Cloth Diapering with 2 under 2

My previous posts about cloth diapering have received a lot of popularity so I thought I would give an update about cloth diapering with two under two. 

Did we change anything with our overall method?

No- First of all- we didn't buy any new diapers for this baby. I did borrow some newborn covers and some extra covers from a friend of mine but we are trying to not buy any extra inserts for this second time around. 

We are still doing our 80/20 rule. Our kids are in cloth diapers about 80% of the time. I think one of the biggest barriers to people cloth diapering is that they think they have to do it 100% of the time in order to save money or to help the environment. This just isn't the truth. I can easily say we saved thousands while still doing the 80/20 method. We use disposable diapers at night, if we are on vacation and if we are going to be out of the house for half of the day or more. 

What changes did we make compared to our first baby? 

Moved the basket to a neutral space 

When we were cloth diapering one baby we just kept the wet bag of cloth diapers in the nursery where we changed him. But before we had our second we moved the wet bag to our main bathroom instead. This helped with the overall smell in the room. The real reason that we did it though was so that we could dispose of the diapers even if a baby or a toddler was asleep in the nursery. We found this to be very helpful. 

Started cloth diapering our baby earlier 

I was chomping at the bit to get my second baby into cloth diapers. I was tired of paying so much for diapers! This time around I also borrowed a stash of newborn covers from a friend and so I was able to get him in a cloth diaper once his umbilical stump fell off at about 2 weeks. We didn't start our oldest in cloth until he was about 6 weeks old because we were waiting for him to get to 10 lbs to meet the weight requirements. Since this wasn't my first rodeo I didn't find any issues starting earlier. Although I should add a disclaimer here that my second postpartum experience was significantly better than my first and that probably contributed to me actually wanting to start so early. 

Unexpected challenges?

More laundry

Oh my goodness so much laundry! I mean I know this is kind of like "No kidding!!" but still I'll admit I had forgotten about how many diapers little newborns go through. I went from doing cloth laundry about twice a week to every other day! That has been the biggest adjustment. I'm hoping it might slow down soon but so far there is no end in sight. My husband and I joke that the bag just refills instantly with dirty diapers. 

Differences between our first and second baby 

We found that our second baby was what you call a "heavy wetter". He tends to hold his pee for longer and then floods his diaper. Because of this we had to start using doublers with him earlier that we had to with our oldest. This meant even more laundry earlier. We also had to be more cognizant about what materials we were pairing together. We always need something that has fast absorbency with something that has long absorbency on the bottom for him. It needs to be able to absorb quickly to get it off his skin and prevent it from leaking but then we need the storage capacity on the bottom. Typically we use microfiber as the first layer and bamboo on the second layer. With our eldest we didn't really have to think about this- in fact we still don't. He just pees little bits at a time and doesn't flood the diaper like our baby does. 

Tried potty training but our eldest wasn't ready 

After about 4 months of doing it for two babies we attempted to potty train our toddler because he seemed interested. Unfortunately it did not go well and we ended putting him back in cloth until he feels more ready. Some people claim that being in cloth means they train faster but so far that hasn't been the case for us. Oh well- more laundry for me.