With the recent influx of very fancy WAHM-made custom boutique cloth diapers hitting online cloth diaper stores, and advertising in organic or natural parenting magazines, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that cloth diapering can be easy on a budget.
As with any other kind of pursuit, you can select the newest rage, fabrics, trends, or you can choose the high quality, but perhaps slightly less “fashionable” approach. I personally preferred a balance between the two, purchasing printed cloth diaper covers to accessorize natural colored prefold or fitted diapers. When I looked at what part of our diaper stash was actually “worn” from use it was always the simplest, most economical Chinese Prefolds. I preferred them with the Bummis Super Whisper Wrap. Not only is this combination easy to use, but practically leak free when I measured correctly for fit.
Why did this end up being an economical boost in my diapering budget? Three dozen Regular 6-ply Chinese Prefolds cost just under $60.00. I kept 6 Bummis Whisper Wraps in rotation, again right under $60.00, for a total cloth diapering expensive of $120.00. The Regular size lasted a long while because whenever they couldn’t be folded down for a small baby, or wrapped around a medium sized baby, they could be tri-folded into the stride of the Bummis Whisper Wrap for a large baby. This meant I only had to continue purchasing larger sizes of covers, reusing the Chinese Prefolds I already purchased.
When I add up the cost of disposable diapers, I could quickly exceed $120.00 and with nothing to show for it. This is the primary reason that one of our most popular cloth diaper packages is the Prefold Diaper Package. For $59.04 our customers get 2 dozen Chinese Prefold diapers and four (4) Bummis SWW.
With that main purchase behind me, when I tossed in a few fancy diaper covers from time to time it still didn’t explode my diapering budget, and gave me a bit more color to smile about. However, for the most part these diapers/diaper covers were UNDER my baby’s clothing, so prints were only important to me during the summer months when my little ones would hang around the house in a t-shirt and diaper, or just a diaper.