My Cloth Diaper Stash

As more of my "real life" friends and acquaintances find out that our family uses cloth diapers, I get lots of questions about exactly what we use, like, don't like, etc. I thought I'd just answer all that here. (A separate post is coming soon with my wash routine.)

With our first-born, we used disposable diapers. I didn't know any better. :) When we were pregnant with our second daughter, we started examining our diaper options again. Since our first daughter, gDiapers had come to the United States from Australia. These seemed like a great idea, so we looked into them further. We were very excited about this hybrid diaper with cloth outer pants, a plastic snap-in liner, and a flushable/ compostable insert. We purchased a couple sets of little gPants, liners, and flushable inserts before our daughter was born. At the time, smalls were the smallest size available and started at about 8 lbs. Our daughter was just under 7 pounds at birth, so we used disposables for a few weeks until she gained some weight. We loved the gDiapers from the start. There is a bit of a learning curve for some, making sure the fit is right, not to overtighten them, etc. No big deal. We had no problem. And if you do have trouble, customer service at gDiapers is happy to help. Our daughter is now done with diapers and using the potty. We used the gDiapers with flushable inserts during her entire diapering life. With one exception.

I joined the gDiapers Yahoo group and started learning more and more about cloth and all the options out there. Somewhere along our journey, I got to a point where I thought I could handle cloth. By that point, though, we figured we were too close to potty training to make the cloth investment worthwhile. We got our flushable inserts through the Subscribe and Save program at Amazon.com, which was the best deal we found. Anyway, we found out we were pregnant again, and decided quickly that he'd be a cloth baby. We knew of the Nappy Shoppe from the gDiapers group. Sharni was a big help, and I ordered a few of her gFlappers in a couple different fabric options to try out on our daughter before we made our investment.

We decided on the all-bamboo gFlappers as our favorite diaper inserts and got a stash for our son. With help from Sharni, I decided to also invest in some Thirsties DuoWraps in size 1 for our newborn in case the g's were too big early on. My first child was 8 lbs 13 oz at birth and my second was 6 lbs 15 oz, so I really didn't know what to expect. There are now tiny g's for newborn babes, but I knew that there was a good chance our baby could be too big for them anyway. I was right; our son was 8 lbs 15 oz at birth.

So our newborn stash consisted of small gDiapers and Thirsties DuoWraps. We were happy with both, though our son outgrew the small g's ridiculously early (the solution was small liners inside medium gPants for quite a while), and it took a little while before we loved the Thirsties. The Thirsties are available in both snaps and hook and loop closures. Both have pros and cons; I honestly still am not sure of which I prefer.

Our daughter wore gDiapers her entire diapering life with no issues with fit, etc. I thought our son would be the same. Honestly, we had a few more challenges with our son, but we're good now. He seems to have a high rise and is a heavier wetter. Our daughter had no problems wearing gDiapers at night. Our son was quickly another story. GDiapers would not hold him overnight.

We started looking into night-time options and figured that pocket diapers might be the way to go. We found that Diaper Junction had a program where you could try many of the big name cloth diapers for 30 days and return any that didn't work. We decided to try BumGenius, Fuzzibunz, and Happy Heinys of the pocket diaper variety and Flips, which are more of a diaper cover/hybrid system. Part of the reason we chose these is that they are considered one-size and have adjustable rises. Unlike the gDiapers, we can stuff multiple inserts in these diapers for overnight. If you double-stuff gDiapers, the seal breaks and they leak. At least on our boy. Turns out we love all our pockets for overnight, so we kept them all and keep them in regular rotation. I can't honestly say that we reach for a Happy Heiny or a Fuzzibunz or a BumGenius over the other. Just whatever is on top and ready to go. We double-stuff the diapers and are good for the night. Our heavy wetter wears that diaper from about 10:30 pm until about 7:30 am, give or take.

The Flips we use in our regular daytime rotation, but especially if we are running longer errands, traveling, etc. If I know I need to go more than two hours between diaper changes, the Flip is great for double stuffing. In addition, we've also discovered WonderWraps on Baby Half Off, which we use the same way. We really like these, which are also one-size with the adjustable rise. These have a nice wide waistband, so they leave no marks at all. Some of our other diapers leave slight marks around the waist or on those chubby thighs. :) I should mention, I don't think the Flips and the WonderWraps would be very good on newborns, but we got these when our son was a little older, so I can't speak from experience.

So here's the summary:
DAYTIME ROTATION: gDiapers, Flips, WonderWraps
NIGHTTIME ROTATION: BumGenius, Fuzzibunz, Happy Heinys

All of these diapers get stuffed with the all-bamboo Flappers from the Nappy Shoppe. We are in love with our cloth diaper stash. Honestly, I would try more, because I just love all the colors and patterns available out there, but I can't justify the additional purchases. :) Hope this helps you understand what we do.