Cloth Blog Hop: How & Why I Started Cloth Diapering

I'm excited to be participating in a blog hop about cloth diapers!  Since one of my goals for 2013 is to write in my blog more often, I thought this was the perfect thing to do.  It is my hope this will help accomplish my goal and help you learn about fluff.

Before I became pregnant, the only thing I knew about cloth diapers was what a lot of the uninformed think of: prefolds and pins.  After I became pregnant, I joined the Children & Family portion of the military support forum I belonged to and saw quite a few posts about cloth diapers.  For the most part, I ignored them.  They were too full of abbreviations I didn't understand and I wasn't too interested. 

Fast forward a few months to baby registry time.  I'm on the website for Babies R Us adding some items to my registry and an advertisement for g Diapers comes up.  It piqued my curiosity.  I did some research and thought they sounded really neat.  I talked to my husband, who had never changed a diaper in his life, about wanting to try cloth diapers.  My request was met with a resounding no.  So our sweet little girl started her life in disposables. 

We fortunately didn't have too many leaks or blowouts and I bought most of my diapers when they were on sale.  But jeepers creepers those things are expensive.  When my daughter was about five months old, I added up the money we had spent on diaper.  At that point I had spent around $300 on diapers alone.  The figure would have been quite a bit higher if I had added in refills for the diaper pail and wipes.  Since my husband would only change Addie's diapers when he was the only one home, I started researching cloth diapers again.

I joined Diaper Swappers and started stalking posts and reading some blogs about cloth diapering.  I came to the conclusion that they looked very simple and it was something I wanted to try.  I searched for websites that offered some sort of money back guarantee and some diapers in my budget.  I found Cotton Babies' website and thought the idea of Flips was pretty neat.  After talking to my mom, who was watching my daughter while I was working, I purchased a Flip Daypack, a package of Rockin' Green detergent, and a trial pack of Econobums.  A few days later I bought 3 BumGenius 4.0s because there was a buy two get one sale at the time.  I figured if I didn't like them, I could always send them back for a refund.

Well, I didn't particularly love the Econobums, but I didn't send anything back.  I fell in love with cloth and now can say that I am a bit addicted to cloth.  My stash no longer consists of either the Flips or Econobums due to a sensitivity to the elastic that Addie later developed, but it slowly grew.

When I first started I was afraid of leaks and fit issues and that I wouldn't find the right washing routine, or that I would hate the diapers.  I guess I got lucky, because in the beginning, I didn't have any problems at all.  Maybe I got lucky, maybe I just did enough homework before I made my first purchase.  Either way, I'm glad I did.  No more stinky disposables going into a landfill.  My daughter has fabric instead of chemicals touching her delicate parts, and ultimately, I am saving money.

It has been almost a year since I started cloth diapering and it is the best decision I think I have made for my daughter so far.  I truly believe that we are saving money and being more green. 

When Why did you start cloth diapering?  How did you come to the conclusion to start?  Are you a blogger and want to link up?  Write your post about how and why you started cloth and go here to link up.