How often do you buy cloth diapers?

2 packa pocket diapers and 6 bamboo birdseye flats from Petite crown

I personally buy cloth diapers all the time, but not because I have to.

I truly enjoy getting new prints or trying new styles or materials or brands, I could have stopped buying cloth diapers years ago.

With the exception of buying a few extra with each new baby so that I have enough to cloth diaper all 3 at once.

Most people buy most of their cloth diapers at one time and then buy 1-2 more every once in a while, either because they would like a few extra cloth diapers, or they really wanted to try a different brand/style.

If you are interested in learning how many cloth diapers you should buy check out my article ” How many cloth diapers do I need?”

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Do you need to continually buy cloth diaper?

If you buy good quality cloth diapers, then once you have a stash size that you are comfortable with, you should not have to buy cloth diapers again.

However, if you’re going to use these cloth diapers on like 10 kids, then yeah. you’re probably gonna need to replace those somewhere along the way.

Most cloth diapers are meant to last 1-2 babies from birth – potty-training.

If you have a very large stash of cloth diapers that you rotate through, then each individual cloth diaper will get used less and therefore will receive less wear.

A very small stash where the same cloth diapers are being washed, dried and used again all in the same day, probably won’t last as long because the cloth diapers are getting the crap beat out of them (no pun intended).

4 Alva baby pocket diapers, 1 off-brand Alva pocket diaper, 3 Mama koala pocket diapers and 1 blueberry simplex

Washing machines and dryers are pretty rough on clothing, bedding and cloth diapers, ever lose a button in the laundry?

Well unless you have gremlins or leprechauns, that button probably came off cause of how mean the washer and/or dryer was to it.

With cloth diapers, snaps can come off, stitching can start to fray or come undone, elastics get stretched in the washer and then stretched and heated in the dryer.

PUL/TPU will also wear faster when repeatedly heated in the dryer.

And ya know the lint trap?

Well lint is tons of little bits of your clothing or cloth diapers that are coming off because of how hard washing machines and dryers are on fabrics.

Now, all of this is very normal and the manufacturers expect you to wash your cloth diapers, and are most likely assuming that you are going to wash them in a washing machine.

This means that they have made their cloth diapers durable enough to still last 2 1/2 – 5 years of being washed in a washing machine.

There are some cloth diaper manufacturers that do specifically say to NOT put their cloth diapers in the dryer, or they may say that they can only go through on very low heat or air dry.

That tells me that these cloth diapers are not made to withstand 2 1/2 -5 years of being put through the dryer on high or even medium heat.

So, if you take good care of your cloth diapers, and you buy at least decent quality, you should not have to buy cloth diapers again, unless you are gonna use them on a ton of kids.

If you want to learn more about how long cloth diapers will last check out my article ” How long do cloth diapers last? When to change & when to throw away”

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Do you need different cloth diapers when baby grows?

Most cloth diaper brands have 2 sizes of cloth diaper, the newborn size cloth diapers and the one-size cloth diapers.

Newborn size cloth diapers usually fit from 6-11 pounds, and the one-size cloth diapers usually say they fit from 8-35 pounds, but in reality, it’s more like 12-35 pounds.

Many people choose to skip the newborn cloth diapers and just use disposable diapers until baby is about 12 pounds (3 months old) and them just start cloth diapering with the one-size cloth diapers.

Most one-size cloth diapers have snaps on the front the diaper that make the cloth diaper shorter or taller depending on how big your baby is.

They also have snaps or Velcro that adjust the waist of the cloth diaper .

Since you can adjust both the height and the circumference of the cloth diaper you can really make sure that it has a really good fit on baby.

There are cloth diapers that are “Sized” and sized cloth diapers come in about 3-6 sizes from newborn all the way to a 40–60-pound kid.

Thirsties duo wrap cloth diaper covers sizes 1, 2 and 3

These sized cloth diapers would operate much like disposable diapers where you need to move up in size every few months.

if you want to learn more about sized cloth diapers check out my article ” Do cloth diapers come in sizes? Photos & comparisons”

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Is it better to always buy the same kind of cloth diaper?

There is a lot of debate about whether or not you should buy one style of cloth diaper or if you should buy a variety of brands and styles.

I can see how just buying one thing could seem easier, since if you only buy pocket cloth diapers, than you only need to learn how to use and care for pocket cloth diapers.

Whereas if you buy all kinds of different brands and styles and materials then you have to learn to use and care for all of them.

That being said I still definitely recommend buying a variety of styles, brands and materials.

Throughout my cloth diapering journey different things have worked better than they did last week, things I hated became favorites and others have been just plain life savers.

When I first started cloth diapering, I was positive that I was only going to use prefolds and cloth diaper covers, I was gonna do this cloth diapering thing both super cheap and super cute.

Well, before I had ordered my 12 Cloth-eez prefolds and my 6 blueberry newborn cloth diaper covers, I had ordered a 6 pack of Alva baby pocket diapers on Amazon.

But, since the Alva baby cloth diapers were coming straight from China, they took like a month to get to my house.

So, by the time I had made up my mind about using exclusively prefolds, the Alvas were already ordered and on their way.

Once the Alva baby diapers arrived, I was like ” welp, might as well try them out” and that is when I discovered that I really like pocket diapers.

If I hadn’t made that not very well researched purchase on Amazon, then cloth diapering probably would have been a lot harder for me.

Turns out, my kids pee like elephants, so if all I had known about was 100% cotton prefolds then I was either gonna have kids with basketball butts all the time or I might have switched to disposable diapers.

In my current cloth diaper stash, I have tons of different brand, styles and materials, and to be honest if I didn’t have them, knowing what I know now, I would be a nervous wreck.

You see, I love pocket diapers, but I just freaking can’t get any of my pocket diapers to work for my kids overnight.

So, if I had just bought all pocket diapers, I would probably be using disposable diapers overnight right now.

Benefits to having a variety of cloth diapers in your stash

Since I have a ton of options, when out of nowhere this kid has an overnight growth spurt and now all of the brand/style “A” cloth diapers are no longer his perfect diaper.

Well since I have a bunch of options right there I can look around and say ” well, brands/styles “B”, “C” and “D” aren’t gonna work, but brand/style “E” that I have hated and avoided like the plague for the last 4 months works awesome.

Holy crap moment all fixed in like an hour because I have options.

As a matter of fact, since I have these options and use them pretty regularly, I could probably just be like ” man, this diaper is just not fitting around his legs right anymore, but this other diaper would work great”.

When a kid starts to out pee all their cloth diapers, and I need to like double the absorbency in their diapers but 4 cotton prefolds are just not going to fit in that cloth diaper.

Well, this is where having a working knowledge of bamboo and hemp comes in handy.

While 4 cotton prefolds might not fit in that cloth diaper, 2 hemp prefolds will, or maybe 2 cotton prefolds and 1 hemp prefold would work.

3 kids worth of cloth diaper covers, pocket diapers, all-in-ones, inserts, flats and prefolds

I have 3 kids all in cloth diapers who are all constantly growing and changing, I am always trying new combinations of absorbencies to try and find what works the best for this kid at this point.

However, the second I figure out what works best for this kid at this point……. they change and I have to start all over 🙁 .

If you want to learn more about cloth diapering 3 kids 3 and under check out my article ” Cloth diapering 3 kids under 3 years old?”

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