This post has been upcycled, it was old and we’ve made it new again! It’s full of great info on frugal diapering and we hope you’ll take the time to read it. The message is still very valid, and we often link this article to customers asking for ways to save $$ in cloth diapers.
My cloth diaper journey started in 2003 with my first daughter, Abby (who let me steal her name for our store), and for some time I was diapering on a very tiny budget, the “groceries or diapers” kind. I started with my youngest brother’s 24 year old Gerber prefolds, pins and rubber pants from walmart. I hated pins. Hated, hated, hated them..( I know many of you like using pins, don’t throw a rotten tomato at me just yet ) I have a picture of Abby in a pinned prefold I did, it was so loose I relied on her pants to hold it and the cover up. I was very ready to give up, the leaks were awful (every diaper change), and my fingers were bloody from the *&*^% pins. An online friend suggested trying a “Snappi”…I took the plunge, then proraps and finally some chinese prefolds (indian were just starting to come on the scene back then). The difference was immediate, and I caught a wave of “I-can-do-this!”
It is funny how none of this would have come to be if not for that Snappi….
We diapered her that way for some time, every few paychecks I would snag a few dollars and get a pocket for nighttime. My second daughter was a mix of prefolds and pockets, bumGenius came out when she was a baby with their first version (the 1.0 white nylon pocket for the veterans here!), and I had the store at that point and could try a few more things. With each baby I have been able to increase my stash, but it doesn’t mean I forgot what I did, what I HAD to do with my first and second to make sure we could pay the bills on time.
Gerber prefolds are cheap, can be bought at the grocery store and certainly can work. She always had to be doubled up, nighttime was 3 and still being changed every few hours to prevent leaks. Same can be said for today’s Indian prefolds that I love and use, they last a long time, and you can diaper with them from birth to potty training for around 200 dollars, including covers and snappis. If your baby is a heavier wetter and you have prefolds, double them up! Fold one like a business letter, lay it in the middle of the second, when you lay the baby in, flip the trifolded middle piece up over their belly, then wrap the second prefold around them. You have just made two prefolds give your baby 30 layers of cotton in the middle. For this style, you will have to upsize the cover, but it will still work.
I also would use old rags, handtowels and washcloths to boost absorbency. I started with enough diapers to almost get me through the day, so I ran tiny loads of laundry every day to keep up until i could afford more prefolds. Using washcloths, handtowels and cutting/sewing the edges on old bath towels got me through the day of laundry. Don’t have a sewing machine? Roll the edges of a cut handtowel and hand-sew the edges with a whip stitch, it holds and is easy and quick to do. If your baby is sensitive to wetness, go to your local fabric store, you can get a half a yard of scrap fleece for about 2-3 dollars. Cut them into 5 x 15 rectangles, no sewing needed, and lay one in with each prefold. Lay it in the middle, lay the baby down, flip up the liner over their belly then wrap the prefold around, otherwise the liner gets wrapped up in the prefold and is useless. If you are looking at a budget of 20-30 dollars, invest in 2 snappis and some covers, and then work with towels and rags you have in your house. If you can makeshift something to absorb, you can rely on a good cover to keep it in and contained.
I look at Abby’s baby pictures and giggle, she was a tiny, tiny petite child and her diaper was HUGE! LOL-put a handtowel in a gerber prefold with a snappi on a 13 pound 6 month old and a medium cover over it, watch what happens.
Bottom line, it works, and I think I spent maybe 75 dollars on her entire first year of diapering. We would have done that in disposables in less than two months. Those prefolds she used I had in use until my third daughter, they finally wore out during her baby-hood. The worst feeling in the world when you are tight on cash, is looking in a disposable diaper pail when your child has “cluster pooped” and you see that you have just gone through 7 disposables in a 2 hour period when you thought they were done and they just kept going, the best feeling is looking in a cloth diaper pail and seeing 7 prefolds that will be washed by morning and ready to use again.
Some cheap accessory ideas:
- Wipes: wipes can be expensive and a pain to wash/dispose of. The best cloth wipes for newborns are going to be small and thin for their little nooks and crannies, especially for baby girls. Big thick wipes won’t do the job, and the best newborn wipes can be baby washcloths. Usually at your baby shower you get 30 packs of washcloths, and end up needing 4-5 during the week to actually bathe your baby. Use the rest for cloth diaper wipes! At wal mart or the dollar store, you can get a 5 pack for around a dollar, so you can build your stash of wipes for 5-6 dollars. For my oldest daughter we used these through her toddler years, you need more per changing then the bigger thicker wipes, but they do the job and will last for years. You don’t need essential oils or wipe recipes, plain old water is the best for any age of cleaning
- I would say 99% of babies will need fleece liners at some point in their diapering years. Whether for nighttime dryness, or to be able to use diaper creams, fleece liners are needed. You can make your own for 2-3 dollars, go to your local fabric store and buy a yard of scrap fleece, the kind doesn’t matter. Or, sometimes big box stores will sell cheap fleece throws at the 2-3 price point, and you can cut them up. Rectangles of 5 x 15 inches, no sewing needed as it won’t fray.
- Diaper Sprayer: Get your husband or partner to dunk/swish, pretty cheap method, fail proof and be used anywhere
The biggest challenge to frugal diapering is the toddlers and nighttime heavy wetters, but surely generations before us did it with success, we can, too, right? Absolutely! Much of this will tie back into prefolds/layering. If you have any sewing skills and access to a machine, this will come in handy. Being able to sew flannel layers from old receiving blankets is invaluable, if you can sweet talk your mother or mother in law into doing this for you, even better.
Flannel is cotton, is very durable and easy to wash. It also provides good absorbency, and is super trim. Making inserts out of lots of layers is easy and cheap to do. If you don’t/can’t sew, you can whip stitch by hand the same thing, it will just take longer and not be as neat, just keep folding the flannel onto itself and finish the edges, you can do this to two stacks and then sew them together. Sandwich these in your prefolds, or behind the prefolds held in place by the cover for extra core absorbency.
For nighttime your homemade fleece liners we discussed earlier will help provide a stay dry feeling for your baby is he is sensitive to wetness. If you go to any thrift shop you can get old wool sweaters for a few dollars. These can be cut and sewn into wool soakers, if you google “recycled wool sweater soakers” you will get a bajillion links on how to sew your own, many with free patterns. Wool is invaluable for heavy wetters and breatheable covers, and easy wool care can be found here (you can use dish soap to clean in a pinch and lansinoh from nursing for lanolin if you have it on hand):
http://www.abbyslane.com/Cloth-101_ep_42-1.html#Q17
Email us at AbbysLane@aol.com with questions! And thank you to Snappi Baby for making all if this a reality 🙂 If I had to point the finger to one reason I cloth diapered, started a little store and have been able to help families in the past 8 years on their journey, the Snappi would be that reason 🙂
Thanks for reading!
Stephanie, Abby’s Lane
LOVE this!!!! I CD on a budget, and I LOVE prefolds and snappis! I’ve tried pockets, AIO’s, AI2’s… and I will stick to good ol fashioned easy to clean (and pretty trim compared to pockets) prefolds!!! And I NEVER feel guilty changing my LO as soon as I think he’s DAMP! (can’t say that about a sposie, we had to use them on vacation, and I WASTED them! I feel bad for kids I see who’s diapers are to their knees soaked with HOURS old pee because they are too expensive to change too often!) But keep in mind my CDing mama’s… this adventure is NOT for everyone. I’ve unintentionally offended a few friends with my overzealous CDing spiel!
One thing I’ve discovered to make cheap inserts is microfiber cleaning cloths! Home improvement stores sell packs of 24 for $10, and it takes only 2 or 3 to make an insert for a pocket diaper, or you could fold one or two in thirds and lay a piece of fleece over it to use as extra absorbency in a prefold. I washed them several times to get the chemicals out, but they work really well and are super cheap.
Thank you! I am doing cloth diapering for the first time on my third child. It’s been 10 years since I’ve had a baby, and I am very excited, but I need all the help I can get. A friend told me about your website and you have helped me so much already.
Heather Mills
Bangor, Maine
Thank you for recycling this post. I so wanted to cloth diaper my son, but the start up seemed so expensive at the time and we just had too many other things to purchase for baby. Looking back now I was still working so we had two incomes and I should have splurged on the fancy diapers before baby was born but quite honestly there were too many options I just couldn’t decide. So I too have started the same way you did and my stash is building up. It has been really fun to try all different types of diapers and I still use my prefolds (indian cotton) on a daily basis. I also use the dunk/soak in toilet method but dream of a sprayer 😉 I have made all of my cloth wipes out of hand me down recieving blankets and those have been amazing. I will be passing this along to my friends who are interested in cloth but intimidated by the intial cost or upkeep.
Thanks for the inspiration and your wonderful store!
Thank you thank you thank you. A thousand times thank you! I have learned more in the last 30 minutes on your site than I have in the 7 months that I have been procrastinating on getting started because there were so many options and alternatives. Started today, using prefolds, and now feel like I can actually do this! Did I say thank you??
I love snappis! It took me about a week to get the hang of doing it without “snapping” myself….lol….but once I got the hang of it I was a pro. It is so much easier than pins.
This is a great article. It seems like a momma can get carried away oohing and aahing over all the options available today. I do at times.
I also started CDing in 2003 and it was also for the sole reason of saving money. My amazing midwife started me off though. She had just a few fitteds, prefolds and covers stashed away from a mama who was thinking about starting a store and never got around to it so the mama gave them to my midwife and my midwife gave them to me. I bought DSQ Gerber prefolds from a box store and re-washed the covers over and over again.
I also began learning how to knit so I could make some wool covers. I never got the hang of it with my first CD’d child but I can do it now. My latest baby has about 6 hand knit wool covers waiting for her. I just need to lanolize them with some Lansinoh. I think I may knit a few more. I also have a couple of wool and a lovely angora wool sweater to sew into a butt sweater. Those are going to be SO comfy for my baby girl. 🙂
It’s nice to read about another mama having to save money while CDing. Knowing there are other mamas out there doing it for the cost savings makes me feel less deprived.lol. Really though I’ve been so blessed. My mom keeps sending me money to buy baby essentials so the first thing I did was buy diapers and covers. I’m going to try flats this time around along with the prefolds. I threw in a few fancy AIOs and pockets just for fun and so I could say I tried that brand. 🙂
VERY good article!! I have BTDT & started CD much the same way. My only dilemma using PF as baby gets bigger is that they are so bulky my babies are bow legged so I try to save them for naps when they won’t be trying to craw, cruise, & walk. My kiddos grow super fast so they are in premiums at 2-3 months old, which are pretty bulky… & tri-folding the PF and laying it in the cover does not work for my DC. Again, great article!!