These are a few of my favorite things...Bum Genius!

I know, you're thinking, "Really Bethany? Cloth diapers are one of your favorite things? Wow, that's sad...," but hear me out on this. Not only do they save us a TON of money in the long run, but we're helping to keep some disposables out of the landfills and BabyBear has yet to deal with diaper rash!

A dear friend of mine used cloth diapers for her little ones and, after I found out I was expecting BabyBear, I started looking into them as a possibility on my own and was completely overwhelmed. There are so many different types! So, I told my friend about this and she kindly offered to show me the ropes and the different types and help me figure out which ones were best, if we decided to go the cloth diaper route. Now, I'll be honest...between the two of us (Jeff and I), one of us hadn't ever changed a diaper before and one of us hadn't changed one since high school, so if we did go with cloth diapers, it had to be easy. This dear friend and I spent a few hours going over the different types, what she found to be helpful and what she didn't and after talking with her, I decided that "Pocket" style diapers were probably going to be our best bet.

Pocket style cloth diapers can be found in a variety of forms, but basically they consist of a cover that you stuff with an insert (think pocket). When you wash them, you remove the insert, then wash it and the cover, then dry them. Once they are dry, then you stuff the insert back into the pocket for baby to wear again. You can even stuff multiple inserts into one pocket for more absorption, if necessary. There are lots of different types of pocket diapers, but we decided to go with the Bum Genius 3.0 brand.

We chose the Bum Genius 3.0 brand for lots of reasons:
* one diaper can be adjusted to fit a baby from 8 lbs to 35 lbs, so you shouldn't have to buy bigger sizes as the baby grows
* they're easy to use (velcro closures, they go on baby just like disposables)
* they come in fun colors (yes, I'm a girl and like to accessorize...even if it's on my baby boy)
* we could add them to our Target registry and buy them online using any Target gift cards we received

There were some other reasons as well, but these were the main ones. So, Jeff and I discussed it, decided we'd give it a go and built up our stash of Bum Genius diapers before BabyBear arrived. I think we've got about 28 of them.
Now, if you know me, you know that I can (unintentionally) complicate the easiest thing, so I was concerned that this would be one of my "great ideas" that sounded really good in theory, but would end up working out not so well. BabyBear was born at 7 lbs, 2 oz, so he was too small for them right away. Thankfully, friends had given us newborn sized disposables of which we used all but two before he outgrew them and grew into the Bum Genius. He's been wearing the Bum Genius now for almost three months and they are working out beautifully. They wash really well, go on just like disposables and are really soft. Yes, I do have to stuff them with inserts before BabyBear can wear them, but this takes 20 minutes at most and is totally worth it for the $ we save. As for stains, ten minutes in the sun and any stains that were there are totally gone...it really is amazing! I'll save you the before and after photo comparison that proves my point :)

We do still use disposables when I'm sick, or when we travel on occasion, so we're not totally green, but they were all given to us by friends, so I still have yet to have to go to the store to buy a pack of diapers. I am so thankful to my dear friend for that tutorial on cloth diapers and very grateful for my stash of Bum Genius diapers.