cloth diaper set up – Truly Montessori

When you hear these words “Cloth Diapers” it flashes an image of white foldable diapers that needed safety pins to fasten. However, cloth diapers have come a long way and there are many varieties of diapers to choose from. I am not going to talk about the every type of cloth diapers out there in the market but I want to give you a scoop on how we did cloth diapering and cut our diaper cost to $500 for the whole year. I want to share our easy cloth diapering set up that will make you feel confident to go this route and help you save some money.

Benefits of Cloth Diapering

Aside from the usual money saving benefit, cloth diapering is also beneficial for the environment. The disposable diapers are not biodegradable, which means they cannot be broken by bacteria. For us cloth diapering happened when we noticed our son getting a severe rash from the brand name diapers in the market. We tried every brand and no matter what we did his little bum would suffer with rashes. From the amount of diaper rash cream,which is full of zinc oxide to the cost of diapers itself, it felt absolutely counter productive. We heard of cloth diapering but we weren’t sure if we could take on so much work load with a little baby. However, it turned out to be very easy and affordable system of diapering for us.

Things you need for Cloth Diapering

Cloth Diapers (roughly around 24-28 diapers)
Diaper Pail
Diaper Pail Liners
Diaper Liner
Diaper Inserts
Baby Detergent.
Toilet Sprayer

Firstly, let’s talk about the types of diapers that we used. There are many types of cloth diapers out there: hybrid, pre-folds, pocket, and all in one. We opted for pocket diapers which comes with two inserts. Usually when you buy pocket diapers the inserts comes with it. We used three brands for our son, Bum Genius, Nora’s Nursery, and Alva Baby. Bum Genius Pocket Diapers are around $19.99 per diaper. Alva Baby diapers were around $40 to $42 for 6 diapers depending on the print you choose. We didn’t buy all 28 diapers from the start. We bought 5 Bum Genius, a pack of 6 diapers from Alva Baby, and a pac of 6 Diapers from Nora’s Nursery to give it a try to see which one we liked more. We ended up liking Alva Baby and Nora’s Nursery more because of its fit, three snaps versus two in Bum Genius, and the affordability. All of these diaper brands have adjustable sizing so you can use them from infancy to toddler years.

Diaper Pail Liner were from Amazon for $18. They are resueable liners so I usually throw the whole bag in the washing machine for a wash along with the diapers. I have two liners so when one goes for wash I can use the other one.

Pail Liner and Wet Bags

We also use Wegreeco Biodegradable Diaper Liners for solids. You can throw the whole liner in the toilet and they are flushable. It made our life so easy as we didn’t have to worry about solids. Any solids that accidentally landed on the diaper, we would spray it down in the toilet with the toilet sprayer. The dirty diaper will go in the diaper pail until it is a laundry day.

Unwashed Diaper Set up

For any stains on the diapers, we used the Biokleen Bac-Out. It is a plant based, live enzyme solution and it works like magic on poop stains.

For washing the diapers, I would wash it once or twice a week depending on how many diapers we went through that particular week. My first wash is just a quick wash with cold water. The second cycle of wash, I used Seventh Generation Liquid Detergent and a couple of drops of Dettol. Dettol is an antispetic liquid that I bought it off Amazon. The link is below in my amazon store.

That’s it! It is that simple to do Cloth Diapering. Here is my storage unit for Cloth Diapers. I bought this Door Shoe Organizer from Target for $9.99 and it fits almost all of my diapers.