Diapering Time of Year

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April is a pretty significant month, since the Great Cloth Diaper Change is this weekend I'm reminded that it's been almost a year since I started blogging on a regular basis, seems like forever ago! And at the end of this month I will have been married for 4 years...wow, funny how that went by so fast.

Kim at Dirty Diaper Laundry also announced yesterday that the 2nd Annual Flats & Handwashing Challenge will be May 21-27. Woohoo!

Last year I used flat diapers exclusively, nothing can beat the price or trimmness! So I Upped the Ante and found things I had around the house to create a completely free stash of dipes. I know some critics felt that I wasn't using true "flats" when I didn't cut up a t-shirt before turning it into a diaper, but I felt that it was in the spirit of proving that cloth diapering is feasible in low income households.

Which brings me to why I cloth diaper in the first place.

It's cheap.

That's it.

Sure, it's better on the environment. Sure, it's better on my baby's sensitive skin. Sure, the diapers are so much cuter than disposables.

But I'm saving thousands of dollars over purchasing disposables.

My stash is a little haphazard. Mostly flats and prefolds and covers; these are my regular use diapers and I have a sufficient amount of these alone. But 10 various pockets that I was either given or won are nice to have when someone else is watching the boys. We spent about $75 on our stash. They paid for themselves in the length of time it would take us to go through 4 boxes of disposables (1-2 months).

We used 2 boxes of sposies with Jaron; one we bought, and one we were given, before starting cloth because I didn't think he would be big enough to use the diaper covers I already had.

When baby #3 comes along I'm going to try my best not to let a single disposable diaper touch his or her little bum. I'm planning on making some super soft flannel flats to take to the hospital and if the nurses don't like it, oh well. Jaron's bottom was red from day one until we switched out of Pampers into another brand, so that's my first reason. My second is just because I have a pretty strong dislike for the one hospital that I can deliver at and anything to keep us separated from the "system" sounds good to me.

Just to be responsible I'll probably research cloth diapering in a hospital a bit more, but I'm pretty convinced that it's the way to go next time around. We'll see, the big thing is the cost, not personal vendetta, so I know we have a total win from the start no matter what I decide about the hospital.

If you want to hear more about my 2 (not always) sleeping babies and the rest of the family you can follow us on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter!