Diapers

This week I celebrated one year of using cloth diapers. We didn't use them 100% of the time, but certainly most of the time. I only bought disposables once, using them for the week of rotavirus and the infrequent trips where lugging a bunch of smelly diapers around was just not sane.

This week I tried to figure out if we saved any money by using cloth. However, comparing diaper expenses from the previous year is not an accurate comparison because then I had two Monkeys in diapers. I went from buying two giant warehouse store boxes (two different size diapers) a month to using cloth in three days: it was on a Saturday that Monkey1 parted from diapers, and that Monday the initial store of cloth diapers arrived. I got second-hand ones, so I've had to replace some over the year, and I went with the higher-end sort that are multi-sizeable. Currently we have a mix of Haute Pockets, Happy Heinys, Bum Genius, and Mother's Touch. My favorites are the Happy Heinys because of the generous velcro closure. There's nothing like hearing a toddler yell, "My diaper broken!" because the velcro tabs have come unstuck. I think cost-wise for one year, the way I did it, disposable and cloth were the same. This year might see savings, depending on how many I need to replace. But I didn't do it for money. Or the environment. I did it because I was sick of buying two giant warehouse store boxes of diapers a month, which filled the hatchback of our Golf, and I had to squeeze any other purchases around the carseats. For that alone, cloth was worth it.

As a bonus, Monkey2 and I are really enjoying the fashionable colors of today's cloth diapers. I'm not sure which is more favored, hot pink or the black-and-white-cow print.