So I posted a few days ago about my actual cloth diapering system, and I wanted to share what I would love to have, if I had the space.

Basically, I would try to have about 30 one-size diapers with inserts. I’m currently making myself about 20 while making 60 for friends, but if I had another baby, I would need more than 20, because newborns need more than 18 month olds!

I would also make it my goal to have mostly wool diaper covers, because I think they are much cuter than plain white covers, which is all I could afford at this point. The wool ones take about one skein (that’s one bundle of yarn for all you non-yarnies) of 100% wool yarn, which usually cost $6 at Joann or more at a specialty yarn store. This can get expensive and time consuming (if you’re the one knitting them), considering the total cost of ONE PUL cover (that’s the fabric the covers are made of) is about $4.75, and the time involved in making the fabric covers is about 20-30 minutes, while the wool ones take a few days (hey, they’re knit!). But the benefit of wool is that they absorb liquid, which means that they take longer to leak, and they can be made into pants or shorts as well, which eliminates extra layers. And did I mention how cute they can be? So cute. I just made a black and red striped pirate-y looking wrap for Alex.

I would love to have a changing table, not for the changing, but for the stuff. I’d get cute little wicker baskets to place everything in, neatly organized. I would have a string with clothespins on it to hang the wraps to dry between changes, draped across the changing table front or side. This is one thing I’m trying to figure out how to do right now, because our wraps never seem to get totally dry between changes.

I would get a better diaper pail, the one I have is okay, but it’s falling apart, and I think one with a simple lid (like our trash cans) would work a little better. At this point, I’m just going to hang on to it, since Alex will probably not be in diapers for too much longer, hopefully, and it has lasted us nearly 5 years at this point.

I’d get a sprayer for the bathroom toilet (like a bidet), so that we can spray off the dirty diapers, which makes cleaning a little easier for the washing machine. I would also love to get some proper wool wash so I don’t have to go through 12 steps washing our wool covers every time. This gets complicated. Right now I use Woolite and then I have to put lanolin on the covers again to keep them from leaking (that’s important!), but with Eucalan wash, it has lanolin in it, so you can wash them and lanolize at the same time. The process is much shorter!

I really like how I’m doing things at this point, there are only a few things I would improve, but one of the biggest things I would dare to dream of improving is our water quality. It seems at this point that it takes a lot of work to wash the diapers, and our water has a lot to do with that. I think getting a water filtration system would be beneficial in many ways, not just diaper/laundry washing, but alas, it is rather expensive, and we don’t really *need* to do it.

Overall, I think we’ve spent WAY less on diapers than we could have with disposables, and I really want to encourage anyone thinking about having a baby to at least educate yourself on what cloth diapering IS and ISN’T. It’s much more fun and easy now than it was when our parents had it as an option.

**as an aside, another alternative to disposable diapers (or in conjunction with cloth) is Elimination Communication or Infant Potty Training. Believe it or not, most of the rest of the world doesn’t even use diapers! In fact, it is only in the last 60 years or so that any people have not potty trained children under the age of 2. Yes, there’s a history of toilet training! There are some great books out there about working with your children on potty training very early, and NO, it’s not an “all or nothing” sort of thing. You don’t have to do all cloth, all potty training, or all disposables. I know there are some people who combine all three, and it is what works best for your family that matters, not what some book tells you to do.