Hi there! Welcome to the kick-off of the School of Cloth. This is a month long educational event sponsored by the Real Diaper Association, cloth diaper businesses, cloth diapering bloggers, and the entire cloth diaper community to help raise awareness about cloth diaper. We’re glad you found us!
In week 1 of our School of Cloth we’re going to be talking about how to get started with cloth diapers. Be sure to check out the schedule of live classes listed on the RDA website and Attend the School of Cloth!
Why have you decided to cloth diaper? Is it for the cost savings? The environmental benefits? or because you believe it’s safer for your baby than disposables? Whatever your reason, it may be easy to get overwhelmed when you start searching for tips on how to get started. Take a big breath and remember, you’re going to have to change diapers – it’s up to you what type of diapers you’re changing!
There really isn’t a big difference between how to use a disposable diaper and how to use a cloth diaper.
The main difference of course is that with a disposable diaper you send the waste to a landfill to sit for hundreds of years in a plastic bag. With cloth diapers you can reuse them over, and over, and over, and over again (sometimes for more than one child even) and when you are done with them you can sell them, donate them, or use them as rags around the house.
But what about the poop? Do you really wash it in your washing machine? Yes and no. Most parents knock off most of the poop and flush it down the toilet (novel concept, huh) before we wash them. That way the poop goes where it belongs and NOT in your washing machine.
Where do I get started? What do I need? How many do I need? How much money is this going to cost/save me?
Let’s start with the basics, you may need a cloth diaper dictionary (<—click that link to learn the language) to help you understand all of the terms and acronyms. I promise it won’t take you long to speak cloth-ease!
I’ve linked some of my most popular cloth diapering posts on this page; How to Cloth Diaper, to make them easy to find. However most of my recent work can be found on Kelly’s Closet cloth diaper store website. Here are a few of my favorite:
- Why cloth diaper?
- What do I need to get started?
- Basic Types of Cloth Diapers
- How to Wash Cloth Diapers
The Real Diaper Association (RDA) also has some great resources in their Cloth Diaper Users Guide.
You can also click the links at the bottom of this post to read what other families do and how they got started with cloth diapers. We started using cloth diapers when our youngest was born. She’s now a cloth diaper graduate but I’m still passionate about helping others get started.
Join us back here next week as we talk about how to budget for the cloth diapering investment.
Before you leave, I'd love to hear from you. Leave a comment below and tell me why you have decided to cloth diaper.
Looking for cloth diapering resources and tips? Visit my cloth diapering archives, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and on Pinterest.
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