15 Months and Cloth Diaper Update

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a 15 month old.

Joanna is independent, talkative, and social. Her favorite word is "no" and will respond to any question with it. No can mean yes, no, goodbye, and hello. She still says cat, dog, mama, dada, and occasionally says moo. Her favorite things are "walkies" with Grandma, hitting Daddy in the stomach, flying through the air, climbing stairs, chasing the cat, reading with Grandpa, and watching Elmo.

To celebrate her 15th month, Joanna contracted some kind of mucousy illness that made her a pitiful mess. She was very generous and decided to share it with me. It was really helpful to feel what she was feeling so I could help her. We bought a humidifier and some dissolving decongestant tablets. We've been using our Nose Frida, too - IT IS AMAZING. It sounds gross (and it is), but it is extremely effective at removing snot from a child's face.

Speaking of a sick baby, I just cleaned up after the worst aftermath bean-induced poo-slosion of my life. And the cloth diaper still contained it. The non-blowout inspired me to update you all about our diaper stash and my continued love for cloth diapers.

We received our converted diapers a few weeks ago and I am very impressed with the result! ConvertMyDiapers.com did a fantastic job and she was wonderful to work with. We ran into some postal issues and she had a family emergency of her own, so the total turn around time was a month rather than a business week. I'm still extremely happy with my experience!

The photo is a comparison between a bumGenius pocket diaper I bought new for Joanna and the same diaper that was given to us after going through 2 kids from birth to potty training.  There is pilling on the used one and some cosmetic wear, but it works just as well as my new one. They are just as absorbent and just as "blowout proof". The used diaper was originally a velcro (or hook and loop) that I had converted. You can really see the wear when you look on the inside of the tab and see what the velcro used to look like. There was zero "stick" left in the velcro so they were useless without being converted or having the velcro replaced. (ConvertMyDiapers.com also replaces velcro if you don't want to convert to snaps!)

All in all, our experience with cloth has been simply lovely. Yes there is poop, yes there is pee, but I find myself having nothing but gratitude for the entire experience. It was a much easier transition than I anticipated. It is much more enjoyable than I expected.

Now when it comes to the running total, I hesitate on including the full cost of conversion. A friend of a friend gave us 30 used diapers for free so I gave away 5 to friends, I gave 11 to my sister in law, and then kept the rest. We converted 18 of my sister-in-law's diapers as a Christmas gift. If we're just talking about our own diapers, the cost of just conversion was $21. For the sake of our own stash, I'm only counting the $21 in our tally rather than the full $90. Spending only $21 to add 6 diapers to our stash? Don't mind if I do!

Personal investment: $384

Savings: $1,407

Return on Investment: $1,024

That's right! We broke the $1,000 mark!

Oh, cloth. I just can't quit you.