Diapers Q&A

Cloth Diapers?

My friend was telling me about these diapers last night that are cloth, but with disposable inserts? 1. Does anyone know what these are called? 2. Has anyone use these and what do you think of them? 3. Does anyone use just cloth diapers, and if so what is the cleaning process for these? I would like to use cloth diapers to be environmentally friendly, but I am a bit afraid of the mess. Thanks in advance for your help! The following is one fact I've learned that makes me what to use cloth, scary: It takes up to 500 years for a disposable to biodegrade in a landfill. Just in time for your great, great, great, great, grandchild's birth. Sylke - I'm not sure I believe a study found that doing laundry is an enviromentally dangerous as 10 to 15 percent of all landfills being filled with diapers that take a few lifetimes to decompose.

Public Comments

1. My sister in law tried the cloth diapers (she is major eco friendly being a science teacher and all) and man did she hate it. She switched within a few weeks. I think it was due to lack of patience of cleaning poopy cloth all the time. I personally am not going to do it, even though it probably would save money, and is better for the enviorment. But why would they create disposable diapers if they are absoutley horrible for the enviroment? Just a thought. Best of luck!
2. I don't know anything about the new cloth diapers that you are referring to, but I do know that when my children were young, cloth diapers were still used my a lot of mothers. They are definitely messier than disposable, but once you get used to using them and know how to clean them, they are a lot less expensive than disposable.
3. i used cloth diapers on all of my 3 children. have plenty of cloth diapers. get the ones with the thick middle part. i want to say gerber brand. plastic pants- plenty of pairs! when out and about have plastic baggies with you. i think they make disposable bags to carry in diaper bags now. when changing the baby, rinse the diaper well. if it is a messy diaper, we would dunk it in the toilet and when the soiled part was off the diaper, we would then rinse in a sink. put in a diaper pail with water in it. i would reccommend washing daily or they will stink badly. use dreft or similar baby washing detergent to wash. diapers should have their own load and if possible, a double rinse load. cloth diapers, in my opinion, are more environment friendly etc. i did hear of some cloth diapers that had the built in plactic pants and velcro closures. i think you have to look online for them or in higher end baby stores. i havent used them, but if i needed to diaper a baby, i would definbitely seek those out!
4. You are referring to gdiapers. I haven't used them, but I considered them. You can learn more about them on their website at www.gdiapers.com. I do use regular cloth diapers. We have some prefolds, which require a cover, but mostly we use all in one or pocket diapers. They velcro on just like a disposable diaper, but they are more environmentally friendly, healthier for baby, and easier on the wallet (after the initial investment, anyway). They are very easy to clean. For diapers that are only wet, I just toss them in the pail. For poopy diapers, I drop the poop in the toilet, then toss them in the pail. When it gets full, I toss them all in the wash for a cold rinse, hot wash, and extra cold rinse. I use baking soda and vinegar along with a tiny bit of free and clear detergent. Then I line dry them and toss them in the dryer for the last bit to soften them up. Nothing to it! We love our cloth diapers!
5. If you just want to do it to be environmentally friendly, let me tell you this. In Germany the official government department for environment had a study made to look at the difference between cloth diapers and other diapers and the results showed, there is no difference for the environment, because of all the water and detergent you need to get cloth diapers clean. So environmentally it makes no difference. On the other hand if you now start to add a part that you are going to throw away, then cloth diapers are even worse for the environment than disposable diapers. So if this is your only reason, use disposable diapers.
6. Those are called gdiapers. I was just looking at them recently - not to use, just to find out about them. From what I can tell, I think cloth pocket diapers would be easier than these gdiapers. With the gdiapers, you have to remove the insert, and tear it open and toss the contents in the toilet and stir it with a swishstick then toss in the rest and flush. I dont think I would like to do that for every diaper! With the pocket diapers I use, bumGenius 2.0 and 3.0, you just shake the insert out into the pail and then drop the pocket in the pail too (of course if there is solid bm in there you shake that out into the toilet and if you want you can use a diaper sprayer that hooks up to your toilets plumbing to spray off the diaper - no dunking is ever needed!). I use an odor eliminating spray on the insert and pocket so that makes an extra step, but keeps the odors at bay really well - never had a stinky pail problem. My cleaning process for my diapers is as follows: 1. turn on the washer to a large cold wash and add either a small amount of detergent (residue free!!!) or no detergent for this first wash - I alternate some days I do some days I don't! 2. Dump in the entire contents of pail and washable pail liner - thats right, you never have to touch a dirty diaper! 3. When cold wash finishes, set for a hot wash and add 1/4 cup of residue free detergent. 4. When hot wash finishes, do an extra cold water rinse to make sure all detergent is gone. 5. Throw the inserts and wipes (yes I use cloth wipes. Makes everything so much easier!) in the drier and hang dry the pockets This is super easy to do! I love using these cloth diapers. They are a One-Size diaper meaning that they will fit from 7-35 lbs. This makes them much more affordable than having to keep buying a bigger sizes. They have stretchy tabs and velcro closures which make them just as easy to use as disposables. My favorite cloth diapering accessories are: -Cloth wipes - no sorting out disposable wipes from the diapers. -Kissaluvs diaper lotion potion for the wipes -Small wet bags for outings -Wahmies diaper pail liners - very cute colors and patterns -bumGenius odor eliminator -bumGenius diaper sprayer Hope this helps and Happy Diapering!