The post title pretty much says it all. gDiapers are awesome. For those of you who haven’t heard of them, they’re a hybrid diapering system. They use a reusable cloth outer, a breathable, waterproof, reusable liner, and your choice of insert: either a cloth one that’s washable (obviously) or a flushable one. That’s right: flushable diapers!
I first learned of the system when there was an ad on the side of my gmail for them. I was still pregnant with Small Fry at the time, and my husband and I were just starting to become more environmentally conscious (if you don’t think recycling matters, take a trip to your local landfill and see how much garbage is produced in your area. I dare you not to become environmental after that!), so the idea of diapers that you could flush away instead of sending to “Junk Mountain” was very intriguing to me. I clicked through and fell in love with the concept. The only hurdle was the price: a starter pack for newborns was about $150. Now, that’s no *so* much when you consider what you get (18 cloth outers in two sizes and 160 flushable inserts), but I was trying to convince a skeptical husband (recycling our cans and paper was one thing; spending over $100 on diapers was completely different!), so it was a pretty major problem for me.
I didn’t end up getting the newborn pack.
We used disposable diapers for the first six weeks, which I hated after having learned about the g’s. But finally, we were able to find out that we could buy the individual pieces at Babies *R* Us, so I was able to talk DH into going there to get a “starter kit”: 2 pairs of the outer pants and a pack of 40 flushables for $45. It was priced at $40 on the gDiapers website, but once you added in shipping, it was a wash.
So, we’ve bought the two pairs of “little gPants” and our first package of flushables now. I started using them to diaper Baby E right away, and after just a small learning curve (these don’t have the little yellow line that turns blue when wet like the Pampers we’d been using), I was convinced that I didn’t want to go back to disposables. The problem now? Two pairs of the pants isn’t enough for full-time gDiapering. And extra pants are between $15 and $22 apiece.
What was a crafty mom to do?
Find out how to make my own covers, of course! I found a couple of tutorials and tried the YouTube one first. The pants came out looking okay, but they just weren’t good enough to use as a diaper. So I tried the written one. I was skeptical at first, mostly because of my experience with the other one, but oh my, these new ones are *nearly* as good as their store bought counterparts. Because I’m not a professional seamstress by any stretch of the imagination, there are obvious flaws, but not so many that I feel the need to buy “official” gPants.
Including all my mistakes, I was able to make 4 of the covers for about $40. That doesn’t sound like much savings, but I’ve got enough fabric left over to make at least two more; I just need to pick up some more Velcro. Once I get those done, that’ll make the homemade ones about half the price of the purchased ones! (They’ve got a 6-pair pack available for $79.99.) Win!
You go girl with your crafty self 🙂 Love ya!!!
Thanks, bb! Love you too 🙂
I keep thinking I should give cloth diapering a try with baby #4 coming soon, but I just don’t know that I’ve got it in me to do it! If only I had started with #1, it would seem so much easier to justify buying all those cute cloth diapers!
Congrats on baby #4!! Since this post, I’ve actually switched away from gDiapers and into full-time regular cloth diapers, and I love it! I spent months researching various cloth diapers (both while I was pregnant and for the first 3 or so months of Small Fry’s life) and trying to figure out the most financially friendly way of getting started, and in the end, I made my own. It cost me about $60 (plus probably another $100 in “failed” experiments, lol) to make 15 diapers, which is enough for my son. I’m so glad I explored this road. If you get “AIOs,” (all-in-ones), which are what mine are, it’s really no different or harder than disposables – you just wash them instead of tossing them. And if you get one-size-fits-most, which mine also are, you don’t have to worry about buying more as your baby grows. If you have any sewing experience at all, I highly recommend the book “How to Make (all in one, one size fits most) Cloth Diapers” by Jennifer Berry. It’s about $5 for the Kindle version on Amazon. And if you’re a Prime member, I believe it’s available in the lending library, so wouldn’t have to buy it at all.