Hi B.,
I used FuzziBunz cloth diapers almost exclusively for 2 years (DD's birth to potty training). Financially and environmentally, it was one of the best decisions I ever made for my DD. But there ARE extra things to consider.
First, the washing really should be done separate from clothes (I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't do that anyway!). I never heard of e. coli being an issue, but I'm sure you could do a vinegar rinse in your washing machine if you were really that worried about it. So that is an extra load pretty much every day. Are you home every single day for 2-3 hours? Will you remember to go do the next step? I used a 3-step wash plus drying (pre-rinse, wash, extra rinse). The pre-rinse removes extra solids; the wash should be HOT, usually a small load, but use 1/2 to 3/4 of the detergent you'd use for a large load; and the extra rinse (can be cold) helps remove all that extra detergent. If you're on a septic, this can be a huge extra load - we had a septic and it was fine, but clay soil would make cloth diapers nearly impossible.
A 100% breastfed baby doesn't have offensive poop, and we never bothered to clean off the diapers before washing. We let the pre-rinse do the job. When she started solids, I would bring the diaper to the toilet first. The fleece lining on FB's was nice, in that poop kind of peeled right off. Then I removed the liner from the diaper, dropped them both right in the washer. I washed every 24 hours usually, but the diapers didn't suffer (stains or lingering odors) if I had to leave them for 48 hours. Any odor-retaining diaper pail would be sufficient - we just happened to be lucky to have our laundry next to the baby's room.
Another effort we made was using cloth wipes. We saved a small fortune in wipes by doing this! You can use any baby washcloth as a wipe - just make sure your "wipes" are distinctly different from your "bath" wash cloths. We kept ours in a wipe warmer with a homemade solution (4 c. water, 1/4 c. baby wash, 1/4 c. baby oil - don't saturate the wipes, just dampen them). We replaced the wipes and solution every day (while putting away the clean diapers). During the summer, we still used the warmer as the wipe holder, but we didn't plug it in.
Some cloth diapers claim to be "one-size" - not sure if that's really the case, as we used a sized kind. FuzziBunz currently does carry a one-size model. We bought smalls, mediums, and larges, but the larges barely got used. Cloth seemed to help with potty training, so we probably should have held off a bit on ordering larges. I also found that cloth diapers made excellent pull-ups (after some adjustment of the snaps), so we saved money there too while transitioning to regular underwear.
We bought all our diapers brand-new, and we used them for only one child. We saved between $500-$800 dollars over the diaper lifetime (not including laundry costs which couldn't possibly have been $500). I recently sold most of those diapers on Craigslist for 1/3 to 1/2 their original cost. So the savings have actually increased.
Did they leak more? Yes, I think they did. But I NEVER had a blowout, so I think that's a fair trade. My DD also only had 1 or 2 diaper rashes (food related), so I saved on butt creams, pain-related sleep deprivation, and stress.
If I had another child, would I use them again? ABSOLUTELY!!! I suggest you buy a few different kinds through Craigslist - 1 or 2 of each kind. Test them out, see which you like best. I think it's great that your husband is devoting so much consideration to baby diapers - I hope you can find a solution that works for both of you.
-K.
