Thoughts on bumGenius...

We are almost a week in and I am still in love with our new bumGenius cloth diapers!!! I am absolute proof that a Momma who NEVER thought she would EVER use cloth diapers is now using them happily and successfully!

For those of you reading along with me who are considering giving them a try, I thought I would share some details about how we do things around here. And for those of you already using them, maybe you can offer me some advice if you see something in my process you might do differently or better!!!

First, here is where we put the dirty ones, in our lovely pale yellow FuzziBunz pail liner. I LOVE this liner, and plan to order another one to keep downstairs too, I think. It is gathered at the top and has handles so I can easily lift it out, or even hang it on a doorknob or hook. It also has a zipper at the bottom which I unzip to get the diapers into the washer-NEVER touching them at all, or smelling anything!!! We put ours in our old kitchen trash can, as you can see. It has one of those hand sensor lids, but that part doesn't work. It has to be manually opened to dump the dirty ones in but I have yet to smell a thing!Before putting the diapers in the pail, you need to make sure the velcro tabs are stuck to their little "holding spot" or else they will stick to each other in the wash. You also just pull out the liner and toss the outer and inner into the pail all at once (along with any cloth wipes also).

Right now we own 12 diapers and I have 6 more on the way. I am washing them once per day right now, which is fine with me, since I am home most days. I wanted at least the 6 more so I can go every other day, and will probably get 6-12 more on top of that eventually.

We have 10 BabyKicks cloth wipes and I have 10 more on the way, this is plenty and the cloth wipes are just as easy to use as the diapers-even easier. I made my own wipes solution using the recipe from this link (we made "Easy Peasy"). I also am using the dissolving cubes. Both are in little spray bottles I got from the garden section at Target for $1.99 each! I spray both sides of the wipe before taking her diaper off and then just use one to wipe everything, even when it's a big poopy. I don't think I will ever go back to disposable wipes (although we have a huge box left over so we'll use those when we are out and on vacation).

I am washing our diapers using Charlie's Soap (powder) and it is working well. No fabric softener, no dryer sheets, nothing else. This is the way we are washing our clothes now too (except we put a little Ecover fabric softener in with those). We began our cloth diapering right when we got a new dryer, so we didn't have to worry about detergent build up (which you can get form most detergents. Go here to read about recommended cloth diapering detergents.

I run the diapers/wipes through a cold rinse cycle, with no spin-which takes 6 minutes. I then wash them on hot. They are also dried on hot, and I throw a dry towel in there to aid the drying. Before I did this, the liners wouldn't get completely dry.

After they are out, I stuff them all in a basket to wait to be stuffed...
Each diaper has to be stuffed, which can seem like a pain but it really doesn't bother me. I am using the newborn inserts right now, but the diapers also come with a regular one (we have ours stored away for now). I timed myself stuffing today just so I know how long it takes. It took me exactly 3 minutes to stuff 9 diapers.
I then bring the basket to her room, where I put them all in her top drawer (below her changing pad)...
Ladybug is wearing cloth 100%, even at night and while we are out (so far). I do plan to use disposables when we are on vacation, but that's probably it. I am also keeping track of how many I wash each time and how much we have spent to see how long it takes to save what we spent to get started. I will write another post about that later!

I have also re-purposed our basket, which now sits in her room on the dresser where we change her. I just dump the cloth wipes into the middle section (what's the use in folding them?) and keep the spray bottle there too. I do also have the regular wipes and diapers just in case a guest changes her or we don't have clean cloth for any reason. I also keep her little hair bows and gel in the basket too!
So, as you can see, it is working well for us, I have to thank Laura again, who finally convinced me to give it a try with her great article on Totally Tots. I also appreciate so many of you who gave me so much encouragement! I am thrilled to now be a part of the "cloth diapering club" ha ha!

Remember if you decide to order from Squishy Tushy, we both get credit! Be sure to mention my name! I continue to love ordering from Teresa!

If you missed my cloth diaper posts from the beginning, click here to see them all!