Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I've been using the BumGenius cloth diapers for 3 months now and I LOVE THEM!! I'll never go back to buying disposable diapers like I did with my first two children and I wish I had discovered these when my first two were in diapers. My first two kids had terrible diaper rashes that we just could not get rid of even after changing diaper and wipe brands and changing diapers frequently. Now with my third baby and using only these cloth diapers with disposable Pampers sensitive wipes, WE HAVEN'T HAD THE FIRST DIAPER RASH! I purchased soft bamboo wash cloths to use as reusable wipes if the sensitive disposable wipes caused rashes, but so far they haven't and I don't mind paying for them. Honestly, I was a little reluctant to start using cloth diapers and was nervous I'd be grossed out, but it's very easy and I feel so relieved to be rid of the diaper rashes! I'm exclusively breastfeeding my third baby as I did with my first two kids, and the fun fact is that I don't rinse off her diapers before putting them in the wash! Breastfed baby poop is water soluble!! I purchased 24 BumGenius cloth diapers and I find that's the perfect number for me. We do laundry every other day and I have never run out of diapers. Here are some tips and tricks for cloth diapering: 1. If you're exclusively breastfeeding your little one (before foods are introduced), just put the cloth diapers into a small pail or trash can next to your changing table. See my picture. Next to our changing table I have a baby-clothes-only basket next to 2 small trash cans. One is for cloth diapers and the other is for disposable wipes. When the cloth diaper trash can is full, I take the can to my laundry room, shake out the inserts and drop both the insert and cover into the washing machine (I have a top loading machine). Then I put in a half a scoop of Country Save powder detergent. I read several reviews and decided on Country Save powder detergent bought here on Amazon and I've never had any trouble with buildup residue and the diapers come out clean. See the attached picture of the effect dirty diapers have on these cloth diapers. You barely see any staining! Just a little bit of discoloration on the pocket and in the elastic creases. (Tip: Leave the Country Save detergent boxes inside the shipping box in your laundry room because the powder tends to leak through the box!) Once solid foods are introduced, you'll need to shake off solids into your toilet and flush it away, then you can put your cloth diapers into the pail you normally use. 2. Here's my laundry room routine. Shake or pull the inserts out, drop in the covers, add 1/2 scoop of Country Save powder detergent to the top of the diapers, select hot water wash and the extra rinse option. My top-loader has a setting for "extra rinse" and I always select that option with every wash I do. Easy Peazy! 3. I "strip" my cloth diapers once a month (according to my baby's birthday to make it easy to remember). What I do is add about 1/4 cup of bleach to the wash when I wash and do the extra rinse at the end. That's it! I've never had any diaper rashes, the diapers have never had a smell of any kind, and they look clean! 4. I line-dry my covers and put the inserts only into my dryer. Line-drying will help make your cloth diaper elastic last longer, so I've read. See my picture but I've repurposed the plastic clip hangers you get from shopping and buying pants. I just clip a cloth diaper to each one and hang them on our door casing! I've dried the inserts this way also, but when I have several diapers to wash, I don't have enough clip hangers to also hang the inserts to dry. My line-dried covers are always dry within 12 hours. 5. I usually "stuff" the diapers at night after my kids have gone to bed while I'm sitting on the sofa watching TV. It doesn't take that long to put the inserts into the pocket on the cloth diaper either. Just a few minutes and you're done. I keep a basket of ready-to-go cloth diapers next to our changing pad. (See picture.) It's just as easy to cloth diaper your baby as it is to use disposable diapers and they work better than disposables in my experience. 6. If for some reason your baby does get a diaper rash, make sure you use something safe for cloth diapers. Normal over-the-counter creams SHOULD NOT BE USED with cloth diapers since it's nearly impossible to wash them out. If you notice, next to my basket of CDs is a jar of organic coconut oil. Do your own research but I've read that it's safe for baby bums and cloth diapers. No-one in my family has any nut allergies either. While I've only used the coconut oil to get rid of my baby's cradle cap, I'd definitely use it on her bum if it started to get red. 7. I mainly have the BumGenius 4.0 cloth diapers but I did buy a couple 5.0 diapers to see if I could tell any difference. The 5.0 diapers are more expensive and I could not tell a difference between the 4.0 and 5.0 pocket cloth diapers. I laid a 4.0 insert on top of a 5.0 insert and they were identical. Also, the covers appear identical. If you can, I'd stick with the 4.0 diapers and save that extra money. 8. Before our baby was 8 pounds and big enough to wear a cloth diaper, I did use disposable diapers (especially for the dark meconium right after she was born). According to BumGenius, once your baby reaches 8 pounds they can wear the cloth diapers. I found this to be true with our baby. 9. For the first 2 months of our baby's life, we used the smaller insert that came with the BumGenius pocket cloth diaper. I had one wet leak accident but that's because I didn't stuff the diaper correctly; the insert was in there crooked. And poo messes were always completely contained! That means I have less special-treatment laundry to remove poo stains from her clothes! Now we use the bigger insert and they still work perfectly. You'd think that the big inserts would make her clothes fit weird or too tight, but that's not the case. She can still wear her tights, onesies, and PJs with no problem. It's just a little bit of an extra cushion on her bum. 10. FINALLY, here are some great reasons to consider cloth diapering. It keeps disposables out of the land fill, you're self-sufficient and never run out of diapers, they save you money in the long run since you can reuse the same ones until your baby is potty trained and even with future kids, and for us anyway, we've never had a diaper rash! I find they are just as easy as disposables, but you never run out...even with 24 cloth diapers like I have! I hope this review has helped a mom decide to cloth diaper. Good luck! UPDATE: Our little one is turning 4 months old and I've noticed some "compression leaks" while using the large insert. A compression leak means she was a heavy wetter and the large insert leaked urine onto her clothes when she sat down or otherwise "compressed" the insert. I'm going to try doubling up with the newborn insert that came with the diapers and if that doesn't work, I've heard good things about the Thirsties hemp inserts. I'll write another update as I go through this experience. I still LOVE my cloth diapers and haven't noticed any of them wearing out or the PUL cracking. I hope I get a lot of great use out of these!! UPDATE: Our little one is now 6 months old and I haven't had any compression leaks since I started using both the inserts! And still, they're not too bulky for her clothes, but she does have a noticeably rounder rump. I don't have any issue with this, though. Also, I wanted to wait a full 6 months before writing this in the review, but my cloth diaper covers don't have any stains on them and look brand new! What I do is fill a large pot half-way with water (my designated diaper pot from now on), crank the heat to high, and take it off the stove when the water is at a low simmer. I don't bring the water to a boil but as soon as I see steam coming up I'll take the pot off the heat. Then I'll take my large pot of hot water to the laundry room, put about 1/4 - 1/2 a cup of Oxi Clean inside (it will bubble up and expand so that's why you don't want to fill your pot to the top. My first time it was like a volcano exploded and I was cleaning up the mess!) and then I'll put my cloth diaper covers inside with a long wooden spoon and stir them around. If there are poo stains in the elastic creases, I'll use the spoon to hold down the diaper in the water but pull the diaper so the elastic stretches and the oxi clean water gets into the creases. I put all my stained cloth diaper covers into the pot (after they are "clean" from a normal wash) and I'll let them soak for 5-10 minutes. Then, even if they still look a tad stained after the soak, I'll pour the whole pot of water and diapers into my top-loading washer and turn on a hot wash and extra rinse...no soap added. My cloth diapers have come out just as white as the day I bought them every time! I waited to write this in the review because I wanted to be SURE that the PUL lining on the inside of the cloth diapers didn't crack or start to deteriorate. I haven't noticed any cracking or deterioration of the PUL lining!! So if you want your cloth diapers to look like new every time, definitely go the Oxi Clean with simmering water route like I do! I'm not embarrassed to show others her cloth diapers because they still look brand new! Plus, STILL NO DIAPER RASHES AT 6 MONTHS OLD! (See pictures of how I clean my stains out.) Getting the stains out is an extra step, but I figure you’d be doing the de-staining regardless. With my first two kids, I was getting stains out of baby clothes because the disposable diapers failed. In my opinion, it’s better to be getting stains out of diapers that actually CONTAINED the poo messes. Also, I remember having to change the crib sheets often with my first two kids because their night time diapers couldn’t handle it, but with these cloth diapers, I’ve never had any leaks at night! And after I started using both inserts, we haven’t had any leakage AT ALL! It’s a relief to go out in public and not have to worry about bringing an extra outfit!