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Thursday, January 26, 2012

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Cloth Diapering "Irish Twins"

A little over a year ago I gave birth to our second son. 9 months after our first one. That’s right, 9 months. My boys are 9 months and one week apart from one another.

At the time I was not cloth diapering. I had looked into it with my first son but was overwhelmed by all the options and the start up costs that would incur. But with the rising costs of diapering two children, I needed to look for other options.

In order to make cloth diapering a success for us, I have had to figure out the best way to maximize our budget while still getting diapers that work for both boys.

First, I had to make a decision about whether or not they were going to share diapers. While I know that some moms find this to be a disgusting idea, and I can completely understand where they are coming from, I was not one of those. I knew that I would be sanitizing them in between each child wearing them, so I was not concerned.

Second, I needed to decide which kind of diaper I was going to spend the most money on. I discovered that I prefer the pocket diapers the most. But I knew, with a bit of research, that having some covers with flats, inserts, and prefolds as another option, would stretch my budget even more, and also allow for some versatility.

Third, I had to decide whether I wanted to go with sized diapers, or one-size diapers. For me, this was a pretty simple decision. It didn’t make much sense to me to buy a bunch of multiple sized diapers. While I do have a few sized diapers in my stash, the majority can be adjusted to fit either boy. At first this was important because they were of very different sizes. Now that they are both bigger they can fit on the same rise, simply with an adjustment of the waist.

Fourth, I thought about how often I wanted to be washing diapers. I knew that I didn’t want to be washing them every single day. But I also knew that we couldn’t afford to buy enough diapers to go too long in between washes. So I had to come up with the perfect number for my kids. Each child is different in the amount of diaper changes are necessary in a day. I kept track of how many changes I was doing on a regular basis and then bought that number of diapers I would need in order to wash every other day. That was then my goal number of diapers to purchase.

Fifth, I looked for sales. This was really important in order to get the most out of our money. I tried out a few different diapers and then watched for the ones I liked the most to go on sale. I was fortunate because Kellys Closet had a marvelous sale on said diapers at the time that I wanted to buy a bunch. I also looked online for creative ways to cloth diaper on the cheap using unconventional items (ie. flour sack towels as flats in covers).

Sixth, have fun! I was excited to receive my “fluffy” mail. And I was proud that I was making an impact on the world, our budget, and most importantly, my little guys’ bums.

Dana G is the proud stay at home mother of 2 handsome baby boys and the wife of a marvelous man who serves our country in the Air Force. You can check out more of her tips and stories on adaynasmile.wordpress.com.

3 comments:

Mindy said...

What a great post. I was just thinking about my two who are 19 months apart. These tips are great for anyone new to cloth diapering two!

Pilgrim family said...

Geez... All I can say.

Mary Green said...

I can't imagine 9 months apart, but they must be super close too. I can't wait to use my stash on my next baby, people say, wait til they are out of diapers, I say, no way, that's the fun part :)

Btw, I have a post about dream diapers I'm asking people to leave a comment describing theirs, care to join us?