One of the interesting things we've learned so far is that you can put cloth diapers on your registry and folks will get them 'cuz they're cute.' We've already received 8. So the more we receive the more our diapering costs go down, and as we plan to have another child at some point, we can theoretically use them with our second baby, reducing costs even more. Add in a high efficiency washer and line drying (when available. We're in New England after all), and both our overall costs and environmental footprint drop significantly. I can't as of yet speak to the practicality of it all. I'll give a report in a few months.

I have to note, however, that we picked up some "Pure & Natural" Huggies, just in case. (Truth be told we both got sold by the umbilical cord cut outs on newborn diapers.) On the package they state proudly 2 things that I find funny in a product of this nature. 1) that they are made of recyclable materials, but of course you can't actually recycle them, and 2) they use less ink in printing an obligatory Winnie the Pooh design, which led me to ask, "how about using NO ink?"

@halldur

Rrgistering for cloth diapers is a really good idea. They are cute and gifters can give you more or less depending on their budget.

High efficiency washer and especially line drying will help contain costs (as will being a New Englander), and only running the diapers through once.

Please report your experience!

I also think keeping some disposables on hand (and especially in the diaper bag) is a good idea.

We actually just started cloth diapering at 7 weeks (Forester was too small to fit into the Fuzzibuns Smalls we'd bought until now). So far, I have to say I'm a big fan. They fit pretty well and we haven't had any leaks.

We have 24 pairs of diapers so we only have to do laundry every other day. At c. $25 a pair the upfront cost was substantial, but we asked for gift certificates to the local cloth store to help offset. The beautiful thing about the store here in KC is that they do a swap meet once a month, so hopefully we'll be able to swap most of our smalls for mediums and not have buy brand new ones when the time comes. Sure swapping used diapers for used diapers may not sound appealing but it sounds better than dropping an extra $600 every time the baby grows out of a set.

I have no idea what the energy cost are from doing a load every. What with the present heat wave, I'm guessing the electric bill is going to be through the roof no matter what.

TheDadAbides happy to see you mention Happybottomus here in KC. My wife and I are headed there later this week to pick up some diapers and diaper supplies ourselves. We've decided on the BumGenius and hoping to find some of their older 3.0's on sale since they now have the 4.0.

So. Our experience thus far has been quite good. We've used BumGenius all-in-ones, one-size & Flips, FuzziBunz one-size, GroVia all-in-twos, Earth, Mom & Baby Bumboos, g-diapers, and Kissaluvs. I would definitely say that the stand outs for me are the BumGenius all-in-ones and the GroVias with the FuzziBunz following close behind. I will say for the record that our newborn is breastfed so the amount of pooping has been a minimal factor. He's been only pooping every 10 days or so, fairly normal, so we're told. But that definitely has contributed to the ease of cloth diapering thus far. However, when those poops come, they're HUGE!! So far he's hit only hit the BumGenius with one of those monsters and it almost entirely held it all in, that is, until my wife opened it up of course. But we just sprayed it off and threw it in the washer, thinking it was a lost cause. It came out stain-free. We were truly impressed. I imagine when the pooping becomes more regular the experience might be a little less pleasant.

I can say that we've been less that impressed with the Flips and the regular BumGenius. The g-diapers are just OK, and we've only had one experience with the Kissaluvs (I didn't realize they needed a cover so we had a soggy baby). But I do have to give props to the Bumboos. If you add the booster, you end up with like 4 layers of absorbancy, good for the night-time. They also require a cover-- we just use the Flip covers, so they're good for that. I find that stuffing the pocket diapers is kind of a pain, which is why the BumGenius AOI and the GroVias get the best grade, then again, they're also the most expensive of the lot. If I were to only go with one system, it would definitely be the GroVias.

More to come...

We are currently using a cloth diaper delivery service for our one-month old son. Tidee Didee operates in a few different cities. They offer different subscription levels, and right now we're getting 70 basic tri-fold diapers per week. You dump the dirty cloth diapers in a heavy plastic bag, and leave them on the porch for the delivery van, which comes once weekly.

www.tideedidee.com/

"Dirty Jobs With Mike Rowe" had an episode where he worked at a Tidee Didee franchise in California.

I am *very* happy to not have to wash any diapers, on top of all the other things we are dealing with as new parents. I don't know whether we are going to continue our subscription for the long-term, but right now, I wouldn't mind extending it at least through the end of the 'fourth trimester'.

One other product that we're using, to great effect, are Snappi diaper fasteners. They are easy and quick to put on and take off and do a great job of holding the diaper in place. I haven't had any issues with them coming undone so far. Of course, our son isn't even crawling yet... so I don't know how these hold up against the efforts of an ambulatory child. (Anyone have any experiences with diaper fasteners and an older baby?)

www.snappibaby.com/products/snappidiaperfastener.html

Our diaper covers are a mixed bag of hand-me-downs from other parents who no longer need them. They're pretty much all the same to me, and they work OK for now.

Another thing we bought before our baby was born was this cloth diaper sprayer:

shop.milagrosboutique.com/product/Diaper-Sprayer.html

It only took about 10 minutes to install, and it seems like a good product, but we haven't needed to use it yet, as our diaper service doesn't require us to wash their diapers. So currently I use it to wash the tub (located right next to the toilet). Time will tell how useful this sprayer is... we currently don't have any kind of diaper-washing routine in our house.

One final note is that breastmilk poop isn't all that noxious or foul, and changing diapers hasn't been an unpleasant task for me. But I'm not looking forward to when the baby is eating solid food.

Cheers

Roger in Portland