Eco-friendly Diapers - Looking for Affordable, Reliable Options

We use disposable diapers. a 250+ box of Luvs size 3 costs us <$30 a month delivered to our door courtesy of Amazon. We are green in so many other ways, (we don't use disposable plates, cups, napkins, or paper towels, we recycle heavily, and vermiculture our kitchen scraps)
but diapers weren't even part of the discussion. Just Sayin.

Good luck.

I was in your exact situation not too long ago. We had been using Bum Genius microfiber diapers. Anyways, we had the leak with every change problem too. We tried stripping as suggested by the Bum Genius website. The solution for us was Calgon Water Softener (found on the bottom shelf for under $5 at Target). Calgon can help with stripping by removing hard water minerals that trap dirt into fabric fibers. Calgon also helps to prevent detergent build-up, neutralizes the hard water minerals in your water, and contains no phosphates.It is safe on microfiber diapers and actually caused them to stop leaking and stinking. I have no idea why this isn't mentioned by the Bum Genius people until you call and tell them about the hard water in your house. You use the recommended amount and rinse until the bubbles disappear. I know that you were wondering about the brands you mentioned, but really continuing to use the diapers you bought is the most economical, least toxic, most planet friendly method.Good luck.

To Reverend Ruby below. This isn't your personal soapbox on why cloth diapers are worse then disposable. For your information, my kids are allergic/sensitive to disposable diapers. I only have one computer and one monitor. When our last (10 year old) computer died, we paid to recycle it and re-used the monitor with a new CPU. I don't own a cell phone.
When washing my cloth diapers...
I don't use a wet method and therefore don't have to rinse diapers repeatedly in the toilet. I use eco friendly detergent and no bleach. It is only one additional wash cycle. Maybe you should spend more time researching the costs/benefits of cloth versus disposable before making accusations at "young people" you don't even know?

How old is your baby? My DD is 16 months old, and big enough to fit into the 2t 'training pants'. (they are pretty much toddler underwear). I buy the adult incontinence liners, and use those. It works great for us! The best part is that when I change the liners, I have my DD sit on her potty. She has started potty training herself! Now we are at the point where the only 'accidents' she has are while she's sleeping for the night. She has even started staying dry through her naps. :)

a few of my friends love Bum Genious.

I find it so funny that so many young parents are going ack to cloth diapers. I was thrilled to get rid of cloth diapers and use disposables when my kids were little. The same controversy was around during the 1930's & '40's only about women's sanitary napkins. Many women felt it was wrong to use anything but rags. My kids had fewer sore bottoms when I used disposables then with cloth diapers; I would never recommend cloth diapers to a new Mom.

My big question to all young parents is: How many computers, monitors, cell phones, TVs, ect have you tossed into the trash in the past 5 years? All of those electronic devises are so much worse for the environment than a few diapers. But the younger generation feels the need to use cloth diapers so they don't harm the environment but thinks nothing if replacing electronic gadgets as soon as the next new better thing hits the market.

And you don't seem to understand the impact of washing all those cloth diapers on the environment. I rinsed every diaper in the toilet, flushing more then once, then washed in hot water, with detergent and bleach, then once in hot water and detergent to wash out the bleach, then an extra rinse to make sure any residue is rinsed out. Think about the amount of energy used to heat the water, and then it had to go through a water treatment ect ect. So how much are you saving Mother Earth by using cloth diapers?

Seventh Generation diapers for both my LOs - .19 cents a piece if you use Amazon and sign up for their Amazon Mom Prime membership and Subscribe and Save service. What do you get?

- cheapest price on diapers (even compared to luvs or pampers at the stores if you factor in your time and gas)
- delivered to your door step in 2 days.

The diapers are:

- Free of Chlorine Processing
- Free of Fragrances and Latex
- Free of Petroleum Based Lotions

My understanding is that no disposable diaper can be thrown in your compost do to the materials that are used and the fact that they contain human waste.

GDiapers...boo...hated them. I have used GroVia, Flip and Econobum (made by BumGenius), and BumGenius. By far, our favorite is any of the BUmGenius brands. We use the pocket diapers for overnight. BumGenius is totally diffrent then just a year ago. I think you want to look at newer reviews online, since their diapers are so different. www.diaperpin.com is a great site for cloth diaper reviews!!

We are out of the diaper stage now so I don't have any experience with the brands you mentioned. I used cloth and the occassional disposable. I used Earths Best brand since they were chlorine free but I don't think they were compostable :-( Anyway, the reason I responded was to suggest stripping your diapers. My son leaked more in disposables than cloth. I used prefolds and covers but did have a couple Bum Genius pocket diapers that I ended up giving away. People swear by them but ours were a constant leak. His simple prefold/cover combination never gave us an issue except after the time he had a stomach bug and I was using ointment on his bottom at night. The ointment hurt the diapers absorbency so I had to strip the diapers and then they worked great again. Maybe worth a shot before you invest in another option. Good luck.

We use Nature Babycare and they work great! we used cloth for a while and then needed to switch to these--so just recently started using them but am very happy so far.

M

I tried gDiapers and they were a mess. They leaked, didn't fit right no matter what we did and every change involved clothes and diapers - oh joy. I second Fanged Bunny. We are green in so many other ways we let ourselves off the hook for this one. If I feel guilty, which I haven't so far, I plan on hugging the tree in my front yard. We use Target brand disposables and have had no problems with them.

Honestly it could be the brand of diapers you use. I don't know if you have tried a variety, but just like disposable fit each child differently so do cloth diapers.

For my oldest we didn't start cloth diapering until she was 13 months. She was allergic to everything other than Pampers Swaddlers so when she outgrew the size two we didn't have any other options.
I bought Flip and Econobum diapers and never regreted it for a second. She is now potty trained and we now have dd2. Because I am not working we need to save $$ anyway we can, so we were really excited that we already had all the diapers we needed. Turns out Flip stay dry liners, don't work very well for newborn bf baby poo, so we are in the same situation you are with having to change outfits every poop. It's not fun, but it's not unmanageable for us. For us there really is no other option, I'm not going back to work to pay for diapers! haha I know this isn't your situation.

Is there anyway to do a sample variety pack? We have a few gDiapers that I won from a contest (cloth liners not the disposable) and I didn't like them for dd1 but I love them now with dd2.
I haven't used any other the other ones. Good luck!

I never thought I would worry so much about what was catching poop!