Cloth Diapers

This post isn't going to be what I had intended it to be: a well-researched post listing the pros and cons of various cloth diaper options and seeking out real-life opinions and responses to said research. The real-life opinions are still very much welcome, but I haven't done the research I intended to.

Jen and I decided that despite my mother-in-laws strong favouritisim towards disposables (she cloth diapered but LOVED it when she would get disposables as a gift), we would like to try cloth diapering. Both of us hate the idea of filling a landfill with thousands of our child's diapers. We create enough garbage as it is, if we can reduce the amount by cloth diapering our child, we will try it. Not to mention that cloth diapering is supposedly less expensive and also better for the child in terms of being better for their skin and eventually toilet training.

My sister, who is a bit of a modern-day hippie, was pleased to hear that we were going to try to give cloth diapering a go. She hasn't had children but is very pro cloth diapering. Perhaps needless to say, there's a whole other story to this, but she had a good stash of cloth diapers that she was willing to give us. So we now have:
-11 unbleached MotherEase diapers
-6 bleached MotherEase diapers
-10 waterproof Kushies all-in-ones
-15 cotton Kushies all-in-ones
-3 Kushies covers
-1 gDiaper cover
-2 packages of gDiaper refills
-1 roll of flushable liners
-12 prefolds
All but four of the waterproof Kushies are from her.


It's a good start, but we know we're going to need to increase our stash, and the big question now is, with what? I think we'll definitely buy some MotherEase covers since we have quite a few of their diapers. We've also looked at Bummis, BumGenius, Thirsties, MonkeyDoodlez and gDiapers. I've read some not-so-great reviews of gDiapers so as much as I think they are super-cute and really WANT to like them, I'm quite hesitant. MonkeyDoodlez seem similar to gDiapers, so I'm not so sure about them either. My guess is that we'll end up with at least some of each of the other three options. I like that Thirsties appear to come in smaller sizes (for newborns), and Bummis offers a starter pack that seems quite good, and BumGenius are all-in-ones which seems like it might be easier than the prefolds. There's also Bumkins and about 100 other options out there though, so I really don't know.

Anyone with cloth diapering experience who wants to throw their two cents in would be more than welcome to right now!