Starting the quest for Cloth Diapers

I am recently on a quest for finding the best type of cloth diaper for my 20 month son. Some people may view this as a late transition, but "better late then never!" Right?  :)

My main reasons for switching to cloth is; save money in the long run, less stinky garbage in home, less garbage in landfills, and we love trying new things! Well its not really "new" being that people have done this for thousands of years, but newer to our culture!

So I have been up since 3:30 am, I can't fall back asleep because my poor little Bull Frog (20 month old son) has a really bad diaper rash, to the point he was screaming bloody murder when wiping and washing his bum, and I can't get it off of my mind (also the 6 month old baby is non-stop kicking my bladder and my stomach is growling!)

 Today was the first day we tried resuable diapers (Charlie Banana) and I wondered was this the reason he has a diaper rash??? I thought re-usable diapers prevented them?? As I read more and more I am learning that a lot of children are sensitive to polyester/ micro fleece linings, so I am thinking that maybe this is the reason?? Not 100% sure so please don't knock off these types of materials. I am however learning that Cotton and hemp materials are the way to go. Some helpful websites for me are below...

Natural V.S Synthetic

Diaper Pin Forum and website

Guide to Eco Friendly Cloth Diapers

So, as I get more info I will add it here and hope this helps any other newbies to reusable diapers, please leave any comments or advice below! Thank you!

UPDATE: Okay so its been about a week, and I figured the diaper rash was probably from his very liquidy bowel movement that day (or possibly liner which I haven't used again yet). I read that Coconut oil helps and is safe for cloth so I ran to my local healthy market; Matter of Health and bought some Nutiva Organic Coconut oil. So far so good! And it smells great! Oh and I purchased ECOS laundry detergent to wash the diapers in, its the only one I could find locally on a list of approved detergents for cloth diapers AND for a front loading HE washing machine.

Since last week I have ordered pre folded cloths 6x8x4 from amazon (which i still need to get a cover for because they are a bit too big for the Charlie Banana pocket diapers we have.)

We also did a home made diaper sprayer that we got the idea from another user on Diaper pin forum, and we found a video on you tube on how to make one. This ended costing about $25 instead of $45 on Amazon.

I am not crazy about spraying the poop on the toilet, it takes a little practice to get the whole routine down and keep everything sanitary. Doing home child care makes one very super sanitary! But I did find another video on cleaning poop on you tube! Love you tube! If you skip to the last section of the video she shows how to clean a messier poop (with out the liner). My little Bull Frog is mostly a messy pooper so its not as easy with him! But this video does help!

Okay, so until next time!

CLOTH DIAPER MEET-UP HELPFUL WEBSITE HANDOUT 

Helpful Websites

Forum (talk to other parents) Product reviews, Diaper Swapping, How to’s, blog

http://www.diaperpin.com/home.asp 

Forum, Diaper Swapping, great place to talk to other parents on many topics

http://www.diaperswappers.com/ 

Resuable Diaper Guide: Lots of helpful information (created by soft bums brand so a bit biased) 

http://www.softbums.com/assets/Reusable-Diaper-Information-Booklet.pdf 

Sewing Patterns 

http://www.cheekydiapers.com/Free-Cloth-Diaper-Sewing-Patterns.html 

www.YouTube.com: Great place to see different types of folds for flats and pre folds as well as reviews for all types of diapers.