Question about cloth diapers.

**malice** · 10-21-2006, 07:33 AM

I hope I'm posting this in the right area, please let me know if I'm not.

I'm wondering if anyone here has done cloth diapering while living in an apartment building. I'm wondering how many loads a week of diapers would you wash? It's $3.00/load to do the laundry here in the building. I was lucky enough with my first to have been given a cloth diaper service subscription as a gift, but now there's no local service, so that's out for this one.

Thanks!

**caledoniaquine** · 10-21-2006, 08:37 AM

Isnt that a bit exepnsive for a load of washing.

maybe you would be better buying a portable washing machine something like this.

[ame="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hinari-WM005-Lifestyle-Compact-Machine/dp/B0002HDM5Q"]Hinari WM005 Lifestyle Compact Table Top Washing Machine White: Amazon.co.uk: Kitchen & Home[/ame]

**emily_hope** · 10-21-2006, 08:41 AM

That does seem expensive to wash a load of clothes. I used cloth diapers, but had my own machine. It's been so long ago, I have no idea how many loads I washed a week, but with it being $3 for you, you would definitely want to wait until you had a big load.

**frugalnana** · 10-21-2006, 09:07 AM

I used cloth diapers on my kids. But its been 23 years since the last one. But I do remember we had a washer only and lived so far from the base. I think thats when frugal bug really hit. We had German landlords and the lady was so nice she taught me alot of stuff also. But anyway back to the diapers. I had a scrub board and a large bucket. So if it was number two I held the diaper over the toilet and flushed holding the diaper, then put it in the bucket with dreft and a little bleach, the next day. I filled the tub with hot water and put the diapers in and soaked and then used the scrub work to get them clean and then hung them out to dry or in the winter hung them in the basement where I had a clothes line. The regular clothes I just washed in the washer and hung them up.

Three dollars doesn't sound like a bad price, but I would make sure you had a full load.

**malice** · 10-22-2006, 05:22 AM

Thanks for the answers everyone. What I'm trying to figure out at this point is if doing the loads of cloth diapers will be more or less than just buying packages of disposables. I imagine I'll probably get a lot of packages as gifts, as I have grandparents scrambling to buy everything under the sun for the kid already, but after I'm done with those, it's ultimately going to be us paying for the diapers. It's been so long since I had the first (seven years) I don't even recall how many diapers I used in a day.

**KatieInLa2** · 10-22-2006, 10:55 AM

Hi Malice, my grandmother used to live in an apt without a washer/dryer. She used a 5-gal plasctic bucket and a new toilet plunger in her bathtub to wash her clothers and then hung them to dry or carried the wrung out clothes to the dryer. The plunger made a good agitator and her clothers all came out nice and clean.

**Telephus44** · 10-22-2006, 04:26 PM

I live in an apartment and our laundry is $3.00 per load, too. Sometimes we'll bring laundry when we visit my parents or his parents, just to save a little bit.

We received 8 packages of diapers when our son was born, and we still have 3-1/2 packages left. I did some research and bought my own cloth diapers off of eBay (I paid around $130 for 32 AIO diapers, including shipping). My son was born 3 weeks early and is still too small for the cloth ones, so we're planning on using the disposables for as long as they hold out and then hoping that the cloth ones will fit. Since we have hook-ups for a washer/dryer in our apartment we're planning on buying a washer and just air-drying the diapers. We started planning for the washer in June and we should have one by the end of the year.

If we continued to use our laundry room and pay $3/load - I figure that we use about 8 diapers per day. If I can get 24 diapers in one load (this is a rough estimate just looking at the size of the diapers) then I'd be paying $7 per week to wash them (plus whatever you want to figure for laundry detergent - I'm using regular detergent, not the special baby stuff on his clothes and he doesn't mind - I pay around $2 per bottle and each bottle lasts me about 6 months, so I figure it's really negligable). A package of disposables, if you assume one package per week, runs around $9 here if you can get a name brand on sale at the grocery/drug store. Since I wasn't planning on using disposables, I haven't priced out generics or how much they are at the local warehouse club store.

**Emjo** · 10-22-2006, 07:16 PM

I cloth diaper my son, and for the first 7 weeks we were in an apartment. The thing about cloth diapers is, they get wet a lot quicker than disposables so you have to wash them more often. At 7 months I still have to change my son every 2-3 hours when he's in cloth. Also, if you plan on using them at night you need to have doublers, and preferably a wool cover. (I'm not trying to discourage you, as I love cloth!)

They recommend only washing 2 dozen dipes at a time. When my guy was a newborn, I probably washed diapers every 2-3 days; now it's every 4 days. When we were in the apartment I would use the machine to wash and then hang them out on the balcony to dry. This saved $$$, and the sun is great for killing germs and fading stains!

As far as the cost factor, if you plan on using cloth until potty training, and especially if you plan on having at least one more baby, cloth is probably going to be your best bet, *if you can line dry*. Otherwise, you *can* buy generic disposables that work just as well that are much cheaper than the name brand, and you don't need to change them quite as often. My son wears disposables overnight and sometimes when we go out; I buy a case of 96 at Wal-Mart for $20 (the name brand cases are almost twice that). If he was in disposables all the time it would cost about $40 a month. If you are going to be washing your cloth dipes more than 3 times a week, it may not be much of a savings.

Sorry if I'm rambling here, hope that made sense!