Keepin' it in the BANK.

Yep you heard me...
I'm talking about keeping the dollars in the bank... not in the trash.

I've found diaper price charts in my research and it's amazing what can be saved.

Here's the gist over the average of 3 years until baby potty trains (for 1 child):

Cloth Diaper Costs: $500
CD's, detergent, water usage for washing, electricity, cloths line set up, CD wipes, wet bag, and butt spray.

Disposable Diaper Costs: $2,500
DD's, DD wipes, Diaper rash cream, diaper pail, and garbage bags.

---Here's a little broken down math of it---
3 years = 1,095 days
CD- $500 / 1,095 = $.45/day
D- $2,500 / 1,095 = $$2.28/day

---Next step---
Say you have another baby.
3 years = 1,095

CD: $250
Water, electricity, detergent, and butt spray.
$250 / 1,095 = $.22/day

DD: $2,675+ (expecting prices of diapers to go up 6-8% a year through statistics!)
DD's, DD wipes, Diaper rash cream, diaper pail, and garbage bags.
$2,675 / 1,095 = $2.44/day  (add approximately $200/year or $.55/day!)


*In conversation with a friend they told me about their friend who is lower ranked in the military (meaning he doesn't make a lot of money) - and his friends always admired his nice 50 inch TV asking how could he afford it?! The family made a plan that with the saved money from cloth diapering he could buy any TV he wanted!
- My husband is all about those kind of plans!


Next up for me is trying to figure out which type of Cloth Diaper will be best for us and figuring out all those "code names".

Telling the husband...

"Hey hunny, I've been thinking about Cloth Diapering the new baby."
..........
..........
"What about the poop?"

"Well, you wash the diaper in the washing machine"

"What about the poop?"

......I better go look into that! Because he didn't like the idea of just throwing a CD into the washing machine... the same washer that cleans his clothes, lol...

I found something I knew he'd approve of! It's a diaper sprayer... looks like the kitchen sink sprayer and it hooks up into the toilets water line (easy on and off!)- then you just spray the diaper into the toilet and PRESTO! it's clean!

It costs about $45... So I showed it to him...

"Okay.... I want that if we do this."

"The best part about cloth diapering is we're going to save $2000!"

"WHAT?! Why haven't we done this before?"

.........

Sounds like we're going to cloth diaper!

Does anyone even cloth diaper??

The first thing I wanted to know was - Do I even know anyone that cloth diapers?

I was surprised that I did! A few girls from high school, one of which has her very own CD company (check out the Nells Natural Baby link!)! Some other friends and army wives!

Within the next few days of finding this out, I did a Holiday photo shoot for an army family.
And they cloth diaper their baby girl! I was SO excited! We did the photo shoot and then she took me into the babies room and showed me her 'stash'!

They looked much different then I imagined.. very soft and well...fluffy! haha
She showed me all the different kinds.. you know, those AIOs, AI2s, etc...
And after seeing them I know I could do it! It looked much simpler (and way cuter!) then it seemed from all those websites!

The One Sized diapers (OS) are the scariest looking ones with all sorts of buttons! But when you play with them, you see it's really not that bad! The buttons are very misleading, but if you just snap them in a straight line, and adjusted to your baby... badabing! You're baby is now cloth diapered! AND the best thing about these OS... they go from the day baby is born to the day baby is potty trained!



So now- I've met and seen the CD'ers! They do exist AND they have a few more dollars in their pocket because of it!

But my next thought after seeing how cute and knowing some people I could ask questions to....
What about cleaning them?! And immediately following that... What will my husband think?

Old School or New School?

Yeah, I've been thinking about it... Cloth Diapering that is.

I've googled it. Gone to some websites...and got completely LOST.
What  in the heck is an AIO?! AI2? Pocket, prefold, Indian, Chinese, or cover?
Do I have to have all of these?

What's a mom to do? This isn't my first baby...or second.
I've always thought about doing cloth diapers, but knowing nothing about them is scary!
I've heard you can save lots of money... and now that we're an army family expecting our 3rd baby-
we could use extra money!

I've heard the old school tales of having to hand wash them, breaking your back over the sink for hours every other day. Thats not what I want to do! Have cloth diapers changed since my mom or grandma cloth diapered? I hope so!

And with that in mind...
Let the games -or research in my case- begin!