With our budget, we can not afford to buy diapers for 2 babies and a toddler. Although our son is in potty training and he is almost out of diapers now. But we are trying to keep costs down so we are looking at all the options.
With Mateo, we always used disposable diapers. We bought them from Amazon in USA and we really get them cheaper than in Canada. But after all my calculations, with 2 babies the budget for diapers will be a large part of our entire budget! So I asked for some advise from those around me that use cloth diapers and I read a lot of articles online. To use a cloth diaper service will not be less expensive than to buy disposable diapers. I think the service is awesome but it is for people that want to be green and don’t really care about spending so much money. We want to be green but we really care about our money!!! So after a lot of research, I decided that we will give prefold cloth diapers a try.
I didn’t want to use them at the beginning because merconium is very sticky and didn’t want to create a huge job especially when you are tired and not use to the sleep deprivation!
We are going to use disposable diapers for the first month or so and then switch to pre-fold cloth diapers.
Everybody said that each baby needs about 24 prefold cloth diaper to start with. As I said, I want to try it first so I do not really want to buy 48 prefold cloth diapers yet.
So what I did is I realized that each baby should be changed between 10-12 times a day. I am going to buy 12*2 + 6 extra in case they need more so a total of 30 prefold diapers.
So I bought (via Green Mountain Diapers ) 24 Small (yellow edge) Cloth-eez® Prefold Diaper (from 6 weeks to 5 months), 6 Thirsties Duo Wrap Diaper Covers (different colors) and from amazon.com I bought 6 Bummis Organic Cotton Prefolds Diaper (7lbs to 20lbs), Bummis Bio-Soft Liner and a Planet Wise Diaper Wet Bag (very cute). Total cost less than $200.
The bio-soft liner is not necessary in cloth diapers but as I know Andrew ,he will not like to wash the babies poo and many cloth diaper users do find that they make cleanup easier. You can use it in any kind of diaper. You simply flush it or throw it away in your garbage.
So $200 for almost 2 months of disposable diapers and if everything is fine I will be able to use it for almost 5 months. (I will keep you updated for this point in 6 months!). So it is big savings and we will have to try it for 2 months minimum to have our money back!
The good news is you can also sell them after they become too small. You will not be able to sell it for the same amount of money but it is better than nothing! Some parents said they also use them as a burping cloth because they are very absorbent!!!
Voila, so last week I received everything and now it is time to prepare them. How to wash prefold cloth diapers?
see that in the next post – Prefold Cloth Diapers – Part 2: how to wash them?
