Cloth Diaper Question - Houston,TX

I bought plain ole non-folded white at Walmart for my now 18 yr old DD. They also sold a liner that you could put in for easy removal of solids. And plain ole rubber covers. I don't know if these products are still available but I liked them because they grew with her. It is not that hard to fold them or to pin them. Way cheaper and she never had diaper rash. I kept a bucket by the washing machine with Dreft soap, clorox and water and when it got full, washed them in the machine.
If the diaper is tight fitting, it will start drooping when it is soiled.
It will take some adapting but you will be glad you did!!!

Updated

I bought plain ole non-folded white at Walmart for my now 18 yr old DD. They also sold a liner that you could put in for easy removal of solids. And plain ole rubber covers. I don't know if these products are still available but I liked them because they grew with her. It is not that hard to fold them or to pin them. Way cheaper and she never had diaper rash. I kept a bucket by the washing machine with Dreft soap, clorox and water and when it got full, washed them in the machine.
If the diaper is tight fitting, it will start drooping when it is soiled.
It will take some adapting but you will be glad you did!!!

You got great responses, but I just wanted to add two things.

One, check out Craigslist. Lots of mamas sell their cloth diapers there. Lots of times they aren't even used since they changed their mind....or they are used slightly. You will save lots of money and can check them out before you buy.

Second, check out the Real Diaper Association and see if there is a chapter near you. If so, they will have meetings and bring different diapers for you to check out. They will also be full of advice for you.

Here is a link. www.realdiaperassociation.org

You may want to revisit the Bumgenius as you get alot of bang for your buck and they just came out with the 4.0 version that has alot of great features. They can leak for a variety of reasons. If the inserts are used they may need to be stripped, they may have not been washed in detergent that's appropriate for diapers and will then repel urine causing leakage, if they are left on too long or if diaper rash cream has been used while baby is wearing them it will also cause liquids to repel.

Thirsties also now makes a Duo diaper that will go from 6-18 lbs and 18-40 lbs.

There is certainly a learning curve with diapers which includes use and getting them on baby with the right combo of getting the rise correct so they fit baby right and therefore don't leak.

I do well changing my daughter about every 2 hours.

While the upfront cost is more, think about how much you will be saving in the long run by having all the diapers both your babies will need! You will save into the thousands by using cloth over disposables.

If I had it to do over I would have gone the one-size pocket diaper route.

You can use prefolds at night but need to use at least 2 hemp inserts along with the insert that comes with the diaper.

I think I would start with 18 diapers and go from there. You can always buy more if you see you have a need for more. The beauty of cloth is you never really run out because you can always throw a load in the washer.

I like pinstripesandpolkadots.com but you can google your area and cloth diapers and see what comes up for walk in store fronts.

Hi!
Congratulations on trying cloth diapers! I'm sure you want regret it.
I've cloth diapered both of my kids. (That's five years of diapering experience! <g>)
I actually didn't like bumgenius either. Maybe I washed mine wrong or something. But they just weren't absorbent. When my daughter was young, I tried just about every kind of diaper out there. By the time my son came along, I'd narrowed it down to just what I loved. A fitted cloth diaper with a bummis Super Whisper Wrap cover. (they have ones with snaps and ones with velcro.) The diapers we use are Tiny Tush one-size fits all. We had some Kissaluvs when he was newborn, but he's been in the Tiny Tushes since he was about five months old--he's 2.5 now--so they really do fit a wide range of baby. I have a ten Tiny Tushes and a dozen Chinese Tri-folds as "backups" that I use when I'm out of Tiny Tushes. I wash diapers every third day.
In the five years I've been diapering with that combo of basic clothe diaper with Whisper Wrap cover, I've never had it leak. Not once.
Now, if the kids shirt or pants gets tucked down into the waist band, it'll wick. But it just doesn't leak. I can't say that for any other diaper. Certainly not for disposables.
Good luck with the diapers!

We have a very petite baby. I have tried a lot of different brands including Bum Genius, Swaddle Bees, and Thirsties. They most leak proof effective really is Prefolds with a Thirsties cover but this can require good dexterrity and practice. Our favorite diapers for fit and non-bulkiness are SoftBums. They have a really good starter kit, I am pretty sure they offer snaps. As far as when to tell they are wet...babies are going to be wet every hour. So change about every 2. And think, if you change more ofen then you think you need to it's not a really big deal, you will be doing the laundry anyways and you don't have to be worrying about making waste. So change away...We have really loved this for our second baby!! Good luck! Also look into detergents to use for the diapers. We also have a really cheap diaper pail, It looks like a medium kids trash can and we use mesh laundry bag inside to hold the diapers and transport to the machine.

My son has been in cloth from birth (he's 15 months now) and I am so glad we decided to try it out. We use prefolds with thirsties covers and bumgenius. I really like the bumgenius and as someone said if you go to their website now they just came out with the 4.0, which you can get with snaps. If you change your mind about the velcro you can get the 3.0 for really cheap (http://www.cottonbabies.com/product_info.php?cPath=98&amp... it looks like they only have pink left now. I just bought 12 more for my son because he's starting day care and I can't use prefolds there. Fuzzibunz also has a one size pocket with snaps that you might want to check out. I have a friend that uses them and likes them, but I've been happy with bumgenius and I didn't want to have multiple types of covers and inserts, when doing laundry I want to keep it simple.

When I was first looking at cloth I wanted to actually feel the diapers before I bought them so I did a search and found a local store that had them. A quick google search found this list http://www.houstonclothdiapers.com/localdiapers.html of retailers in your area. In my experience the people that own the stores are really happy to help and answer any questions. There are a million different brands out there if you search online, so I just limited myself to what they had in the store and I've been very happy.

If you want to try out a bunch I would suggest looking at sites like Craig's List and getting a few used diapers or many of the stores sell sampler packages so that you can test out different ones before buying a bunch of one thing.

As far as telling when they are wet I just feel the diaper. My little guy eats a very high fiber diet and poops like 4 times a day, so most of the time I just change him when he's poopy.

We use about 6-7/day now and when he was a newborn it was about 12/day. At home I use prefolds most of the time and we use BG when we go on outings because they are easier to change. We use BG with a doubler at night.

Just a note about newborns, unless you have a really big baby the bumgenius will probably be too big for the first few weeks. I think I started using them with my son when he hit 10 lbs (He was 7 lbs 8 oz at birth and they were huge). When he was a newborn we used prefolds with a hemp insert at night and I usually changed him once in the middle of the night when he got up to eat.

I hope some of that helps. Feel free to send me a message if you have other questions!

There is a store in the Cypress area, Nurtured Family, that carries several lines of cloth diapers and also has a class on cloth diapering once or twice a month. They seem to be incredibly helpful. Here's a link to their website: http://www.nurturedfamily.com/

Hope this helps.

I used Fuzzi Bunz with my first and they were the best I tried. They come in multiple sizes or you can buy the one size option now. I had some leakages at night, but you can put in more inserts to absorb more liquid if you have a heavy wetter. My husband liked them, too, as they were easy to use. I would say a minimum of 9 per child, so you aren't washing every day. I washed every other day and hung in the sun to dry, since it would freshen them the best, but you can put them in the dryer as well. There are lots of websites and also authorized retailers on ebay as well. Expect to pay $14-16 each, but in my opinion, THE Best!

BTW, I loaned mine out to my niece for her 2 kids, so they went through 3 kids fine. Also, there are some cloth diaper websites out there, diaperpin.com where you will find everything you need to know about cloth diapers and you can sell your used cloth diapers for about $6-7 each, so if you consider that you could get some money back, it's way cheaper than using disposables. I'm expecting again, and I plan on buying more just so I'm not washing every day. I plan to buy 12-18 for newborn, then at least 12 for older. However, I also have Kissaluvs newborn diapers that I like, because it has a snap down area for the umbilical cord, but you need to change them as soon as they wet. You can add a fleece insert layer so that baby feels dry, but the diapers will leak if they are not promptly changed. Kissaluvs are a 2 piece diaper system with a soft diaper and a diaper cover. However, if you are only going to buy one diaper, I'd buy Fuzzi Bunz. You can buy singles on ebay that include shipping if you just want to try them out. Good luck!

Hi D.,

You got some great answers about how to use them, so I'll keep this response kinda short. I'm seriously looking into trying to make and sell cloth diapers, but I'm still in the very beginning stages. Would you at all consider buying some diapers from me for bare-minimum cost (pretty much the cost of materials plus maybe a tiny bit of labor) and giving me an opinion of how well you like them? Right now I'm making one-size pocket diapers that I secure with a pin in the middle on my 4-month-old. I won't be offended at all if you say no, but please let me know if you might be interested! :)
Thanks,
M.

I like the fuzzi bunz with the snaps. One drawback with the velcro is that some babies figure that out and pull them off a lot. So, we went with snaps. Also, you probably want more than the minimum number of diapers/day because you don't want to have to wash every single day. Just a though. I usually washed every 2-3 days, depending on the day. They are easy to use, and we just loved them.

Good questions. I really like SposoEasy AIO's. They are really great. Also I mostly use prefolds and a cover. Thirsties Duo's are my favorite, but can't use them because my man is huge and out grew them. If you look on my blog I have reviewed a few
www.largebummies.blogspot.com

Also I have heard that with pocket daipers, they aren't very good night time diapers. But I could be wrong. I have also heard as a rule with a newborn in cloth to change them once an hour and once they are 3 months or older to change every two hours. But if you just open it up and touch them.
My favorite sites so far have been nickiesdiapers.com, greenmountaindiapers.com, allnaturalbabycenter.com
I use green mountain's prefolds at night along with a thirsties doubler, and a gerber prefold because my son has a camel bladder. I have also heard and can't wait to try hemp inserts. Hemp absorbs twice as much and is trim.

Oh if you google cloth diaper trial you can find different programs to try out different diapers.

Look up Go Baby Go- this company has cloth diaper consultants. I use them to order anything from the diapers to slings to special soap to whatever. I am not sure if they have any in Houston but they have several in SA and I am sure they would be more than happy to help you. I have used cloth diapers for all of mine... my 3rd and 4th I changed the ones that I used - my son did great in Happy Heineys but my daughter leaks in them and she could wear bum genius but he couldn't. I really like any of them that snap and now that he is potty trained and she can wear anything they have come out with bum genius 4.0 and they snap. I love love love any of the ones that snap and just found some fuzzy buns at a resale - I really like those! Pocket diapers are definitely the way to go for us. I hate shopping online as well so I loved having an independent consultant who could get me what I needed. Go Baby Go - Diane is my consultant- she is awesome at answering questions and is great at helping you know what you will need! I would buy a few each month for the next few months and by the time the baby comes you will have exactly what you need! I am proud of you for taking a step out into the cloth world - I have really liked it!