 5 pounds when we started using them and they worked. We chose the organic because when we bought they were the only ones that came with snaps. The other option is Velcro and kids learn how to take those off early. I had visions of my kids not being able to undo the snaps and wearing their diapers. Turns out my kids have used this as an opportunity to increase their fine motor skills. I'm trying to make that sound better than finding poop smeared everywhere, but if you have read this far that's what you get.
Less than 7 pounds, but diapers still didn't leak.
We purchased in bulk - 48 diapers. Otherwise known as 2 days with twin infants. As the babies have gotten older laundry doesn't happen as often. Also for the early potty training, my daughter first told me she wanted to go "pee-pee" when she was 14 months old. I laughed and put her on the potty. I was shocked when she actually did it. After just a few weeks, she was in underwear all the time. This was going beautifully until someone in our house put her in a diaper for 4 days and she regressed. She will still go on the potty for me though! On the other hand, my son was 16 months old before we convinced him not to wear the potty chair on his head, so what do I know?
