apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Cost is obviously a huge issue with diapers, but i thought one of the perks of urban living is access to things like diaper services. You can always save money later by walking to the park instead of buying a swingset.... justify it ;).

We washed our cloth diapers our apt building's washers. Keep in mind that you'll end up doing loads and loads of newborn clothes in the first few months anyway. We washed them with hot water and a free and clear detergent. Put a bit of vinegar in the fabric softener compartment.

I know in chicago you can get 80 cloth diapers a week for less than $20. We've gotten a diaper service as a gift with both of our boys and it's so great not to have to deal with washing them yourself. The diapers are always in great shape and we just have to leave them out one night a week and they come pick them up. We don't even have to be around for a hand off.

You should check out the apartment building's washers to see if they can handle the load.

Second, I wouldn't have a problem with cloth-diapering parents doing this. When I used to live in an apartment with shared washers, I was fully aware that people were washing poop, pee, vomit, other bodily excretions, and it never bothered me. That's life.

With any kind of diaper you're supposed to flush the poop first before disposal / washing, although with loose watery poops it's a bit difficult to get all the poop off the cloth.

I would check out a diaper service first and foremost.

I was wondering the same thing, although my building doesn't even have laundry in it. We use a laundry service for our clothes, but didn't think we could (or should) throw diapers into the mix. We are hoping to use a diaper service once the baby comes in September. Anybody have any rec's for New York City services (we live in Manhattan)?

I forgot to mention that if you are washing your own cloth diapers, definitely try something like Bac-Out along with your detergent.

I've heard that a diaper service (that also supplies the diapers) costs about the same as using disposables, so you at least wouldn't be out any more money using cloth. I don't know if you could realistically save money doing it in your building anyway, if it's coin operated.

We're relocating to Chicago next month and wondering the same thing! We have our 10 month old in cloth and wash one diaper load/day. Do I just invest in more diapers and do laundry less frequently? Do we get a diaper service? Do I wash 'em in the kitchen sink?

javagrrl: Can you post the name of the $20 service you mention?

My husband I used cloth diapers for our little guy (he's now 16 months). We didn't use a diaper service, and didn't have any problems. We kept the baby in disposables at night (in the desparate bid to get him to sleep through... sigh still no luck). We also only bought about 12 diapers, so we do laundry every other day. I mean, you really don't want to have a pile of wet diapers lying around for longer than than.

Here are a couple of things we learned:

1. Buy liners for your diapers. They look like toilet paper, but are thicker and flushable (we used Kushies brand). These are great because they capture solid matter, and you just flush them.

2. Rinse your diapers and put them in a pail. Give the poopy diapers a quick scrub with soap and water. It will keep odors at bay and prevent stains. It sounds like a lot of work, but with the liners, it's really nothing. Also, by doing this, you won't be grossing out your neighbours.

3. If you can, get diapers with all cotton or all hemp liners. I find the synthetic ones to be a little bit smellier.

4. Sprinkle your diaper pail with baking soda. We used a standard foot pedal garbage can.

5. Use baking soda and vinegar when you wash your diapers. Also don't go overboard on the soap. It will decrease the absorbancy of the diaper.

6. Wash your diapers separately if you can, but dry them with your regular clothes. For us, this really decreased the psychological ick factor, and saved a dryer cycle.

7. Don't stress! We kept disposables on hand for those just-in-case moments, or when the baby was sick. If you become stressed out about using cloth diapers, then you will find yourself abandonning them. Go easy on yourself.
Caring for a baby is a lot of work, especially if you go back to work right away. I was lucky with Canada's generous 1 year mat. leave, but even then, I only used cloth about 40% of the time. Hopefully with the next one we'll be able to do better.

Keep in mind that diaper services generally only offer prefolds. if you want to use pockets, you will have to wash yourself.

if you want to try out the g diapers, i have some that i am willing to sell. we tried them and ended up not being a fan. we use bum genius one size instead. love them!

We live in an apartment building and didn't choose cloth because the laundry issue seemed insurmountable. But we'll probably be here when the next kid is born and we will likely choose cloth the next time.

We have three washer and dryers down stairs and I swear we have an easier time than my sister who has them in the house. The ability to do multiple loads at a time is a huge plus.

Plus, we didn't use wipes for the first six months (cheapo wash clothes instead) and you know what, it was easy. We just had a soaking tub in our bathtub for poopy stuff. When you have an infant you already have lots of poopy stuff and wet stuff and general laundry. Adding diapers to the mix just wouldn't have been that hard.

We did try gdiapers but didn't have a place to compost them. They flushed fine in our ancient pluming but our landlord absolutely forbid it. (She is a a pretty reasonable person and we have a sweet rent controlled apartment so it seemed best to comply.) That being said we found them easy to use and not much more effort than disposable.

Good luck.

Great post today on another blog about cloth diapers:

http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/2008/07/whats-good-for.html

Really enjoyed researching the "EC" concept as well.

One of those moments where you rethink what must have been the process for many of the generations prior to this "now" :)

I washed loads of cloth diapers by hand while in Bombay, India and I have to admit it was just a lot of hard smelly work. But obviously it is doable if that is what you choose to do.

We are using cloth diapers in an apartment. We had a service for the first month and a half which was great - but i didn't love the type of diaper they used.

We now use Bumgenius all in ones which function just like a disposable, except you wash them. It's only one piece - not a flat and a cover and they have a microfleece lining so they can be worn a lot longer than a cotton diaper.

Two or three times a week we take the diapers (we own 15) to the basement laundry. Poopy diapers get a quick rinse in the laundry room sink followed by a squirt of Bac-Out. We use All free & clear. I've tried other more natural detergents - but All is definitely the best. Wash on the hot cycle, then in the dryer. Sometimes the diapers don't dry all the way and then I just hang them in the bathroom for a couple hours.

We have no stink problems and zero diaper rash.

We do use disposables over night just because I think it's worth it just to get more sleep!

One more thing - I bought a little waterproof wetbag from one of the cloth diaper stores online and i just keep that in the diaper bag to hold wet nappies while we're out and then wash it with the diapers.

Hope this helps!

Agreed with comments on it being doable. We've gone on vacation with our cloth and I had no qualms about taking them to a laundromat.

So many people have commented on still using disposables overnight because of interrupted nights-there are several brands out there that will work great overnight so you can avoid plastic disposables all together. I have a MAJOR heavy wetting 2 yr old and we still use cloth at night with no leaks. Drybees Hybrid AIO & Starbunz are awesome for long periods like overnight-highly recommended.

If you don't want to have to wash frequently and/or have to worry about flushing in your apt, steer away from gDiapers. IMO they involve a lot more mess than straight cloth and are a lot more expensive. Poop ALWAYS gets on the snap in liners so those need to be washed constantly (and there's nothing grosser than poop in your sink to rinse them, which means you have to clean the sink too). If you can't flush then the dirty diapers still have to sit in your garbage and if you're worried about overnight leaks forget it-they can't handle more than a few hrs and using cloth in them works only some of the time. Tried to love them, but in the end it was more hype, less performance than cloth.

I have nothing to add to the advice here except to say that I did cloth diapers in an apt with shared laundry and it was totally fine. Also did it at the laundromat, when I moved to a bldg with no laundry -- that, I do not recommend. Switched to diaper service and that was great. I didn't mind using prefolds, altho I used disposables when we were out and about.

If you're worried about the gross factor, keep in mind that no matter what kind of diapers you use, your baby's clothes will be covered in poop, pee, and puke a lot of the time. That stuff is going in the shared washers no matter what.

And yes, they really will get clean. Baking soda is your best friend.

CraftyRachel: I know a couple people who use Queen Bee Diaper Service. They all live in Brooklyn, but I'm sure they serve Manhattan as well.

I think they pay around $30 a week.

mjoe - Did you use baking soda in the wash? Or the diaper pail?

We used a diaper service in Manhattan but discontinued before our first month was up because the delivery was so undependable. Both of the services for Manhattan deliver only once weekly, and the diaper pail smelled awful by day 4. At this point we're washing our own cloth diapers at home once every two days (warm pre-wash plus cold wash) and using g-diapers when we're out. I don't find the g-diapers any more difficult than the cloth.

And I would have no problem doing the laundry in shared machines (if my building had them) or having someone else do the same. The real problem to me is that they get horribly stinky if you wait more than 2 days before washing.

A tip for the bum genius aio users -- if you want to use cloth at night, get a bum genius pocket and some thinner hemp inserts. We use 3 hemp inserts and a pocket on our son who sleeps through the night and have been for about 5 months. He stinks like ammonia pretty bad when he wakes up, but a quick diaper change takes care of that! We used to keep sposies around, but ran out in June and have made it through on just cloth for the last month!