my take on cloth diapers

Disclaimer: This is not a preachy post nor is it judgmental.  I'm not trying to shame or convert anyone over to cloth diapering.  Cloth diapering has been a really positive experience for our family but it isn't for everyone.  I hope that after reading about my journey with cloth, you'll at least think twice about trying it because it's been so great for us.  I think if more people are exposed to and educated about cloth diapering, they'll be inclined to at least give it a try before they dismiss it.  So I'm not out to make you feel bad about using disposables, I'm out to show you how awesome cloth has been for us and hope that it gets you excited about it, too.  

Anyway...

When people find out we cloth diaper they usually make a horrified face and ask, "why?!"  Well, it was a better choice for us.  It saves us a TON of money and it's a better for the environment, they're super adorable and I just like being different.  

Cloth diapers have come a really long way, so they're a lot easier to use than they used to be.  I don't really find them any more work than disposables.  With the system we opted to purchase, it saved us a lot of money, but I can see how cloth diapering could actually be more expensive for some people.  (I'll do a breakdown at some point of my thoughts on cost.)

I'd like to share my cloth diapering journey with you.

When I was pregnant with Kendall, I wanted to try cloth diapers.  I originally wanted to try gDiapers, but later decided against it because I didn't want velcro .  We never ended up using cloth for Kendall.  It wouldn't have worked with daycare and the company I worked for did a job weighing diapers so we didn't have to buy diapers... ever.  In fact, we still have cases of them.  

Fast forward to my second pregnancy - I really wanted to try cloth this time.  We kind of assumed that I wasn't going back to work so I thought that it would be a good time.  We didn't right away, but when Brooke was about 4 months old, I purchased 3 Charlie Bananas from a lady, locally.  She was really nice and gave me a lot of good information on cloth diapers.  I washed the diapers and put them on Brooke and I was sold!  

The Charlie Banana diapers were a really good place to start.  They were the brand I wanted to try when I was looking into it and they taught me EVERYTHING about cloth diapers.  Charlie Banana is a pocket diaper.  If you are unfamiliar with cloth diapers, there are like a million kinds and a lot of language to learn (pockets, inserts, AIO, AI2, hybrid, prefolds, soakers, boosters, doublers, covers, fitted and it goes on and on) while I'm still no expert, I knew nothing when I got those Charlie Bananas.  Pocket diapers are pretty much what they sound like.  They have pockets that you stuff an insert (or a prefold or both) in and when it's dirty, you change it.  

So how did one diaper teach me everything about cloth diapering?  Well, I learned what I wanted and did not want in a diaper.  I learned that I did not want to use pocket diapers as my daytime diaper.  It seemed like I was going to have to have A TON of diapers or do laundry like every day and it seemed like an expensive option.  Enter the hybrid or AI2 diaper.  This diaper consists of a waterproof shell and a soaker (or prefold) that you put into the diaper.  As long as the cover isn't soiled, you can reuse it and just replace the soaker.  This seemed like a much more cost-effective way to cloth diaper and it's what we decided to go with.  

I did decide that I wanted to use pockets at night or for a long nap.  The absorbency of pockets can be customized and I felt they were better for going longer in between diaper changes.  

We purchased 2 brands of hybrids: GroVia and Buttons and we have a few different brands of pockets: Charlie Banana, Rumparooz, Thirsties and KaWaii Baby.  We also have the GroVia AIO.  

When I first started looking into cloth diapering, everyone had like a million different brands and I kept thinking, "why can't you people just stick with one?!"  And the answer for me is because I like that different brands offer different things and fit our needs differently (hybrids during the day and pockets at night) and after I decided on what I was looking for, I wanted to try different brands within that genre.  Different diapers fit differently and have different options that we wanted to try without getting "stuck" with one brand.  This is why we diversified our stash.  Kelly's Closet also often has coupon codes for a free diaper when you order, so that's how we ended up with the KaWaii diaper.  

I'll do individual reviews on each brand that we have and then I'll do a comparison so you can see what I use when and why.