Cloth Diaper School: What Are Cloth Diapers Like?

Here it is, Friday, and I had intended all week long to write up these cloth diaper posts.
Ummm hmmm.
That didn't happen.
Not my idea of a wild Friday night.
But Michael wanted me to watch one of my favorite movies with him...so I managed to get this done.
So this first post is "What Are Cloth Diapers Like?"  This will, by far, be the longest of the three posts.

By all means, if you have any questions at all, please post them in the comment section, and I'll try to do a followup post in a week from now!  (I already have one question about cloth diapering in apartment settings that I need to ask a couple friends and gather some replies on...)

You'll notice in my three series that I don't have a "why do I cloth diaper?" section.  That was intentional.

But first.
Let me play a little word association.

Cloth diapers.



What picture just came into your mind? For many people it was probably a combination of these three images...(And you all should give me extra bonus points for looking up pictures on google.  There were some very disturbing diaper pictures where I would look and say "Hey---that baby has pretty hairy legs.  Just KIDDING! It's a grown man in plastic panties!")

I don't blame you for thinking of those.  In fact, that's pretty much what I first thought of when we realized that we'd be requesting a baby instead of two toddlers.  Those cloth diapers and plastic panties and pins are very close to what I remember having around the house when I was a kid, although I think perhaps our pins were a little less cute and more functional.

To start, there are a couple different kinds of "modern" cloth diapers.

I mean... there are the diapers above (called prefolds), but most of you reading this were probably cloth diapered as a babe and can remember how it worked, since disposables didn't really come into mainstream popularity until the late '80s.  (If I have a silent audience from younger generations, welcome!)

There are four main types of cloth diapers.

1. Prefolds (above).  These require a cover of some sort (plastic panties, wool panties, etc.) and some sort of a snap/pin.  They're usually made out of cotton, hemp, birdseye, etc.  By far, these are what is considered the most "affordable" diaper option.  But they didn't appeal to me, so I won't be going into great detail about them.  For more information about prefolds, here are some links to families that blog about how prefolds work for them. 

Blog #1

Blog #2

2. Fitted diapers.  I don't own any fitted diapers, and I don't have any experience.  Essentially, they are like the snappy kind of diapers that I'll be showing you in the video below, but they aren't waterproof, so they need a cover.  Again, I don't have any experience with these, and I didn't want covers for my baby (an extra step), so I've posted some blog links below. 

Blog #1

Blog #2

Here we come to a brief intermission from reading, and you can listen to/watch  me blabbing about what kinds of diapers we have.  After the video's done, come back here, and I'll have more information for you.

Well, hello there! Welcome back!

3. All-in-one's/All-in-two's (henceforth referred to as (AIO's).  These do not require a cover or pins.  They are made out of material with at least one waterproof layer. The all-in-one's are just what they sound like, they're just one piece.  

In today's video, I believe I misspoke and said "essentials" instead of "elementals."  Bumgenius (a brand of diaper) renamed it's diapers since we bought our AIO diapers, and I'm still getting used to the name.  The Elementals  (when we bought them they were called "organic one-size all-in-ones") fit babies from 7 pounds to 35 pounds.  If you have a hard time seeing the differences on diapers that I show you in the video, please visit the links.  I was filming at night while Michael was home giving Million a bath (my time off), and so the lighting was pretty poor.  (***note: I'll get into this more in the third post today, but we did buy 10 of our Elementals off of craigslist used.)

4. Pocket diapers. There are a lot of different kinds of pocket diapers.  I showed you three kinds of pocket diapers in this post's video.  Essentially a pocket diaper is a diaper that has another layer of fabric sewn in such a way that an insert is able to be "pocketed" inside. 

The three types that I show you (in order of appearance) are:

• Fuzzibunz (size medium for 15-30 pounds)

• Kawaii Baby.  I have two of their kinds: this kind and this kind.  Kawaii one-size diapers fit from 8 to 36 pounds.

• Green Bees diapers.  I show some of the printed ones, but their solid color ones are cheaper.  I also have two of their minky diapers and am pleased with it as well.  (Minky is a kind of fabric.  I laughed too, when I first read it. It's the left one in the picture below.)  I just looked on their site, and I don't believe they publish weights that they're supposed to fit, but they're fitting Million the same way the other diapers do, so I would guess around 30+ pounds.

Okey dokey.  I went through the four kinds of cloth diapers.  In my next post I'll talk more about the use/maintenance of them.