What do you need to get started cloth diapering? See our full cloth diaper set up – from the diapers to the sprayer – in this post!
Mike is the man in charge of our cloth diapering, so I turned this video over to him 🙂
Our diapers
We use bumGenius 4.0s. This is a one-size diaper, meaning that it grows with your child from newborn right up to potty training.
We’ve got 24 of them, which lets us go four or even five days at a time before we need to wash them.
In our opinion, these are the best cloth diapers out there.
The bin
Most of the time when we change our son’s diapers, they’re just wet. In which case, we just dump them in the bin. (If you’re wondering about diaper rash and safe creams for cloth diapers check here.)
This bin is made by simpleHuman. It’s hands free and does a fine job of containing any stank.
We love most of the Simplehuman products.
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The bin liner
Inside the bin we’ve got this liner, which is waterproof and also helps contain the smell.
We own two of these colorful liners, and we wash one every time we do diaper laundry.
w00t.
The sprayer
The lynchpin of our cloth diapering setup is this sprayer. It attaches easily to your toilet’s water supply, you don’t need a plumber or anything to install it. Got a little holder up here to contain the nozzle.
When you’ve got a poopy diaper, you turn on the water with this valve here, then spray down into the toilet to clean your diaper. Takes a few times to get the hang of it so you don’t spray the heck out of yourself. But this is poopy water we’re talking about, so you learn pretty quick.
Bac-Out
Almost as important as the sprayer is the Bac-Out. This is a natural, non-toxic, biodegradable spray with enzymes and whatever to help eat up odors and stains.
After I rinse a diaper, I’ll give it a few sprays of Bac-Out and drop it in the bin.
Done deal.
UPDATE: We’ve stopped using Bac Out or any similar spray. Just found that we didn’t need it, and that our washing machine and detergent got out all the funk on its own.
Laundry Time
When we’re down to a few clean diapers, it’s time to do a load. So we wheel the bin out to our high-efficiency washer and load it up. This is the nastiest part of the process, because I reach into each dirty diaper and pull out the insert before throwing them in. And these are diapers that have been marinating in pee for several days. But it only lasts a minute or two, so no biggie.
We use Method laundry detergent, because it’s natural and you don’t need to use much.
Then we do the load on “heavy duty” wash.
After the wash, we dry the inserts in the machine, and hang the liners on this bamboo clothes rack.
The inserts are super-absorbent, so you’ve got to dry them for a cycle and a half, or even two. And the liners dry quickly, in half a day or so.
That’s it
So that’s our cloth diapering setup. We’ve been at it now for about 8 months and got it down to a science, to the point where it really isn’t a big bother in our lives at all. And the benefits of cloth diapering are tremendous.
Interested in getting started with cloth diapers?
Here’s everything you need to know, including all the types of diapers, how many you need to buy, just how much they save you, and more. Enjoy!
What does YOUR cloth diaper setup look like?
