The Great Conclusion

Yesterday we sent back the cloth diapers from our trial package, though we did keep a few - the bumgenius pocket diaper and the two prefolds. We also purchased 12 bumgenius diapers from Jillian's Drawers, the company that did the cloth diaper trial for $200 (and they threw in a free pair of babylegs...see below).




The diapers came today and are in the wash as I type. After seeing how many diapers we have not had to use over the last 3 weeks because of using cloth only about 1/3 of the time, I am very excited to see how few we will be using now that we have essentially tripled our cloth diaper supply.

I've been working on the math for cost per diaper of disposables and trying to guesstimate how many of each size we would use over the course of Emma's diaper-wearing years. If we were to only buy Costco diapers, which are already much cheaper than Pampers or Huggies, we would likely spend between $700-800 from now until Emma turned 2. If she doesn't potty train until she is 2 1/2 it could be another $150-200.

While the initial investment was a little steep, it looks like we should have a cloth diaper paid for about every 2 1/2 weeks. So it will take a few months for us to make up the money we spent on our bumgenius, but if we have more children, we will already have made the investment in cloth.

We aren't cloth crazy either. If we're out for the day with Emma or traveling, the disposables will go back on her bum! So we will have to buy some disposables once in a while.

This has been quite the experiment for Martin and me. We've done a lot of research, mostly because we don't know anyone who uses cloth diapers! We have found many great resources on the internet, which I may put together in a blog post sometime soon, but we also hope that through our experience we can be a resource to others. So let us know if you have any questions or comments about cloth diapering!