I have yet another review. I am enjoying being able to try more types and brands of diapers. I highly recommend that if you are deciding to cloth diaper that you try as many kinds as possible as this will help you decide what you really like. Then you can go and purchase more of your favorites. So on to the reviews.

Grovia All in One: This is a wonderful night time diaper. It has a snap in soaker so it gives double the absorbency for using all night long. I love that they come in fun prints too. The negatives: they are quite expensive and I very much dislike the side snapping. Very hard to get them snapped shut on my 4 month old.

Charlie Banana: Pocket diaper that is very trim and has a high rise so it works well for long skinny babies. This is the first pocket diaper that I have found that works well for my 4 month old. I love that it comes with two inserts so you can double stuff for more absorbency for night time. Although I only use one insert at this point with no leaks.

So on to my favorite diapers. I am going to say that my favorite diapers for my long skinny 4 month old are Charlie Banana pocket diapers and Thirsties Duo size 1 diaper covers with prefolds. For my 2 year old my favorites are Kawaii pocket diapers and Thirsties Duo size 2 covers with prefolds.

I am going to add some new diaper reviews as I have recently began purchasing more diapers now that I am cloth diapering a 2 year old and an 11 week old.

Sunbaby: pocket diaper, extremely cheap, seem to work well although I do have some leaks with these as they are a bit small for my 2 year old so I would say the weight range is a little off, they supposedly fit from 8-35lbs. I would say more like 10-12lbs and then up to about 30lbs or a little less.

Thirsties all in ones-awesome diaper, nice leg gussets which help to prevent leaks especially on skinny legged babies, aplix/velcro closure

Thirsties cover: awesome cover, nice leg gussets to help prevent leaks, cute patterns available

Alva:pocket diaper, fits my 2 year old quite well, one size adjustable with snaps. I would say these would work well starting at about 12lbs., cheap diaper

So you may be wondering what in the world you do with a cloth diaper after it is used so today I am going to share some of the different options you have.  When a diaper has been soiled with poop you will probably want to rinse it off some how.  You can choose to rinse it in the toilet or to purchase a diaper sprayer to attach to the toilet in order to spray it off.  Up until now I have just rinsed the diapers in the toilet.  To me this is a bit disgusting so my plan is to purchase a diaper sprayer in the near future.  Also, if you have an exclusively breastfed baby you don’t technically have to rinse the diaper at all as breastmilk is water soluble and will just dissolve and rinse away in the washing machine.  The next thing you may want to know is about storing the dirty diapers until the time you are ready to wash them.  There are two methods for this.  The first is to use a wet pail where you fill a pail with water or various other cleaning things and soak the diapers until it is time to wash them.  I personally would not use this method as then you are constantly dealing with dripping wet diapers and you need to touch them to pull them out of the water.  The second method is using a wet bag.  With a wet bag you just throw the diapers into the bag, zip it up, and when it is time to wash you dump everything into the washing machine including the bag.  This is definitely the method I recommend as there are no dripping wet diapers and no need to touch the dirty diapers.  Very simple and easy to use.  You can purchase lots of different brands of bags and lots of different sizes.  We own a Bummis extra large bag, a Planet Wise large bag, and a small wet bag to go in the diaper bag.  I absolutely love the Planet Wise bag as it has a handle that easily slips over the door knob on our bathroom door.  The bag is then stored very close to the toilet where I do my rinsing and stays off the floor.

It has been awhile since I have written a post mainly because I gave up on cloth diapering for a short time as my stomach just couldn’t handle rinsing and washing the diapers while being in the early stages of pregnancy.  Well things are better now that I am just over half way through my pregnancy.  Aleah still absolutely loves wearing her cloth diapers.  She asks for them all the times.  Her favorite is her froggy diaper.  I love that she enjoys being a part of this.

So my current issue with cloth diapering is the smell of the diapers.  I just couldn’t figure out why the diapers were smelling so bad.  So after I little research I decided to try rinsing the diapers on a cold cycle, washing the diapers on the hot cycle with Purex Free and Clear and Oxy Clean Free, then running another wash cycle with nothing in it.  This has seemed to get the smell out for now.  Hopefully it will stay that way.

Today’s post is about the joy of cloth diapering.  Most people think about the hassle or the grossness or the money they could save by cloth diapering.  Today I realized what a joy it can be to cloth diaper.  I was folding Aleah’s diapers this morning and she went to the basket, pulled one out, and handed it to me saying “I missed you” to the diaper.  It was very cute and gave me joy to know that my 20 month old loves her cloth diapers. I hope that you too can find the joy in cloth diapering.

So I am finally back after having some time away to visit with family, having a house with the stomach flu and then having family visit.  I want to take some time to write my initial reviews and impressions of the first diapers we have tried.  So here I go:

Bum Genius All in One-great diaper, no leaks, easy to use(all one piece, no inserts or folding needed, velcro closure

Flip-diaper cover with an insert, no leaks onto clothing, hard to get the adjustable inserts to fit correctly, seems to me like the insert needs to be a little wider, snap closure

Fuzzibunz-adjustable sizing, pocket diaper(stuff insert inside of a pocket on the diaper), easy to use, fits great because of the adjustable length, leg holes, and waist, snap closure,  By far probably my favorite so far.

Bummis-prefold diaper with a cover, covers are very cute with lots to choose from, the leg holes seem rather large for my average size daughter, a few problems with leaking out the leg holes but that is due to them being a bit large for my daughter not because the diaper isn’t made well.

Hemp inserts-great insert to add to any diapers at night or long nap times to prevent leaks.  I added this to the Fuzzibunz diaper and my daughter had no leaks after being in the diaper overnight for a total of 12 hours.

Yesterday was the first day of trying the cloth diapers on Aleah.  Aleah did great in the cloth diapers and they held everything in even the runny poop from the stomach bug that Aleah was battling.  I took her out of the cloth and put her back in disposables due to myself getting the stomach bug and not being able to handle the smell of rinsing out the cloth diapers.  This was a mistake as the disposables did not contain the runny poop at all and I ended up cleaning up puddles of poop off of the floor.  So Day 1 was a huge success and I am beginning to really enjoy cloth diapering.  So today Aleah was once again put in cloth diapers and did great with them again today.  We are back to disposables while I do laundry as I still only have a small stash of diapers. I just purchased some used diapers off of the cloth diaper swap on babycenter.com so tomorrow I will take some time to do some initial reviews and post pictures of the various kinds of cloth diapers.