Green for the Green-Cloth Diaper Edition

Call it what you will-crunchy, granola, green. I really don't care. There are aspects of our life that definitely fit this hippy, earth loving category and other aspects that fall far from the green tree. More often than not, my motivation for doing something seemingly "green" comes down to money.

I'm a pretty frugal person. Like, really, really frugal. Exceptionally frugal.

Ok. Ok. I'm cheap.

How cheap? Ted texted my dad a picture of Hannah. My dad replied, "It looks like she's storing peanuts in those cheeks!". Ted responded, "Ha. She's sneaking them into the ballpark because they're too expensive inside." To which my dad said, "Oh, so she doesn't just look like Katie...."

Ouch.

But when all three years of our marriage have been spent with at least one spouse in graduate school, cheap isn't an option-it's a necessity. In an effort to help others who may not have access to that ever elusive money tree, I'm going to lay out some of the things we do that could be considered green. A few might surprise you. And not all of them are done for the savings.....


The most obvious aspect of our so-called crunchy life would have to be cloth diapers. When money isn't readily available, we try to save as much as we can by not buying things that are just going to be thrown away. Using disposable diapers just feels like pouring cash directly into the trash can. A very poopy trash can.

We spent a few hundred dollars (about 350 I think) on our entire cloth stash. Almost all of that was money we got from baby showers. We definitely could have done it for cheaper (by buying a different kind of diaper or buying used) but I wanted to get something that would hold up should God choose to bless us with more butts to diaper.

We have 18 BumGenius 4.0 with snaps and one Fuzzi Bunz that we use for a swim diaper. All of them are adjustable-we will never need to buy another diaper for Hannah as they will grow with her until she's potty trained. We stuff them with an extra hemp insert at night and rarely have to change a diaper in the middle of the night.

We also use cloth wipes, which just make sense if you're already using cloth diapers. Our wipes are a collection of BumGenius wipes and random baby washcloths. We have a water bottle by the changing station that we use to spray the wipes before we use them.

All of it gets thrown in the wash every two to three days. Some might argue that the increased water bill offsets the savings from using cloth diapers, but I would have to disagree. Our water bill increased about four bucks a month since having Hannah. Even if all of that was cloth diapers-it would still be a dramatic savings. But we do double the laundry now even if you exclude the diapers! Just washing burp rags and onesies alone would have increased our water bill, so the expense for washing the diapers is negligible.

Regular detergents are harmful to cloth diapers, so special soap must be used. I make my own detergent, again, because I'm cheap. It's a combo of borax, washing soda, and Oxy Clean. Works great. Costs pennies per wash. Score.

Since diaper rash is rare with cloth babies, we don't have to spend money on yucky diaper creams!

The only aspect of cloth diapering that we don't do is line drying. But you better  believe that as soon as I get a clothes line these puppies will be hanging from it every other day!

Is it extra work? Yes. Is it worth it? You bet. Other benefits of cloth: it's obviously better for the environment and arguably better for baby. And while I'm glad these are benefits-they're definitely not why we chose cloth. When it's all said and done, it comes down to saving money.


Do you use cloth diapers? Do you have any questions about how to make it work?