Cloth Diaper Guest Post- Savanna of Savvy & Sweet

Savanna has an awesome blog over at Savvy & Sweet! I've been following her blog since she posted about the benefits of cloth diapers vs. disposable when she, and I, were both pregnant. Being that I'm still waiting for my cloth diapers to arrive from China (SunBaby Diapers... check 'em out! The reviews are awesome!), I had some questions of the best methods to care for cloth diapers so that they last through multiple kids (if someday I decide to have more kidlets). Savanna gives a great  explanation of her routine with cute 'lil baby C, as well as how she cares for her cloth diapers. Read on and listen up if you're thinking about using cloth diapers, too!

Hello Bean2Baby Readers!

My name is Savanna and I write over at Savvy & Sweet.  I’m a full time mom, wife, and I work 40+ hours per week in the non-profit industry along with trying to keep up my blog.  Life is busy to say the least!

Laura asked me to write a guest post about my experience so far with cloth diapers.  Let me just start by saying: I LOVE THEM!

The first thing to know about modern day cloth diapers is that they have definitely come a long way from the days of diaper pins!  There’s several different options now (snaps or Velcro, one size, pockets, all-in-ones, the list goes on), which is awesome, but also makes it a little overwhelming when you’re trying to learn about cloth diapers in the first place.
I can only speak from my personal experience, so here’s what I use:

BumGenius Elementals- organic cotton all-in-one, one-size diapers

I love our Elementals.  They are definitely on the pricey end when it comes to cloth diapers, but we use them exclusively- we’ve got 24 in various colors- and have had a great experience with them so far.

My husband and I decided about mid-way through my pregnancy that we would go with cloth.  I did a TON of research and also did some financial calculating and according to my numbers, our cloth diapers (even being as pricey as they are) will end up saving us somewhere around $2,947!!  In fact, following my calculations, they’ve already begun paying for themselves!

I thought the easiest way to share my diaper routine would to look at a typical day, so here we go!

6:30 am - Baby C wakes up and I feed him. Once his belly is full, we do our first diaper change of the day.  It’s usually pretty soaked, but stays contained pretty well.  I use disposable wipes, but lots of cloth diapering families use cloth wipes too.  I toss the used wipe in the trash and drop the wet diaper into our diaper bin.  Our bin is just a flip-top garbage container that we purchased from our local Meijer store.  Inside, I keep a couple Arm & Hammer Nursery Fresheners and a Kissaluvs Antibacterial Waterproof laundry bag (made especially for cloth diapers).  It works to contain the smells really well!

For any dirty diapers (not just wet) I use a diaper sprayer that’s hooked up to our toilet to spray them as clean as possible before tossing them in the bin with the rest of the dirty diapers.  Word on the street is that if your baby is exclusively breastfed you can skip spraying and just put the whole poopy diaper right into the bin, but I just wasn’t comfortable with that.  To each their own!

8:00 am – Baby C is dressed and ready for daycare.  Yep, his daycare center is cloth diaper friendly! From what I’ve heard, not all are, but ours had no issues with it whatsoever.  We pack 8 diapers into his daycare bag.  He doesn’t always use all 8, but they check and usually change his diaper every hour while he’s there, so we’ve found that 8 is a good number.  We also pack a wet bag for them to put dirty diapers in.  We use Kushies On The Go wet bags for daycare or when we’re out and about and we’ve never had any leaks and the smells stay contained too.  I had my doubts since it’s just a drawstring closure, but I promise, it works!  The bags don’t look all that big, but quite a few diapers can fit in there- up to all 8 from a full day at daycare!

5:30 pm – I pick up C from daycare.  The dirty diapers are in the aforementioned wet bag and I usually also take home any extra clean ones that are left.

6:30 pm – C gets fed and gets another diaper change.  If it’s a diaper laundry night I take the laundry bag of dirty diapers out of the bin and bring them to the washer in the basement. We have two of the waterproof laundry bags, so I can put the second one in the empty bin right away after I take the full one out.

Wash Routine:
After a ridiculous amount of research, I decided to use Planet Liquid Laundry Detergent for our diapers. I prefer liquid over powder and Planet is free of perfumes, dyes, enzymes, and whiteners.  Unfortunately it isn't available in any stores near by me, but we ordered a 4-pack from Amazon and we literally have enough to last us for around 2 years now.  The detergent lasts so long because when it comes to detergent and diapers, less is more. I only fill up the cap to the first line at most. If you use more than that, then the detergent starts to build up in the diaper fabric and when that happens you'll know because as soon as your little one pees, your diapers will have a really strong ammonia smell.

I put the detergent in the washer and the dirty diapers get dumped in along with the laundry bag turned inside-out. I set my washer for warm water, heavy soil, and a second rinse cycle.

8:30 pm - Baby C gets one last diaper change, gets fed, and goes to bed in his crib.  I don’t do anything different at night- the Elementals usually do a pretty good job of holding it all in.

9:00 pm - The wash cycle is usually done by now, so I move the diapers to the dryer.  It’s REALLY important that you don’t dry your diapers with too high of a temperature!  Doing so can ruin the waterproof outer fabric, therefore ruining your diapers.  This is one drawback of the Elementals- they take FOREVER to dry.  Since they’re an all-in-one, there are a couple of really thick seams of fabric that definitely take a considerable amount of time to dry fully.  That combined with using an ultra-low heat setting (low heat is fine too, our dryer just happens to have ultra-low and medium- no low...it’s weird) means that in order to get dry diapers, they go in the dryer for a total of 2.5 hours.  Since the max time on our dryer is 90 minutes, I set the dryer for that at night and then if I don’t get to reset it for the last 60 minutes before heading to bed, I get up and do that first thing in the morning so that by the time we’re just about ready to leave for the day, the diapers are done.  In the summertime I highly recommend drying in the machine for the first 90 minutes and then skipping the last 60 minutes and just hang them outside to dry.  The sun does an excellent job of naturally bleaching out stains!

That’s it!  If I can keep up with cloth diapers and still have the crazy schedule that I do, you can do it too!  It’s awesome to never have to worry about running to the store for diapers and word on the street is that cloth diapered kids potty trainer earlier too- another win!

Thanks for letting me drop in here and share my cloth diapering details, and I’ll try to watch the comments section if you guys have any questions, or you can feel free to stop by Savvy & Sweet or email me at savvysweetblog@gmail.com!

**full disclosure: Savvy & Sweet is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.  Basically, if you click on the links for the products I mention above and purchase through my aStore, I’ll get a small percentage.  That being said, I only link to products I actually have, use, or wish I had!