So instead of the usual day in this life style post ;) I decided to share a parenting related personal tidbit for the history books... haha.
We decided to use BumGenius cloth diapers for Hadley and they are really great! An awesome and fairly comprehensive review of our diapers can be found here: http://www.younghouselove.com/2010/08/the-much-requested-cloth-diaper-post/
Washing: Before we put our dirty diapers in our special dirty diaper laundry bag (its pretty smell proof and not gross honestly) we use a diaper sprayer that's attached to our toilet and spraying them keeps them much cleaner and easier to maintain. We wash our cloth diapers at home instead of using a diaper service and it's not gross like I thought it would be when I first heard about modern cloth diapers. I use natural detergents, I started out using Charlie's Soap from our local co-op but now we use Norwex powder detergent since I'm an independent sales consultant for them now. The Norwex detergent seems to get the diapers even cleaner than the Charlie's Soap And its just as natural which is great.
Sunning out stains: The fact that you don't have to be seriously worried about staining on these specific diapers is great. Anytime their are spots or stained areas after the recommended wash procedure you can put water on the diaper's spots then lay them out in the sun and voila! Stain free in a few hours! :)
Starter diaper stash: We started with 12 BumGenius Elementals when Hadley was 5 weeks old and we now have an additional 9 BumGenius 4.0 pockets and 1 BumGenius FreeTime. I love them all but from reviews from other users, I know that all of our Elemental diapers won't last through 2 kids until potty training but we'll try to get as far as possible.
Hybrids: I got free BumGenius Flip hybrid diaper covers and stay-dry liners from one of the girls I met at a baby shower in January but the catch is that all of the Flip covers need new elastics sewed into them (just the elastic was shot but otherwise they are in super nice condition but she wanted to give them away since she uses diaper service now) so I'll be working on that project pretty soon. From video tutorials on YouTube I can tell the elastic replacement will be easy to do but it will take some time. I'm hoping that we will be able to keep more life in our diapers by incorporating the Flips into our routine. I'll have to do a full review of how I like Flips compared to the other BumGenius diapers since the Flip is considered a hybrid (you can use organic liners, stay dry microfiber liners or disposable/flushable liners).
Overall verdict on using cloth: Cloth diapering and BumGenius as a line of diapers is great! We love our system and I am honestly surprised by how relatively few times I've felt an ounce of regret over doing cloth diapers... most of the regret moments have come over seriously NASTY dirty diapers ;) haha right?! We have saved money and Hadley's bottom has not had nearly as many diaper rashes as other babies which has been a bonus.
