Cloth Diapering

It greatly pains me to admit that Ive been urgently upping my knowledge on cloth diapering and Im not yet out of the first trimester.

It pains me more to admit Ive already bought a few.

That being said, I feel like it is going to take me an entire 9 months to truly understand all there is to know about cloth diapering. And boy are the options endless. No more are the days of using a diaper service and pinning a piece of rag to a babies bottom. (though Im sure some people still do this).

I have been on the fence about CDing (the acronym for Cloth Diaper) since before we conceived. A good friend of mine started CDing her little girl and I was very impressed with how easy it was and how much money one could save by skipping disposables. My other friend (who is also pregnant) did a ton of research and wrote a fascinating blog about the facts and numbers of cloth vs disposable and I couldnt deny the benefits of going cloth.

Im not going to go in to all the in's and out's of why my husband and I are choosing to CD because honestly, it's no one's business. In the end, this is what we decided to do and what we feel is best for our family.

All of that to say this: buying cloth diapers is expensive initially! It takes about 400-500 dollars to get a good stash going. Which seems ridiculous until you realize that parents who pay for disposables spend around 900 dollars A YEAR for disposables. Which adds up to several thousand dollars by the time the baby is out of diapers. When you look at that compared to my initial 500 dollar price tag for the entire time my child is in diapers (and then the entire time my second child is in diapers since you can reuse), that 500 dollars starts to sound pretty stinking good!
(Thanks for this info Brittany, who got this information off of The American Academy of Pediatrics).

Since we live on base, our utilities are free which just adds even more to our total cost savings. This helps me not want to throw up every time I purchase a new diaper to add to our little one's stash. Expensive now, WAY cheaper in the end. The only draw back is I still have a ton to learn and a lot to buy. I started now because I want to spread out the money we have to spend on them so it's not done all at once. Plus Ive been finding some pretty awesome deals on gently used or clearance diapers which just makes the whole thing that much better! I figure if I can shop for good deals until the baby is born we can cut down our cost from 500 to around 350.

Yeah. Im starting to love cloth :0) Look at how adorable these things are!