gDiaper Series Part 4 - Registry Checklist

The first gDiaper we received - a gift from my moms best friend.

Continued from gDiaper Series Part 3 - Ways to Save Money on gDiapers (Yes You Can Afford It!) and More!

So, you've decided to cloth diaper using gDiapers.  Yay!  Now you're probably thinking "What the crap do I need to buy in order to do this thang?!"  Good news!  I have created a list (with links!) of exactly what you will need to cloth diaper using gDiapers until your child is 36 lbs!! (This is based on if you decide to use cotton prefold diapers as inserts.)

Here we go!!

gDiaper Registry Checklist

1.  8-10 of each size gPants -  small, medium and large 
(Notes: Each gDiaper comes with one gPant and one pouch.  These can be found on gDiapers.com, Amazon.com and Babies R Us and Target also carry *some* as well.  I personally recommend purchasing through Amazon or gDiapers.com! Also, we never used the newborn size, small fit Heidi fine and she was 7 lbs. 12 oz. at birth.)
2.  12 extra pouches - 1 additional pouch for each gDiaper
(Notes: You will only need to purchase extra pouches for the small sized gDiapers IF you buy medium and large sized gPants at the same time.  Medium and large gPants use the same sized pouches so you can just take all the pouches out of the larges and to use when baby is in medium gPants and then continue to use all pouches when you upgrade to the large size gPants.)
3.  24+ cloth inserts
4.  Diaper pail
5.  2-3 Diaper pail wet bag liners
6.  60+ cloth wipes 
(Notes: I chose this shop because the size wipes fit perfectly when laid flat in the warmer we had selected.  Some people fold their wipes accordion style so that it pulls the next wipe up through the slot.  After trying this once, I decided against it because when the wipes were folded, not many would fit into the warmer at one time.  We just lay our wipes flat and open the top up instead of pulling the wipes up through the little slot.)
7.  Wipe warmer (optional)
8.  Travel wet bag 
9.  Diaper rash cream
(Notes: When using cloth diapers it is very important that you not use cream that contains certain chemicals.  This brand is very popular with cloth diaper mamas and is zinc and lanolin free, and also doesn't contain any petroleum products. Plus, it smells so good!)
10.  Detergent
(Notes: This is what we use.  Check out this link for other info/options, expecially if you plan on using microfiber/hemp inserts and NOT cotton prefolds!)
11.  Disposable items for emergencies/travel
(Notes: We have successfully gone on 2-3 overnight trips and a long weekend trip to California and cloth diapered the while time while traveling!!  Yay!!  However, I never take cloth wipes out of the house - they just take up too much space and I would only be able to take a few with me at a time.  We do have disposable wipes in our diaper bag which stay in there 100% of the time.)

Well, there you have it!!  That is literally every single thing that I know personally about gDiapers.  I spent a long time collecting my thoughts for these posts (which trust me, my thoughts are scattered about like you wouldn't believe).  I SO truly hope that this helps others to learn more about cloth diapering and gDiapers and also shows people that cloth diapering isn't so scary after all.  :)  Because if I can do it (and my husband can do it - and LIKE it) then you can!  Thanks for sticking with me!!  

The tiniest cutest cloth diaper hardly bigger than an iPhone (size small)!

gDiaper Series Part 3 - Ways to Save Money on gDiapers (Yes You Can Afford It!) and More!

Continued from gDiaper Series Part 2 - gDiaper Anatomy andMy Routine/Wash System

What I love most about gDiapers:

- No chemicals/unnatural ingredients on my baby's bum - I realize that millions of babies have disposable diapers on their skin 24/7 for years and years without any problems.  However, I strive to be as natural as possible so I do sleep a little better at night knowing that Heidi doesn't have any (or at least as many) unnatural materials absorbing into her body.

- Carbon footprint/reduce waste - Obviously, being someone who considers themselves "green" this is huge.  I love knowing that we are contributing less to filling up the landfills and I'm glad my baby's poopy diaper won't still be around in the year 2300.

- Diaper rash - did you know that cloth diapers reduce a baby's chance of getting diaper rash?  It's true!  I'm not even sure that Heidi has had a full blown diaper rash outbreak yet!  We have had a few times where she looks red-ish but it usually goes away completely overnight. 

- No monthly expenses - This is a BIG one. (This almost deserves it's own post I think it's so important!!)  I think that there are so many people who believe that they can't afford to cloth diaper their baby.  This is SO not true.  I personally feel like between disposable diapers and cloth diapers, you at the very least breaking even with cloth diapering one child.  Now if you use your cloth diapers on future children that's when you really start saving money!  (Here is a blog I came across where someone actually sat down and did all the math!)  The big difference for me is that with cloth diapers you are paying for it all up front (with the exception of the added loads of laundry) as opposed to spreading it out over the course of several months/years.  I am a "rip-the-bandaid-off" kind of person, so I am TOTALLY okay with getting the cost of diapering out of the way all at once.  We have never had to sit down and re-work our budget to add in the monthly expense of diapers and wipes.  (Since I have breastfed Heidi since the day she was born almost 1 year ago, at this point we still have no monthly baby expenses.  I can't express how GOOD this feels!)  Along with this "no monthly expense" thing... Not once have I ever had to call Ryan on his way home from work and say "Hey can you stop and pick up some diapers!!  We're almost out!!"  I LOVE that that has never happened.  Sure there have been a few times where I had to grab an insert out of the dryer or I was a little behind on the wash and we had to resort to a disposable diaper until the laundry was done, but we have everything that we need right here.

- Less leaks/blowouts - it seems that the few times Heidi has pooped in a disposable diaper it has blown out of the top (up her back).  I also have friends who use disposables exclusively who have also run into this problem...I suppose we could blame it on the brand or size of diapers or something BUT it still seemed to happen too frequently (at least enough to reassure me that we made the right choice with our brand of cloth diapers!)  That's not to say that we never have leaks or blow outs, it just seems to happen pretty rarely.  When Heidi was pretty little, we had several leaks pretty close together.  I freaked out and immediately thought we had made a mistake and that the cloth diapers were't effective and we had wasted all this money etc. etc... I purchased 2 different types of BumGenius cloth diapers to try those out because I still wanted to try cloth but I thought maybe we had just picked a bad brand... ANYWAY.  I finally took a step back and realized that leaks/blowouts are normal and ARE going to happen regardless of what kind/brand/type/color/size diaper your baby is wearing.  However, if it is happening a LOT then maybe it is time to explore more options.  Also, by trying another brand/style of cloth diapers, my faith and confidence in our decision to use gDiapers was reaffirmed.  I truly feel like gDiapers works best for us.

Ways to save $$$ on gdiapers:

- Buy prefold inserts (as opposed to the gDiaper [or other] brand microfiber inserts) - Green Mountain Diapers sells 12 organic preemie size prefolds for $18.  ($15 if you just go with plain white!)  This is significantly less than the $33 for 6 inserts that gDiaper sells.  Keep in mind - preemie sized inserts fits into small gDiapers and newborn fits into medium/large gDiapers.  I believe that we have 2 dozen inserts which lasts us a couple of days.  (Honestly, I wouldn't recommend having more than 2-3 dozen inserts.  You really don't want an excuse to go longer than a few days between washes and let those dirty inserts sit around for too long.)

- Purchase large gDiapers at the same time as you purchase the mediums - Each gDiaper comes with the gPants and one pouch.  You will need approx. 2 pouches PER gPant.  That being said...pouches for medium and large gDiapers are the same size, so by purchasing both size gPants at the same time, you won't have to purchase any additional pouches.  Just pull the pouches off of the larges and use all pouches towards the medium gPants.  When it's time to move up into the larges, you just continue using all of those same pouches! (This one might make a little more sense after you visit the supply list at the end of this series - but by doing this you will save $23-$46!!)

- REGISTER - is this your first baby?  Do you have a baby registry?  Will there be a baby shower thrown in your honor?  By knowing exactly what you need ahead of time, you will be able to add all that you need to your registry and (hopefully) have the majority of the items you need gifted to you.  I went into cloth diapering so blindly, I added a few pairs of gDiapers to my registry, but hardly anything else.  We ended up spending a lot of our own money on all of the diapers and supplies (which was FINE) but knowing that things could have been different had I been more educated/prepared... my own fault.

And now for just a few more unrelated tips:

- Wait until meconium has passed before you break in that cloth diaper!  Trust me on this.  In those first few days as a new parent... things are already crazy enough.  The last thing you are going to want to add to your plate is trying to figure out how to scrape off that damn tar poop.  I would suggest making a commitment to start cloth diapering baby 1-2 weeks after delivery.  This is what we did and I am grateful we gave ourselves a few days to get into a "routine" (haha) before adding another new thing to the mix.  No matter how dedicated you are... it's okay to use disposable diapers until you feel ready to switch to cloth.

- When placing the gPants into the laundry, make sure all velcro tabs are "closed" or folded over.  If not, the rough part of the velcro will stick to everything and ruin that super cute dress you just bought on sale for baby at Target.

- Try them out!  You don’t HAVE to go crazy and spend a crap load of money right off the bat if you aren’t 100% sure this is for you.  You CAN buy a couple of diapers and just try them out. You don’t have to commit 100% to a certain brand or style to try them out (however be ready to commit roughly $20-$30 a piece on each “experiment"!)

- Don't use any oxyclean or other type of oxygen cleaners or bleach as they can ruin the absorbency (and softness!) of your inserts.  If you are looking to get the stains out of your inserts, you can lay them in the sun with some lemon juice to bleach out!

- gDiapers also sells "liners", which can be confusing.  Don't get the "liners" confused with the "pouches" or "inserts" - they are all different things!  Liners are little sheets (similar to a dryer sheet or dried out disposable wipe) that are placed inside the diaper on top of the insert.  This is to help with transition poop!  The idea is that when the baby poops, you just remove the liner, flush/compost/dispose of and then go about your regular routine.  This sounds like a good idea... but we really didn't like the liners.  Everytime Heidi peed in her diaper it seemed to almost shed little tiny pieces on her.  (I guess it disintegrates TOO easily!)  I definitely would feel comfortable flushing the liners, but they were creating more work for me by making me spend more time wiping Heidi down - trying to get all those damn shreds off of her hiney!

My favorite gBooty!

Continued here: gDiaper Series Part 4 - Registry Checklist!

gDiaper Series Part 2 - gDiaper Anatomy and My Routine/Wash System

Continued from gDiapers Series Part 1 - Why I Chose to Cloth Diaper and Why I Chose gDiapers!

(Note: a full supply list for a registry will be be provided in the last post of this series if you are wondering "What all the crap do I need if I'm going to do this!?") 

Onwards. Anatomy: With gDiapers, there are 3 pieces.  There is the outer cloth part referred to as “gPants”, then the white inner liner called the “pouch” and then the third piece which actually absorbs everything called the “insert”. 

Here is a picture of some gPants and the inner “pouch”. 

 The pouches snap in and out of the gPants, so this is what it looks like with the pouch snapped in...

Now, when it comes to inserts, there are three options:

1. gDiaper disposable inserts - These are allegedly biodegradable, compostable and flushable.  We do have a package of these on hand which we have used in emergency situations, but they aren't my favorite.  I have also read of some horror stories where people have caused some big time plumbing issues by flushing in an unfamiliar toilet so we have never attempted this, even in our own toilet. 

2. gDiaper cloth inserts - These are microfiber hemp inserts produced by gDiapers.  Because of the material, they do require a little more "specialized" wash routine.  The detergent must not contain any softeners or added enzymes so as not to affect the fibers of the insert.  I definitely don't dislike the gDiaper inserts, but they are probably my second choice for inserts. 

3. Cotton prefold - These are my top choice and what we use 100% of the time currently.  I purchased organic cotton prefolds from Green Mountain Diapers because they are half the cost of the gDiaper brand inserts for TWICE as many and I feel like the work JUST as good, if not better.  (gDiaper inserts are roughly $33 for 6 whereas Green Mountain organic cotton prefolds are $18 for 12.)  However, note that with the Green Mountain brand prefolds, their preemie size fits best in the small gDiapers and newborn fits best in the medium/large gDiapers.  (I have been meaning to test out what the small prefolds are like, because there are some days now where Heidi can soak that newborn size pretty good!  But I'm not sure if the small would fit inside the gDiaper pouch or if it would be too big/bulky.)

From left to right: disposable, gDiaper cloth and cotton prefold.  (Please excuse the poop stains.  Yes, no matter what you do your inserts WILL stain!  You can put lemon juice on them and lay them in the sun to bleach them out, I just haven't gotten around to doing this yet.)

A fully assembled diaper: gPants, pouch and cloth prefold insert! (And some greyhound feet!)

The organization: Here is what our top drawer looked like right when Heidi was born:

You can see (from left to right) disposable Honest Company diapers and wipes for backup, gPants with pouches already snapped in, extra pouches in the front center section, prefold inserts in the back right and the gDiaper brand inserts in the front right. (I found this set of 6 drawer organizers at Ikea for $7.99!  And apparently they also now come in pink and black too!)  I used to fold the prefold inserts before placing them in the drawer but after a while I found that this wasn't really saving me any time and was just creating more work for me when putting them away.  Now I just lay them all out flat in one stack. Also, since we are now just using the prefolds exclusively, we obviously don't have a spot for the gDiaper cloth inserts anymore. 

On any given day, we typically have 2 diapers in rotation.  (By "diaper" I mean gPant/pouch combo.) The pouches are breathable and sometimes make the diaper slightly condensation-y so we will usually air one out while she has the other on.  (This also came in very handy when she was little because SPEED is important when the diaper is OFF! We had one diaper 100% ready to go before removing the one she had on. Luckily we only had one explosive diaperless poop episode when Heidi was just a few days old...hehe.) 

The changing: When it's time to change Heidi, I get the fresh diaper, load in the insert and brace myself (just kidding.  We're way past that.)  I remove the diaper she is wearing and pull the insert out and place it in our diaper pail/trash can. 

When changing a gDiaper, essentially you remove any/all pieces that are dirty.  If Heidi just peed, then I just pull the insert out and throw it into the pail.  The gPants and pouch then get a break and usually just sit on top of our diaper pail until the next change.  If it's more than just pee (and poop has gotten on more than just the insert) then I unsnap the pouch and throw the insert AND pouch into the diaper pail.  100% breastmilk poop is water soluable, so there is no need to scrape or spray or wipe off any poop - it all just goes straight into the washer.  I used to separate the pouches into a lingerie bag that was draped on the inside of the pail, but I found that they didn't get clean all the way when in the bag.  So now they just get tossed in with the inserts which is a lot easier anyway.  If the gPants get poo or pee on them (or if Heidi has been wearing them for a few days without incident) then they get put in the regular hamper and washed with her clothes like normal.

Here's where it gets fun: Now that we have started incorporating solids into Heidi's diet, there IS an extra step in the routine.  Transition poop is hard because it's not solid enough to peel out of the diaper just yet, but it's too chunky (sorry) to just throw into the washer.  SO... when Heidi poops in her diaper (which thanks to early potty training at this point is less than 50% of the time!!) we then must scrape the poop off of the insert and into the toilet.  They do sell diaper sprayers that attach to the toilet that you use to spray the poop off of the insert, but this seemed like it would be really messy to me.  A friend suggested using a spatula and this has actually worked surprisingly well!  We just keep our designated poop spatula in the little trash can that sits next to the toilet and pull it out when it's time to use it.  We have had to do this for a month or two now, and we are SO close to not having to use it at all.  Between Heidi pooping in her potty more that half of the time and her increased consumption of solids (3 "meals" of solids a day at this point) I'm guessing/hoping we have just a few more weeks of this before she is either pooping in the potty 100% of the time or the poops just peel out.  So THAT ladies and gentlemen is how you clean a transition poop cloth diaper. Good times. (But really... it isn't THAT bad.  I promise.)

Let's continue, shall we?  We purchased this can at Bed Bath and Beyond (don't forget your coupon!) and the can is lined with a Planet Wise diaper pail liner found on Amazon!  We have 2 liners and it has been sufficient.

We also have chosen to use cloth wipes. Because honestly, why not?  No but seriously it actually makes so much more sense to cloth wipe when you are cloth diapering.  They just go straight into the pail with everything else!  If you use disposable wipes with cloth diapers, you will need to have 2 receptacles near the changing table - one pail for diapers and one trash for wipes. Plus, it's one less thing you have to go out a buy over and over again. Once a week or so, I make a solution similar to this, dunk the wipes in and lightly wring them out.  I then place the fresh wipes into the wipe warmer and then put the extras in a ziploc bag in the refrigerator.  Placing them in the refrigerator prevents them from mildewing while they wait to be used! (See the registry supply list in the last post of this series if you're curious what we actually use!)  I personally really enjoy the times I get to make the wipes.  I use it as a time to focus, relax and just enjoy how GOOD it smells!  It's very therapeutic.

The washing:  When we're down to a few inserts (or every 2 days or so) and the diaper pail is telling me that the time has come - it's time to wash!  I grab the whole wet bag and head to the laundry room  (leaving the diaper pail open to air out a bit).  I turn the whole bag inside out into the washer, dumping all of the inserts, pouches and wipes.  I throw the inside out bag into the washer as well.  I run one rinse cycle first.  (This allows the water during the actual wash cycle to be not quite so dirty.)  Once the rinse cycle is complete I go back and put the smallest amount of detergent into the washer and run a full cycle, with extra rinse.  (You really need the smallest amount of detergent, and the extra rinse helps remove any extra suds. If you open the washer after the wash cycle and the inserts still feel soapy then you can run another rinse cycle and you know to use less detergent next time!)  I do all pouch/insert washing on "warm".  A "hot" cycle could compromise the waterproof-ness of the pouches and wetbags and could even possibly melt them. 

*A small note regarding detergent:  With cloth diapers, (especially anything with microfiber/hemp) you can't just use any old detergent.  After what felt like hours and hours and days and days of research, I ended up going with Charlies soap - a popular cloth-diaper friendly "detergent".  However, after using this for several weeks/months I just really felt like it didn't do a very good job and things weren't getting as clean and they should be.  Once we quit using the gDiaper microfiber/hemp inserts and switched to the cotton prefolds, I changed detergents.  We now use "All Fresh and Sensitive" (found at our local grocery store) for not only Heidi's diapers but her clothes too!  (I like it because it's dye-free and "sensitive" but it also smells SOOO good!  You lose that fresh scent with most "free and clear" or organic detergents.)

Once the wash cycle is complete, I move the inserts into the dryer.  The pouches ARE heat sensitive, so they get removed from the washer and placed on top of the dryer to air dry.  The wet bag gets turned back right side in and placed in the dryer.  (The "inside" of the wet bag is the shiny side, or if you have a pattern that's the inside - the side that the dirty diapers actually touch.)  Our dryer usually takes two full dry "cycles" to dry the inserts and wet bag.  Once the inserts are dry, I grab the wet bag out of the dryer and put all inserts inside.  If the pouches are dry I also put them in the wet bag too.  I then head upstairs and put all items away!  (By now I have usually changed Heidi at least once, so the second wet bag that we own is inside the diaper pail by now. The freshly washed wet bag gets folded and placed in the dresser drawer for use once it's time to wash the other one.)  Here is a link to a page on the gDiapers website which gets more into the suggested wash routines for the gDiaper brand cloth inserts.  Again, if you go with cotton prefolds the system is a little less complicated.

I realize this seems a LOT of information to take in, but TRUST me it's SO simple.  (Especially once you have done it once or twice!)  Even my practical engineer husband is now 100% on board with our choice to cloth diaper and with the routine.  Trust me - if this was a complicated system or if it took a lot of time to learn/do neither of us would be into it!  Every system/routine is different from person to person, but this is what has worked for us over the course of the last 11+ months.

Continued here: gDiaper Series Part 3 - What I Love Most and Practical Ways to Save Money on gDiapers

gDiaper Series Part 1 - Why I Chose to Cloth Diaper and why I Chose gDiapers

So now that I have 10+ months of cloth diapering under my belt, I feel like I know enough to write a blog post on the topic.  FYI if you are a baby poop virgin you will end up knowing WAY more about baby poop than you probably ever thought you would know after reading this post series – so get ready for lots of poop talk!

When I found out I was pregnant, the thought of using regular sit-in-a-landfill disposable diapers made me very uncomfortable.  I am pretty “green” (or at least I TRY my best to be!), I recycle every scrap and shred, eat clean, avoid putting chemicals and toxins into my body and home... you get the picture.  However, full on cloth diapering seemed SUPER scary and gross to me and totally overwhelming.  (WASHING poop?? YUCK!) So I turned to trusty (but also overwhelming) Google.  Initially, I started seeking out disposable biodegradable diaper options.  I came across The Honest Company, which claims that their diapers are biodegradable (or at least partially biodegradable?) but I still wasn’t sold on that idea. 

I then came across a new concept : cloth diapers with a (biodegradable/compostable) disposable insert option.  I will get into gDiaper “anatomy” later, but essentially with this brand the part of the diaper with the poop and pee on it goes in the trash/compost pile/flushed down the toilet and the rest of the diaper (the cloth part) goes into the washer with the rest of baby’s clothes.  Initially, this sounded like a good option for us… an eco-friendly non-traditional yet disposable option… that didn’t involve putting poopy diapers into the washing machine (or somehow transferring the poo into the toilet via toilet attachment sprayer) neither of which I thought I wanted to deal with.  However, I was still curious about the fully cloth version of gDiapers (and other brands) so, I did what any female, educated, 20-something mom-to-be does – I took to Facebook!  After asking for suggestions/advice on biodegradable diaper options and stating my genuine FEAR of cloth diapers I got some great responses!  So many of my girlfriends had experience with cloth diapers and made it sound totally do-able and not so scary.  It was then that I was SOLD on cloth diapers! 

Now what?

There 5 billion cloth diaper options/brands/types and blogs reviewing said options... how was I going to know what was going to work for us??  I looked into other brands, but just wasn’t feeling the all-in-one style or pocket-style.  (Click here to see a brief description of these two types!)  Essentially, with these two types of diapers you wash the entire thing every time.  When the baby goes, you take the diaper off and get a whole new one.  You probably need 15-20 diapers to last you for 2 days?  (Correct me if I’m wrong BumGenius mamas!) I started looking into gDiapers again, as the brand also offers washable cloth inserts in addition to their disposable insert option.  The more and more I started looking into the gDiaper fully cloth version, the more and more convinced I became that I WAS fully capable of cloth diapering and that the cloth insert version of gDiapers wasn’t as scary as I thought.  I was at least willing to try the cloth diaper insert option, and if it was just too much for me to handle we could always switch to the disposable insert option.  I’m ALL about options… and it seemed that even if we went with gDiapers we would still have options we could choose between within that brand and even just depending on the day and my mood.  Now that’s what I like!!  So forward we marched with gDiapers!

My tiny 3 week old in her super cute ruffly gDiaper!
(Which we somehow managed to never get poop stains on. Score!)

Continued here: gDiaper Series Part 2 – gDiaper Anatomy and My Routine/System!