Cloth Diapering

We've been playing around with the idea of cloth diapering for a while now.  I bought a couple diapers of quite a few brands to try them out and decide which ones we like, 'cause at $20 a diaper I want to be sure before going all in.  There are, of course, cheaper cloth diapering options out there, but what can I say... I've got a weakness for the bright colors and convenience of the new fangled ones.    I mean, seriously, aren't they pretty?

Anyway, even though most of them say they'll fit at 8 pounds, until a couple weeks ago we were still getting a lot of leakage out the legs, which was quite lovely :P, so we kept going back to disposable -waiting till his little legs had a little more meat on them. :)  Disposable diapers, let me say, are way too convenient for their own good... even though they give us leakage up his back. So, although he's been fitting into his cloth diapers better for a couple weeks now, I've been hesitant to jump in, and have otherwise overlooked their finer atributes... until today.   We ran out of disposable diapers in the middle of the night and boy was I glad I had these on hand! 

We've got two BumGenius diapers with Velcro, two BumGenius with snaps, and one Charlie Banana diaper that I purchased predominantly with gifts cards, three gDiapers recieved as gifts, and a decent stack of pre-folds with Bummies covers that were hand-me-downs from my sister's kids (not pictured, cause to be honest, I haven't really figured out how to use them).

It's a big decision... there's the obvious benefits to the landfill, though it's often countered by the increase in water and electricity usage to wash cloth.  If you buy cheap bulk disposable vs. the cutesy expensive cloth (instead of the basic cloth diapers) there really isn't that huge of a price difference - EXCEPT when - I keep having to remind myself, because I often forget - you consider that cloth diapers can be reused across all your kids.  Cloth diapers just plain out take more time and effort too. 

I don't know.  I'm still undecided.  But I'm kinda liking where we are now.  I use disposable predominanlty but with a sprinkling of cloth diaper usage - usually go through my nine cloth diapers once or twice a week... it saves money, really buffers the monthly baby budget, and also saves me from an inordinate amount of laundry doing. 

I'm only personally $25 buckaroos into this decision, so even if we never go gung-ho and purchase another couple hundred bucks of cloth diapers that would be necessary to actually make their sole usage practical, all I know is, I sure appreciated them last night.

(I will at some point also include pics of my baby boy in those cute colorful contraptions, but you'll have to wait on that... even though I know pics can turn a boring post into one worth reading, I'm not really up for it today.) 

#Meagan