As I mentioned in my last post, the average baby uses 7,000 diapers before they’re potty-trained. Cloth diapering your baby can save lots of money while saving plastic from clogging our landfills and ocean! But where to start? This post will walk you through the basics.

Pick a Diaper

So, you’ve decided you want to cloth diaper…you’re so awesome! But which diapers do you choose? There are so many choices! My last post, called The 3 Main Types of Cloth Diapers, walks you through the easiest ones to use. You could totally go with the old-fashion cloth diapers that involve cloth origami folding but that’s not my jam.

How Many to Buy?

So, once you’ve figured out what kind you want to buy, how many do you need to purchase? The general guide is that newborns can go through 12 – 15 diapers a day. If you’re switching to cloth diapers and your baby is a little older, then account for one diaper for every two hours the baby is awake and then an overnight diaper.

Next, let’s factor in how often you’ll wash the diapers. Most brands recommend that they are washed within 2 – 3 days. So, if you have a newborn and want to wash every three days, you could need 45 diapers (3 x 15).

Now, if you decided to go with the hybrid or pocket option or basically any option with a removable liner, you could buy less of the water proof covers and reuse those for several diaper changes.

So, again for newborns, you could buy 45 diaper inserts and maybe only 30 diaper covers.

Prep Work

You’ve picked the diapers and bought all that you need. Great start! Some brands recommend pre-washing the diapers several times before use. I’ve seen this with a lot of different diapers and I’m still not sure exactly why. But the basics are that washing them several times somehow increases their absorbency.

Check the package to see if this is necessary for the ones you purchased. If not, just wash them once to remove any remaining chemicals that might have been used in the manufacturing process. Ideally, there were no chemicals used, but just give them a wash so you’re good to go.

Cleaning

Alright, the diapers are clean and ready to use! Now we’re in the weeds.

When removing a wet diaper, rinse out the insert and the cover and ring them dry. I lay the diapers in the sun after doing this. This does a few things; the sun dries the diaper and it sterilizes it. I’ve read that the sun can even help remove stains! After it’s dry, I leave it in my tub until enough has piled up for a load of laundry.

For dirty diapers, gently drop the poop in the toilet and flush. They are several bidet spray attachments available online that make cloth diapering much easier.

If you don’t have a sprayer but your shower hose reaches the toilet, use that! Use the sprayer to rinse the diaper and let the diaper dry. After the diaper is dry, consider having a dedicated “trash bin” with a lid to hold diapers until laundry day.

A member of the Zero Waste Moms Facebook group recently told me about the Spray Pal. This is genius! It makes it easier to spray the diaper clean and ring it out.

Here’s a quick video on how to use it:

Laundry

Depending on how many diapers your little one goes through and how many diapers you purchased, you’ll probably end up doing diaper laundry every few days.

Just pop the diapers into the washer and wash like any other laundry. Be sure to use detergent that’s made for sensitive skin that’s free from harsh chemicals. If you’re trying to be eco-friendly and wash your clothes in cold water, awesome! But for cloth diapers, you want to make sure they are seriously clean, so use hot water!

Also, DO NOT use homemade soaps. Soaps are not detergent, and they will gunk up your diapers…that’s the last thing you and your baby need!

Now, I’ve heard from many moms that they do two washes or one deep wash. After one or two loads of diaper laundry you’ll figure out what works for you and the specific diapers you purchased.

After washing, you can either dry them in the dryer or hang dry them in the sun. Either way, the extra heat and/or UV helps to sterilize the diapers.

Extra Tips

For overnight diapers, I add an extra insert so that it’s extra absorbent.

If you’re still not sure you want to commit 100% to cloth diapering, why not try just overnight at first? After your baby gets passed a certain age, there’s generally no poop overnight and this is a great way to test some diapers before committing!

What do you think? Are you interested in cloth diapering? If you already do, what are some of your best tips? Tell me in the comments!

For related and random posts, check out:

• 5 Tips for Plastic-Free Laundry
• Plastic-Free Birthday Parties for Kids