Every mom has her own take on diapering options. Some manage to make cloth diapers (CD) work, while others choose to stick with the traditional disposable diapers (DD). Here’s my take on the topic.

My son at five months, sporting fish printed cloth diapers

When I was still pregnant with my son, a fellow mommy and I decided that we would try cloth diapers. I’ve read so many topics about cloth diapering, and I was sold by its benefits to my baby, the environment and my pocket. In a nutshell, cloth diapers are re-usable, meaning you will only need to build your stash for a few weeks or months, then you just need to wash them after every use. With disposables, as the term suggests, you need to throw them away after every use and they become part of landfills. It takes less effort though compared to cloth diapers, just dump them and you’re done.

Check out this info graphic for more information:

I did not purchase cloth diapers til my son was four months old. I came across an online shop on Facebook that sells Alva cloth diapers. If I am not mistaken, this seems to be the cheapest cloth diaper option ranging from P200-P250,. The name of the shop is The Little Matter Cloth Diapers and what I like about this shop is that it posts on-hand designs that are ready to be shipped. Most shops I found on Sulit.com sold Alva’s on a pre-order basis.They also sell other cloth diaper brands, inserts and wetbags.

My Alva cloth diaper stash

Micro fiber insert, inclusive with each cloth diaper

The transaction was smooth and fast. I simply followed the instructions here and was sent their bank details. I used my BPI mobile app to transfer the payment and within minutes, my payment was confirmed! Since I placed my order on a Friday past cut-off, I received my order the following Monday. I made sure to wash the diapers before using them.

The following month, my father bought my son some Bamboo Dappy cloth diapers, which were way more expensive, about P700+ a pop!

The Bamboo Dappy stash

Closer look at the Bamboo Dappy inserts

From my experience, Alva cloth diapers are absorbent they don’t feel so wet when they’re soaked. The Bamboo Dappy ones, even though the material is superior and softer, leak easily. When my son sleeps at night I double up on the inserts for extra absorption. When he poops though, it tends to get messy whichever diaper I use. However, since I am pretty much aware of his pooping schedule, I let him wear disposables until he poops, then change him into cloth diapers for the rest of the day.

Eventually, I managed to get the hang of cloth diapering… not my mom though. She struggled a bit with the cloth diapers while I was at work and preferred to use the disposables. I couldn’t blame her though, cloth diapering involves a lot of effort, especially with the cleaning and washing.

In the end, we gradually shifted back again to disposable diapers. My father bought several packs of Pampers (I forgot which variant) so we had to use them in place of our regular brand, EQ Dry. I agree that Pampers are very absorbent, however, they are too absorbent to such a point that no one notices that my son’s diapers are all bulky with pee since he doesn’t fuss too much as he still feels dry. I didn’t like this at all. Once our stock of Pampers ran out, I decided to buy EQ Diapers, which is different from EQ Dry. EQ alone is a lot cheaper, and the fasteners are more secure than the ones from EQ Dry – those rip off easily.

EQ Diapers

I’m quite disappointed that I could not fully commit to CDs. They require attention and more work compared to disposables, which was something I could not find time for given that I was working full-time. Since they are easily soaked, they need to be changed regularly, about every two hours. I chose the easy wrap-and-dump option offered by DDs as it saved me more time and energy. In the long run, I am spending more than I should. Sigh.

I do believe that DDs can come in handy though, like for trips out of town or for days out at the mall. In my case, as mentioned above, while cloth diapering I still used DDs for when my son pooped.

However, now that I am a full-time hands-on mom, I am willing to give CDs another try. I really believe in cloth diapering benefits and I think it’s not too late for me to give up on CDs. I think I’ll start by adding more diapers to my stash so that I won’t need to keep washing them everday – I only have eight CDs in my current stash!

I will most likely blog again about returning to cloth diapering. I know that this post may not be as informative as others, however I just wanted to share my own experience and not overwhelm you with too much information, hence the info graphic.

So mommies, do you prefer CDs over DDs? I’d love to hear your opinion!