Not something I'd ever thought I'd consider. Definitely not something I did with my first little guy. Becoming a mom for the first time is so overwhelming. The information overload in unbelievable. All these products, parenting techniques, advice.... I learned what I could with number 1, but focused on the essentials, which was time consuming enough. Picking a Carseat for example; sounds simple, but there is so much to think about and five million options; and not with simple differences like, which colour do I like best, but type, weight range of the seat, handle options, weight of the seat itself, expiry date lengths (seriously Carseats expire)... I didn't have time to get into anything but the essentials...
Anyways, this time around, with much more time on my hands not learning boring stuff like the difference between powder and liquid formulas, I was able to explore some more interesting alternative options. In a prenatal class I took someone mentioned a product called gdiapers, a hybrid cloth diaper. They have a disposable and a reusesble option. This sounded right up my alley, I could do cloth without committing completely.
Let me explain for those, like me, who are completely confused about this whole concept. These diapers are considered pocket diapers. They have a soft outer shell, called the gpants, a snap in plastic part- the pocket and the insert. The insert, is stuffed into the pocket. Gdiapers sells cloth inserts, which are washed and reused, as well as disposable ones, which can be thrown away or flushed.
They can be purchased online at www.gdiapers.ca, or in Canada at London drugs. If you're not picky on colour you can buy 6 diapers for about 85$.I bought one pack of cloth inserts and then made the rest. Here is a
tutorial you can use. Their cloth inserts are really expensive,but doing them yourself is so quick, easy and really cheap! I also purchased a few extra plastic inserts because they tend to get dirty. 6 gpants is more than enough because they done need to be washed each time. The plastic liners and the inserts are what get dirty.
I thought I would use disposables while I was out but I don't find I need to. I purchased a wetbag at a Canadian online retailer called
snugglebugz. It's a fabric bag with a plastic liner and you can simply throw all the dirty inserts into it and when it's time to wash, just dump it all in the washing machine and wash the bag right with it. It holds the smells quite well and they come in fun patterns. There are a few reasons I find its working better than I thought. One- exclusively breasted baby poop is water soluble, no rinsing required, just throw it in the wash. Two- babies have a lot of laundry anyways, as a result of poop explosions, puking, ect... So throwing an extra load of diapers in at night really isn't a hardship. Three- I let myself use regular disposable diapers at night, this means that baby doesn't need to be changed as often and less chance of having leaks at night. Lastly, cost! I love that we are barely spending any money on diapers. And when we are done we can actually resell them all... Oh and we are heling to save the environment...
Overall, I love using these cloth diapers. We are pretty much doing exclusively cloth during the day and disposables at night. I find them extremely user friendly (even hubby is one board) and are easy on the wallet as long as you buy the value pack of gpants to begin with.
If you have any questions about your gdiapers, drop me a line :) I'm not an expert yet, but I'm working on it!
