Cloth Diaper Advice – Mailbox Mondays 4/11/11

If you need cloth diaper help, on Mondays, I answer reader submitted questions, and ask my other readers to weigh in as well.

Questions don’t have to be cloth diaper related, just email maria at change-diapers.com with “Mailbox Mondays” in the subject, or Fill out my contact form for readers, which you will always be able to find on my Contact Page.

No submissions this week, so I figured I’d ramble about things & stuff.
I have said over and over again that I think it’s wise to “diversify your stash,” rather than having a whole stash of just one diaper. Even so, I often wonder hmm…what would I choose if someone said “I’ll buy you a whole stash of cloth diapers, but you have to choose just one brand.”

I have a lot of favorites that I love for various reasons, but I actually think I would choose Bumgenius 4.0 if you held a gun to my head and made me choose (after I told you it was a little nutty to put a gun to my head over cloth diapers of course.) If you’d throw in a stack of Knickernappies Loopydo and Superdo inserts, I’d be really thrilled!

Why do I love them so much? Well, maybe I have a little soft spot since they (Bumgenius 3.0) were the first 6 diapers I bought. 3 of those 6 diapers were replaced under the amazing Bumgenius/Cottonbabies warranty, two are in serious need of aplix replacement, and one still looks and works just about like new, aside from a little pilling etc. That’s after 18 months of use, and during several months of that, those six were washed one or two times every day.

The Bumgenius fit really well and don’t leak. They are what I grab for if I know we are going to be out and about. They are super, super easy to use and are the first my husband reaches for. The improvement of the Velcro on the 4.0 version really sealed the deal for me. They don’t come in tons of colors, but those that they have are nice. I’m very glad the brights are back! When I first started cloth diapering, $17.95 for a diaper seemed spendy, but now it’s really a pretty good deal.

How about you? What would you choose if someone offered to buy you a full stash of just one brand?

So that leads me to the other thing I was thinking about. Cost.

I guess since Bumgenius is sort of my benchmark or gold standard when trying other diapers, I also compare others to their price point. If a diaper is one-size and under $20, I’m there. When it starts creeping up to the $20-$25 range, it had better be cute and have a great track record. I would consider a diaper in the $25-$28 range, but I would honestly be pretty hesitant to spend that much. Especially since the most expensive diapers I’ve ever bought, the Goodmama One and Blueberry Minky (before the price decrease that came with the change to microfiber inserts) turned out to be the most disappointing and biggest wastes of money, leaving a bad taste in my mouth for pricey diapers!

Now, I will admit that I would probably pay more for a diaper that I already knew I loved (like a few WAHMs that are my favorites) that was in a print I was obsessed with (like this Guerilla Fluff diaper I’m still pining over more than a year later. Boo-hoo!!) Or a really special diaper as a keepsake, like baby’s first diaper or something.

What really made me think of this was a lovely newborn diaper that a manufacturer/retailer posted on Facebook Friday. It was a lovely diaper, with a gulp inducing price tag of 35 smackaroos! I think using cloth in the newborn stage is wise, since you can spend a hundred bucks on sposies before you know it, but cloth can be used for multiple children and resold. You can do it the frugal way with prefolds and a few covers, or I guess you can go all out and spend close to $1,000 on some $35 newborn diapers.

What I think is reasonable is hard to define. Just to clarify, by reasonable, I mean reasonable for me. If you have the money and desire, feel free to spend $200 on one of these limited print diapers people collect!

I think it’s one of those things that is difficult to say $xx is reasonable while $yy is not, but if you hear a price, you can say whether it’s low, OK or high. For me, anything over $15 for a newborn diaper makes me thing “jeez, this had better be good!” Of course, the only newborn diapers I have so far I’ve won in giveaways (except one I bought as a second for cheap!) I’d love to have a FuzziBunz X-Small in my stash, but the price tag of $16.95 is pushing my limit. The same really goes for the Happy Heinys mini one size, but at least that has additional sizing possibilities.

Anyway, I’m figuring if I get to cloth diaper a newborn, I’d buy one of each on my wish list (probably enough for a day or so of cloth diapering) and see what I like, then buy a few more (maybe gender specific colors) of what I like best after the baby is born. So far, I haven’t had huge babies, but maybe my excitement over these adorable cloth newbie dipes would get me a chunky 10 pounder ready for one-size diapers at birth, hee hee.

So how about you? Do you have price limits in mind when you’re shopping for cloth? Do you have different limits for newborn diapers? Do you have a particular diaper/print you’re dying for that you’d be willing to pay more for?

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