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Baby diapers
Richy
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So here's a question for all the PA Forum parents: baby diapers. Do you go for throw-awayable or reusable?
The way I see it, here are the pros and cons:
Throw-away:
* Convenience: easier and less messy to ues.
* Ends up creating massive piles of garbage at a landfill somewhere.
* More expensive in the long-run.
Reusable:
* Need to wash poopy diapers in my washing machine.
* More environmentally friendly.
* More expensive upfront but less expensive in the long-run (especially since we're planning on having multiple kids).
But this is all in theory. I've never had a baby... But some of you posters have! So tell me about your experiences, and your opinions based on these experiences. Help me learn so we can decide what kind of diapers to use!
The way I see it, here are the pros and cons:
Throw-away:
* Convenience: easier and less messy to ues.
* Ends up creating massive piles of garbage at a landfill somewhere.
* More expensive in the long-run.
Reusable:
* Need to wash poopy diapers in my washing machine.
* More environmentally friendly.
* More expensive upfront but less expensive in the long-run (especially since we're planning on having multiple kids).
But this is all in theory. I've never had a baby... But some of you posters have! So tell me about your experiences, and your opinions based on these experiences. Help me learn so we can decide what kind of diapers to use!
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I tried something sort of in-between called gdiapers, which were supposed to be more environmentally friendly. Gave up because they were always leaking, and they were more expensive than most other brands of fully disposable diapers.
One thing disposables have going for them is variety of design, so if one brand leaks or doesn't fit well, it's easy to try another.
So, as much as I want to, I do not have it in me to use cloth diapers myself. Many people use a service that does drop-off and retrieval, so they don't need to wash them. I don't know how green that process is, but from what I hear it is actually a bit cheaper than disposables. I didn't use one so I didn't end up looking it up. Everyone I know who's used one swears by it though.
Since I'm self-aware enough to know that there are a variety of reasons cloth diapers won't work out for me I went for the greenest disposables I could, which happened to be 7th gen. They're really good but pretty expensive, but we used them with my son and he always had great skin. We never saw a serious rash on him.
We used them through about size 3 with my daughter, but either she is awkwardly sized or they are, and no matter what we're using she gets a rash if the diaper is too close to her skin, so we had to stop using them. After a few tries we ended up using the Pampers Gentle Care hypoallergenic diapers, and we need to buy them one size up so they're very loose but the straps still hold them up. I doubt they're all that great for the environment, but she gets some pretty nasty rashes with anything else.
As a note, Costco has the lowest price on diapers.
Costco running a sale is cheaper, but at standard price Amazon is usually cheaper (depends on the week, Amazon's prices fluctuate somewhat)... I may or may not have a large spreadsheet of these (twins
I'm pretty left on the pro-environmentalist side, and having been through a year of twins there's no way I'd want to deal with cloth diapers. Trust me, you have to clean enough poop off enough other things
I think the best brand I've tried is Best Bottoms, unfortunately also fairly expensive. Their shells are easy to wipe down and are double gusseted which helps prevent leaks.
The other brand I mainly use is Grovia. Make sure you are looking for shells where the insert snaps in (or you can just lay the insert in if you buy off-brand inserts without snaps, the diaper will hold it in place). There are shells where you put the cloth insert into a pocket which doesn't make much sense to me because then the shell pocket gets dirty. All of the shells have multiple levels of snaps so you can adjust the size.
We have the hose hooked to our toilet so we can spray off poop. I bought two wet bags to keep dirty diapers in until there's enough to wash, one is by the toilet, one is next to the changing table. We still have a diaper pail to put disposables in (and we needed it the first two months anyway).
I have been home with her the whole time so far which makes all of this plus doing laundry easier. I also bought a lot of inserts so I don't have wash diapers every single day.
It's up to you if you want to commit to cloth diapers, but I personally feel better about not taking out a big bag of trash every other day due to disposables. Note I do not judge anyone that uses disposables only, everyone has to do what works for them. I am lucky to have the time/resources to do this kind of diapering. Doing a hybrid approach means we make less trash but still have the more absorbent disposables to help prevent leaks at night. If the laundry aspect is overwhelming you could look into a service that launders and delivers for you.
Note you can't really use diaper cream with cloth diapers as it will interfere with the cloth absorbing liquid. Siglet has not been prone to diaper rash and I air her out at least once a day to help prevent it.
You can probably find someone selling used shells and inserts which will help with the cost. I also found a few diaper items, and the toilet sprayer, at a child's consignment store. I think there is definitely demand for used stuff so you can always sell off items after you've used them or if it doesn't work out.
It's totally fine to mix and match brands. I have some g-diapers which are velcro but I haven't used them yet since she's not big enough so I can't speak to how well they work.
Here are some links to products I'm using right now just so you can see what I'm talking about.
https://www.amazon.com/GroVia-Hybrid-Cloth-Diaper-Shell/dp/B0061O39LQ?th=1
https://www.bestbottomdiapers.com/
hemp inserts for best bottom https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007G81MR4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s03?ie=UTF8&psc=1
help prevent splatter when you spray off the diaper https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00S1I4P1S/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
wet bag https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016OVG3D6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1
https://www.amazon.com/Munchkin-Changing-Cover-Waterproof-Liner/dp/B009UPUESO
We usually just put down a paper towel when using the changing pad. When our son was very young the paper towel would last a long time, since he wasn't moving a ton. Our pad covers are also waterproof, so they're pretty easy to clean.
Really it comes down to how you feel, and what you think is best for your little one. There is a parenting thread in SE++ that can give you a ton of info on cloth diapers if you like the idea of trying them and want information from a lot of people.
We had a Munchkin Arm & Hammer Diaper Pail and it was pretty great. Not as complicated as a Diaper Gene, but cheaper and did the same job.
We used flushable liners as a second layer of defense, which helps keep all the sticky stuff together when disposing of it.
And when out and about, we used disposables, because putting a used nappy in a closed laundry bin is one thing, but carrying it around with you for the rest of the day is a whole other thing..
... she refused to poop in them. Like, refused. The longest we ever tried waiting was I think 8 days and she was extremely miserable and screaming and it was terrible. Put a disposable on her, instantly regular.
So we never went back. I still have a few of those diapers around though, we used them as rags and spill-cleaners for, well, 22 years.
We use disposables, we order them online in bulk packages and the delivery guy has to walk up the stairs and brings them to the baby room. We are busy enough as is and need to do the laundry every other day (or daily when the kid is sick) as is, so we can't imagine doing even more on that front.
8 days is... Damn, I can't even imagine how fussy she had to be, that is some epic sphincter control and willpower for a baby.
We went disposable because I cannot imagine adding another task on top of everything else you have to do for early babies. We may go to cloth as he gets older but those first few months kill all your time.
I don't think either of my boys went more than about three days, and aside from constipation it was 6 hours on a good day. So much poop.
We were 100% disposable.
Be prepared to try multiple brands. My first would get a rash from 7th Gen, but Pampers were great.
As others have said Amazon and Costco are your friend.
Regarding pooping, one time I swear more came out than the actually total volume of the child. Some sort of soft-serve poop wormhole.
I feel sorry for the kid, but intensely jealous of you.
You should be, it isn't normal and you will probably want to be getting advice from your doctor by that point. The kid thread in SE++ is useful for random questions like that though.
the dr. said (when I took him on the evening of the 7th day) to load him up with laxatives and if he hadn't gone by the end of the 8th to bring him back for a tube. Thankfully, he went.
kids, I swear.
We went with disposables because cloth diapers are gross. FWIW, the Sierra Club says disposables aren't that bad for the environment if you rinse the poop off first. Which no one does that I've ever heard of, but it is an option apparently.
Amazon tends to have the best "everyday" price, especially if you can get the timing good enough to do Subscribe and Save. Costco has better prices on Pull-Ups once they get older, though.
Oh we did call the doctor and since his stomach wasn't hard and bulgy they weren't worried. the response was always if he hasn't gone in this many more days bring him in and he would always go with a nice healthy soft poop.
we had a lot of prunes in the cabinet.
basically unless the baby is pooping blood or has a stomach that is hard/distended it is probably strange but normal.
he was never a multi poop per day baby. wet diapers yea, but not poop. he is way more regular now but he can still go a day or 2
We tried the cheap option, which is basically a tea towel with a clip. Leakage is an issue as there is no elasticity anywhere. The service provided the diapers as well as cleaning service.
That lasted 1 day. Then we got the more engineered solution. They had snaps and inserts and were adjustable and were much easier to change. They were also $30-35 a pop at the time. We bought a dozen. And we were washing diapers every day for 2 years. I don't know if they've gotten cheaper (we got the best ones at the time).
When he/she is a newborn just get the newborn disposables; I suggest stealing as many as possible from the hospital after delivery. The ones we got had a moisture strip so you knew if they had gone without opening (you can get those at the store as well). They will grow out of newborn cloth diapers in 2 months.
Unless your baby is tiny I wouldn't buy a ton of newborn size. the minimum weight for size 1 is 8lbs and in my experience you want to be in the bottom of the range longer to avoid wet outs.
We stole enough newborn diapers from the hospital room each time that both kids grew into size 1s before we ran out.
Go up a size before you think you need to for night diapers. Turns out wetness was the limiting factor for sleeping longer for both our kids.
Moisture sensing strips are pretty helpful.
We use Target disposable diapers pretty often. Between sales and coupons they're one of the cheapest, and actually pretty nice. (Supposedly they're from the same factory as one of the fancier brands?)
We normally get pampers through Amazon but if we run out before shipment we get the target brand. I liked them much more than Kirkland
Oh it was upsetting. Exclusively breastfeed infants poop less though, just in general.
Keep an eye out for good deals. You can buy diapers far in advance when the prices get low as long as you have some random closet or such to stick them in, and they occasionally go on pretty nice sales.
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A. cloth diapers are way, way cheaper in the long run, like startlingly alarmingly cheaper. Even more so if you have multiple kids and can reuse the same ones the whole way through (which we did).
B. You never run out of diapers at an inopportune time, if you're staying on top of the laundry, and you're doing so much fucking laundry anyway with a baby that you'll probably be on top of it.
Also, some day cares will deal with cloth. We had one that did, we sent the clean diapers in every day and they sent a wet bag home every night and it was totally cool. We didn't have a problem with leaking once we'd sorted the inserts out; you really really need to pay attention to washing instructions so that they don't lose their absorbency and when the kids were older we had to double up the inserts to avoid pee overload.
I was skeptical when my wife suggested it but I was sold in a very short time and we used them for both of our kids (now 7 and 5 respectively).
Edit: Kelly's Closet has a lot of good, basic information if you're at all interested in cloth. Double check their recommendations for what to buy with people you know (or the excellent parent thread in SE++) because they do sell the things and they are a tiny bit biased because of that but the other information is totally sound.
I really wanted to try them, and researched the shit (ha!) out them, but when it came down to it, ArbitraryMom wasn't fully onboard*. So I am glad to hear it worked out for you! Those shells seemed like a neat idea, and I really wanted to see if the general advances in smell control and diaper design would provide a better experience than what our parents went through.
*(By which I mean poop hits her gag reflex like a mack truck, she had already spent 30 weeks puking her guts out, and didn't want to revisit those halcyon days anytime I fell behind on laundry. So, fairly constantly.)