Cloth Diapers.

I knew as soon as it was an option that we would be cloth diapering. From what I hear, a lot of people have trouble convincing their partners it is a viable option. Luckily, I didn't have that problem. All it took was mentioning how much money we'd save (an average of a few thousand dollars over the course of one child) and he was in. Maybe because he hadn't even experienced diapers in general that helped too?

We did have to put LO in disposables at the start, so I choose naturally made ones. Her umbilical cord had some issues and then DH was afraid of leaking so he was scared of cloth. The same day he said that, LO had her first and open poop explosion going up the back in a disposable diaper. We have been exclusive cloth diapering since!

We have about 25 pocket diapers. So there is a shell with a pocket and you shove an insert in there. They are one size, so they have snaps to fit from birth to potty training. We use Alvas, Sunbabys and G-Diapers. The G-Diapers are hand me downs and the rest are super affordable - a few bucks a diaper (including the insert). We single stuff and change every 2ish hours during the day and double stuff during the night so we don't need to change as often.

Yes, they make her bum look pretty darn large, but its also super cute! We have fun prints - spiderman, colorful circles, birds on a wire, flowers, lace. Anything you can dream of is on a diaper. In fact, we are about to have batman and elephant printed diapers on the way. And, LO had a diaper rash constantly in the disposables, now her bum is much friendlier looking.

Why people think its gross? The poop. The smell of a couple days old pee that has been sitting in a wet bag. Yep, it isn't pleasant. But totally doable. I wash her diapers once every 3 days (or less if she went through a lot). Since I breastfeed, I don't have to pretreat anything. I just pull out the insert, dump both in the washer and go. A cold rinse to get poop off, a hot wash to disinfect and a cold rinse to make sure the soap is definitely out. Then dry on low. It takes about 2 hours. We also use cloth wipes, which go in the same load so we don't have to buy any. Our electric bill and water bill have not gone up at all with the extra laundry. And when the sun comes out again, we won't need the dryer.

When LO starts eating solids, then I'll need to make sure to scrap the poop off the diaper. But it is a lot easier these days. You can do it the old fashion way and swirl it around the toilet, use an old spatula to get the poop off. Or you can use a diaper sprayer hooked to your toilet and wash it down. Or, if you are really grossed out by it, get organic bamboo (or other) flushable liners. You put it on top of the diaper and then just lift and flush when there is poop. It is biodegradable and something you can feel okay about.

So for oh maybe $300 we have all the diapers we'll need until she is potty trained. And then for nothing, we'll have the diapers we need for our next kid. Sure, I'll find cute prints here and there to add into the collection, but I don't need to. And we will never go, shit, I need a diaper and have to run to the store. Because we never run out. It is just a load of laundry away.