Frugal Fridays – Cloth Diapers

Today, I’m all about cloth diapers.

When Jed was born, I knew I would be taking a year of maternity leave. It seemed stupid to spend so much of our limited funds on diapers, so I decided we were going cloth all the way!

And we did. For two years. We were still even doing cloth after Zac was born…until FPIES kicked me in the teeth and I started struggling to keep up with the demands of FPIES research, 6 meal a day cooking, cleaning, and diaper washing and folding.

We started using disposables as a means to give me a break, and I’m grateful we did.

HOWEVER! Things are really bad in the Summers house right now, financially speaking, and it seems REALLY  stupid for us to spend our incredibly limited funds on disposable diapers.

So I’m dusting off our cloth diapers, getting out the diaper covers, and adding more work to my daily routine.

That makes it sound bad, right? Like cloth diapers are a ton of work?

No. They’re really not. They’re actually pretty easy to deal with. I was just terribly overwhelmed last year when we were first diagnosed. Now? Pshaw! I got this, baby!

Let’s back up a minute, though, before we start into what cloth diapering entails work-wise.

First you have to decide what kind of cloth diapers you want to use.

It used to be easy. Our Mama’s or Grandmothers had one choice: flat fold diapers. Fold ’em, wrap ’em around the baby, pin ’em…done!

Nowadays, not so easy to decide.

There are a ton of options out there! Pre-folds, liners, combo cloth with disposable liners, blah blah blah. And the prices on some of them are daunting!

I remember being quite overwhelmed at the options available when I was researching for Jed…until Darrel cut through the noise and chatter and got right to the heart of the matter. “Honey,” he said, “it’s a piece of material that collects poop. How hard does it need to be?”

Well, there ya go. Kinda makes it easier to not stress about it when you look at it that way, right?

In the end, I went old-school: flat fold diapers with covers.

For one thing, I already had some to start. My mom had kept a good sized stack of the diapers she’d used on my little tushie when I was a baby, and ceremoniously passed them on to me.

For another, it was cheaper. WAY cheaper to start with flat folds.

One other reason was the laundering ins and outs. Flat folds dry quicker and seemed like they’d be easier to handle regarding stain removal and heavy duty laundering.

Then I looked for covers, and while I am a genius with a crochet hook, I didn’t have time to crochet up a nice supply of woolen diaper covers. So I bought several Flip diaper covers and have been very happy with that decision ever since.

One word about flat folds: run – don’t walk – away from the Gerber flat folds in the store. They’re downright gauzy and won’t really hold anything.

GraniteSmith on ebay became my go-to place for durable, thick, soft flat fold diapers. These things rock! Unfortunately, I just checked on their shop site and didn’t see any for sale. I don’t know if that means they no longer sell them or are just out of stock. If you get a chance, try there first, but otherwise, I’d recommend searching online for other sources of flat folds. The Gerber’s are just pitiful.

If you really want to be cheap, you can make your own. No joke, but you can use t-shirts as diapers very well and without any sewing! (I’ve kept this in my mind as an emergency diaper possibility for occasions at work. Flight delays sometimes mean parents run out of diapers. The t-shirt diaper would be an awesome solution in that situation.)

Whatever way you go, now you have to use them. It’s really easy.

First, the folding.

You won’t really have to worry about this if you go with some of the newer, fancier options out there. But if you go flat-fold, well, folding is part of the deal. Since I’m a flat-fold kinda girl, that is what I’m going to talk about today.

There are lots of ways to fold a cloth diaper. There are two that Darrel and I like the best, depending on how big our kiddos are and what size flat fold we’re working with (we have two sizes of flat folds).

For the most part, right now, I’m using the Origami fold. Here’s how it works:

Fold your diaper in half.

Fold it in half again to make a square.

With the doubled over first fold facing you (does that make sense? Look at the picture to see what I mean)…

pick up the top layer out of the four layers at the upper right hand corner…

and pull it across until you’ve made a nice big ‘V’ shape.

Then grab the entire diaper and flip it over, without altering that ‘V’ shape and the underlying square. See?

Then grab the double layer of the square and begin folding it in…

I shoot for thirds, until the newly formed rectangle is centered in the diaper.

At this point, it’s ready to use…but who among us is going to fold one diaper for use while their little one is squirming naked on the changing table? No one, that’s who. We’re going to fold them all ahead of time, right? So to make them nice for storage, I go a little further.

First I fold the pointy ends over towards the center – not all the way to the center, just in a bit.

 

Then I fold the sides over the center of the diaper like so…

 

Then fold the whole narrow rectangle in half. Ta-da!

A diaper ready to stack and store in the changing table drawer.

I keep the diaper covers in a basket on a shelf over the changing table, right next to a wipes container filled with cloth diaper wipes.

Directly next to the changing station is the hamper. We have a dual hamper; one side is regular clothes and the other is diapers. I just pour a little vinegar in the bottom, and when I need to, I dump the whole thing in the washing machine.

Usually I try to wash every day; it never gets out of control that way. But every other day is no big deal.

As for washing these diapers, it’s easy. Pour them in the washing machine, set the machine to rinse.

After it has rinsed and spun out, add your soap and wash normally.

Lots of people say you shouldn’t use bleach on your cloth diapers. There are whole websites devoted to the care and maintenance of cloth diapers, so I’m not going to reinvent the wheel. For washing instructions, folding methods, and everything else “nitty-gritty” about diapers, Google is your friend. (Seriously not trying to pass the buck -there’s just FAR too much to put into one post! There are BOOKS written about this!)

I will say that for poopy diapers, I dunk them in the toilet before tossing them in the diaper pail. That gets the bigger stuff off and loosens up the poo so it cleans easier. You can get one of those sprayer things if you like, but I never did. I just dunk, flush, and squeeze out the water. Then I wash my hands really well!

As for wrapping those diapers around a heinie? Here’s a peek:

Oh, and forget safety pins! We use Snappi’s to hold the diaper in place. They are AWESOME!

So…that’s a pretty long tutorial on something as mundane as cloth diapers. But this is one of the biggest money saving measures we’ve taken to date. 

Three years ago, I bought all our cloth diapering supplies. At the time, my cost breakdown was something like this:

• Flat-fold diapers (4 dozen):    $88
• Flip Diaper covers (6 each):   $96
• Snappi’s (6 each):                    $36
• Grand Total:                     $220

Using disposable diapers, the costs will vary widely. Coupons are abundant, and brands and prices give lots of options. Not to mention the number of diaper changes each baby goes through is probably different!

I think it’s safe to assume, though, that most parents will wind up using about 175 diapers in a month.  (That’s between 5 and 6 diapers a day.) It would not be out of line to say that a months worth of diapers could cost a family $40 a month at that rate!

So for one year:
disposables    = $480
cloth diapers = $220.

For THREE years:
disposables = $1,440
cloth diapers  = $220

Yeah. In most ways, disposables are easier. But when you crunch the numbers, cloth diapers are the most frugal way to go. 

Oh, and don’t feel like this is an all-or-nothing proposition! We keep some disposables on hand for certain situations; long trips to town, nights when we know he’s nursed a lot and will likely wet a lot, etc.

But just by using cloth 90-95% of the time, we save ourselves a TON of money.

Hope that helps!

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Do you cloth? What style of cloth diaper did you decide to use?