Adventures into Cloth Diapering : How to choose?

Hindsight being 20/20 I feel like I have good advice on how to find the right diaper for you and your little one.  Advice that I was given but did not follow but wish I did. Finding the "right" diaper is one of the harder parts of cloth diapering.  It is pretty hard to find stores that have cloth diapers so you can actually look at them so mostly, you will end up buying them online through Buy/Sell/Trade boards like  Diaper Swappers or through retailers.

Word to the wise..Do not..let me repeat..DO NOT just spend 100$ on one type of diaper you have never tried or seen. Yep, I did this and seriously regretted it. I highly recommend Googleing " Cloth Diaper Trial Programs" or you can visit this link from Diaper Swappers, Cloth Diaper Trial List.

This is how the trials typically work.  You place a deposit and they send you the diapers listed.  You keep them for a specified time ( 21-30 days typically) and return the ones you don't want, all of them or none of them.  They refund you per the agreement. Tip: make sure that who ever you pick refunds in cash and not store credit. I mean what good does store credit to a cloth diaper store do you if you decide you don't want to cloth diaper! 

These trials come in handy so you can find out what you like or don't like about a particular style of diaper or if your child (like mine) has sensitive skin and can't use a particular material.  I will give you my sob story of CDing.

I researched several brands but not nearly enough and decided I wanted to go with Cotton Babies. They sell Eco Bum, Flips, BumGenius ect...They were having a wonderful sale and if you know me I can't turn down a sale! So, I decided I would buy the Flip system.  This required me to buy Flip shells and inserts. I bought 6 shells and 12 micro fiber inserts. I stalked my mail man daily waiting for my fluff mail to arrive.  The day it got here I followed the prepping instructions and put my first cloth diaper on my daughter. I have never been so excited to change a poopy diaper in my life! I was super impressed. Her bottom was nice and dry and the system was very easy to use.....That was day 1. Day 2 I noticed that she had a redness to her skin that was the same shape of the insert. I made sure I was placing it in her shell correctly because one side cannot touch the skin because it will dry it out. I was placing it on her correctly but the redness continued to get worse. Day 3 I was worried and I Googled " Redness with microfiber inserts". Very quickly I realized she was sensitive/allergic to the microfiber!  I did a sorta patch test by laying her back on the insert and within minutes she had a red square on her back. I just spent 100$ on diapers my daughter couldn't use! Lucky me I had found a buy/sell/trade board for cloth diapers and I was able to sell the inserts (for less then what I paid) and repurchased natural cotton inserts instead.

The point of me tell you this is to say that had I listened to my friends that told me to do the trial package I would have figured this out with out loosing money which was the reason I wanted to cloth diaper..to save money not lose it!

So, try a few out..find out if you love aplix or snaps..If you are a all-in-one kinda girl or if you love pockets.  Find out if you love a particular brand or style and you can't do that if you don't try them...

Go out there have fun! Love your fluffy mail and love those fluffy butts!

Next...we will go over washing those lovely diapers!

My Stash of BGE's, Flip and Flip Organic Inserts!