Bummis: Bummis are traditional cloth diapers except the diaper covers are breathable and quiet (no plastic pants) with velcro tabs (no diaper pins), the diapers are thick unbleached organic cotton, and one can use a flushable liner with them. We wash them on hot with an ex
tra rinse with special soap (e.g. very plain; brighteners and stain fighters apparently can leave residues on diapers. We use Charlie's Soap* which is cheap and really, quite astounding in its cleaning power) and I line dry them. The starter set, 6 pairs or pants (3 patterned, 3 white) and 36 diapers cost $150 at the Blue Dandelion.
tra rinse with special soap (e.g. very plain; brighteners and stain fighters apparently can leave residues on diapers. We use Charlie's Soap* which is cheap and really, quite astounding in its cleaning power) and I line dry them. The starter set, 6 pairs or pants (3 patterned, 3 white) and 36 diapers cost $150 at the Blue Dandelion.gDiapers: gDiapers are stretch cotton orange or vanilla bean pants, a snap in water-proof liner and a disposable insert. The plastic-free inserts are flushable, but we've been composting the wet ones and throwing away those with poop (being plastic free, they break down much faster than regular disposables). We started with a starter kit (2 pants and 10 inserts) and a case of inserts (160) from Amazon*, but the much better buy is directly from gDiapers and includes 6 pants and a case of inserts for $100. We would like to try gCloth, but they have been out since August.
Disposables: We've used Pampers Swaddlers, Swaddler Sensitive, Huggies, Huggies Pure and Natural and Baby Basics (the store brand at our grocery store). Retail prices in my town run about $12/36, $12/34, $12/36, $12 for unnamed quantity and $8/40. At Sam's Club, we bought the next size of Pampers at a much lower per diaper cost.
What we're doing now: cloth diapers while at home during the day (about 30/week), disposables overnight and in the diaper bag, gDiapers for outings and times when the cloth is being washed. Since we went from all disposables (see small child below) to this system, we have reduced our weekly diaper trash to about a third of what it was.
Our experience: Small child: We had decided to not use our cloth diapers until after Dianthus fully stopped with tar poop (about 8 days) and lost his umbilical chord (13 days). At two weeks we tried on the specialty diapers and they leaked straight out. A child under eight pounds with skinny legs will not fill out the gDiapers or the Bummis wraps. We had to continue to use the newborn size of disposables almost exclusively for the first six weeks. As most kids aren't in the newborn size very long, they are not available in very big packages, not at Sam's Club, and not in many alternative forms (i.e. Pampers makes two lines in other sizes, but for the newborns you can only buy the premium line, at least in our town).
Ease of putting on: Disposables are usually easiest, but when Dianthus was particularly wiggly and I wasn't good at changing yet, I found the gDiapers easier to put on. Now I will do any without thinking much of it. The Mister, meanwhile, is somehow intimidated by the gDiapers but has no problem with the cloth. Little note that, because gDiapers velcro in the back, they are more prone to sticking to fuzzy changing table surfaces.
Quantity: We're still talking ten plus diapers a day. We seem to go through more when we are using the cloth.
Cost vs. Environment: The more we use them, the more cost effective and more environmentally beneficial the Bummis are. Because I am doing laundry pretty much every day these days (another post), I don't mind washing them. I also hope to pass them on or use them for another child, which will further decrease the cost per use and increase the environmental benefits. Yet they were not cheap and the environmental costs of cotton production are not immaterial. At $150 for the set, I would need to use the cloth diapers at least 450 times before they start being cost effective if that were the only criterion. I've decided to consider them a gift from my ecologist friends to the environment (which they were) and thus of no cost to me. Every time I use them, therefore, I'm saving money by not buying disposables. I also think of them as something that allows me to use the more expensive gDiapers instead of regular disposables.
Ease of putting on: Disposables are usually easiest, but when Dianthus was particularly wiggly and I wasn't good at changing yet, I found the gDiapers easier to put on. Now I will do any without thinking much of it. The Mister, meanwhile, is somehow intimidated by the gDiapers but has no problem with the cloth. Little note that, because gDiapers velcro in the back, they are more prone to sticking to fuzzy changing table surfaces.
Quantity: We're still talking ten plus diapers a day. We seem to go through more when we are using the cloth.
Cost vs. Environment: The more we use them, the more cost effective and more environmentally beneficial the Bummis are. Because I am doing laundry pretty much every day these days (another post), I don't mind washing them. I also hope to pass them on or use them for another child, which will further decrease the cost per use and increase the environmental benefits. Yet they were not cheap and the environmental costs of cotton production are not immaterial. At $150 for the set, I would need to use the cloth diapers at least 450 times before they start being cost effective if that were the only criterion. I've decided to consider them a gift from my ecologist friends to the environment (which they were) and thus of no cost to me. Every time I use them, therefore, I'm saving money by not buying disposables. I also think of them as something that allows me to use the more expensive gDiapers instead of regular disposables.
If the gCloth liners are any good, I would go with them along with the regular gs, so I wouldn't have the financial and environmental costs of two different sets of "permanent" pants.
Little Notes: The Mister liked the newborn Pampers better than the Huggies and both are far preferable to the Baby Basics, which we just quit using for a while because they seemed so useless. The color change strip on the regular swaddlers is much more pronounced than on the swaddlers sensitive. We don't yet use the flushable liners in the Bummis because currently the poop is basically liquid, against which the liners really are useless.
All little pants (gs or Bummis) require thought when washing to make sure that the velcro tabs are down so they don't stick to everything.
*Next to the new dishwasher, Amazon prime is about the best baby product around for those of us who live nowhere near shopping. Shipping on BOB alone almost paid for the year of "free" two day shipping.
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2 comments:
So, if you lived in a humid tropical climate which diaper method do you think would have the lowest icky smell factor? [Over here we have to put our compost in the freezer if it's not going immediately on the pile because it is too disgusting to leave out for a few days.] I imagine diapers would be the same, even though baby poop is supposed to smell like flowers.
I don't compost the poopy ones (the liquid poop makes them overall a big pain to handle), just the pee ones.
The pee doesn't seem to smell much either on the composting inserts or in the pail of cloth ones (although that does get a amonia-y smell over time, and I am washing the cloth ones twice a week).
Flushing gs would have no smell, just a bit more time involved (need to take the diaper to the toilet and break it up before flushing). If using disposables, there are special machines in which one places the diaper and it gets wrapped in its own trash bag casing ("like sausage" says my brother), so that they are all wadded up tight and sealed. Diaper Genie is one brand of such things. Environmentally they sound horrible (more plastic, more special containers, less air for potential decomposition), but my brother's family swears by it.
If using cloth, presumably using the liners or rinsing the diaper immediately would help, but cloth would be a hard sell for me if I they wouldn't line dry and the drier would have to be run on a hot, humid day.
Thus far the poop isn't particularly smelly (that's expected to change with solid foods at six months), but Dianthus can fart some real stinkers!
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