They're here! (Our first day)

Imagine my excitement last night when I opened my mailbox to find a big, white, fluffy package! Our first round of dipeys arrived!! These are the ones I bought off of a sweet WAHM (work at home mom) on eBay. You can find her on Facebook by the name Classy Bows Boutique (same name on eBay). She very generously combined the shipping for me since I bought 6 diapers, and included a free sample of cloth diaper safe detergent and a free reusable baby wipe.

  Of course I had to immediately put a dipe on her for a photo op :)

Annabelle is the proud owner of 5 Alvababy diapers and 1 AnAnBaby diaper!

I then stayed up late prepping them so we could get started :) I'll include info on prepping below.
So our first actual time using a cloth diaper was last night. Yes, overnight.  What's that? You think I'm crazy? Yeah, you're probably right. BUT, it actually went really well!

 She wore one of the Alvas.   All of the diapers came with one insert each, and I didn't want to "waste" any by using two, so I stuffed the pocket with one insert, and behind that I put a gerber prefold that I happened to have (we used to use them as burp rags.)  She slept almost 9 hours in it, and NO LEAKS!  I was pleasantly surprised that the part that actually touches her skin didn't even feel wet, even though both the insert and prefold were very wet inside the pocket.

We also had our first poopy diaper a little bit ago (in the AnAn). And let me tell you, I think it would've been a nasty blowout in a sposie!  It also made me rethink my pioneer woman attitude on diaper sprayers. These are handy things you hook up to your toilet water line and use to spray the poopy off the diaper, directly into the toilet. Yeah... I want one now.

A Diaper Sprayer

So as of now, Annabelle has worn one disposable diaper since 11pm last night :)  I thought it best to put one on her for our outing to the flea market today, since I don't yet have a wet bag. (A water proof bag you keep in your diaper bag to hold soiled diapers till you get home.)

So far, these diapers are working great!  I'm not sure how long she'll be able to stay in them if she doesn't start thinning out soon! Lol.  I have her on the medium rise, so we are all good there, but she has to be snapped at the second to last set of snaps. They are very similar (between the Alva and AnAn) but there MIGHT be a slightly better fit with AnAn, but so slight that I could've imagined it. I'm glad I went with these, at $5-6 per diaper, to start out. And I LOVE that they come in such cute prints! I'm trying to avoid the attitude that I NEED the more expensive, name brand diapers.  I am definitely willing to try them out eventually though :) I have 8 more on the way, but I ordered those from Alvas direct site, and I've heard they can take up to 2 weeks to arrive.

 That's pretty much it so far! I only have 2 more clean dipes, so I'm really excited to get some more and make it through a whole day :)  See below for info on prepping. (I got the info from the lady at Classy Bows Boutique)

What is prepping? -Prepping is preparing your diapers to be used. When you first buy a diaper new, the fibers need to be prepared to absorb the moisture that your LO will throw its way. You will need to do a series of wash/dry on the diapers, as indicated by the manufacturer's instructions, in order to "fluff" up the fibers in your diapers so they can absorb properly. Some require you use a machine wash/dry *Here's how she told me to prep the diapers. 1. One full cold wash with a lil bit of detergent. extra rinse. dry everything in the dryer on low. 2. One cold wash with two extra rinses. Hang dry the covers and the inserts you can throw them in the dryer :) I only did step 1. Sorry! I figured they will be getting washed often in the next few days and only become more and more absorbent. I was too anxious to wait any longer :)

Switching it up!

Well, I've decided it's time to make a change.

I'm switching from disposable diapers to cloth diapers! 

I have no idea what I'm doing, so I figured I would invite other mommy's to learn along with me, or just laugh at/with me as I learn!  I don't have anything that I need yet, but I did order some diapers and they are on their way.

A little background, I am mommy to 3 beautiful daughters.  Kennedy is almost 12, Olivia is almost 9 (next week!) and Annabelle is the baby at 7 months.  Her hiney is the one that will be trying out the new diapers!  She is a super cute, extremely chunky little girl, weighing in at 23lbs 8oz at 7 months old :)

Back to diapers:  The ones that I ordered are Alva Baby, which are pocket diapers, and they each come with a microfiber insert.  I also ordered one AnAn Baby brand (formerly JC Trade.)  If you want to learn more about the different styles of cloth diapers, here is the video that I watched on YouTube to get more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipMmpJkB8L4 (There are two parts, this is the first part.)

I will try to post as we go along on this journey, and fill you in on the process: prepping, washing, how we like different styles, etc.  I'm trying to do this on a budget, so I'm not sure how often I'll be able to acquire new brands :)

If you or anyone you know would like me to try a specific kind of diaper, or if you know of any companies that are doing diaper trials, please let me know!

Thanks for reading!
Kara