Cloth diapers: The long post in which I amaze you with my mad math skillz

So...my cloth diapering interest started in July, when I was visiting with a friend and she mentioned that her son wears cloth diapers. "Hmmm...." I thought, "what could prompt her to do that?"

Then a few months later I noticed that one of my nephews wears cloth diapers. I thought about it a little more, had some small conversations with my sister-in-law and friend and then put the idea out of my head.

Fast forward to December, when I get a chance to have a big conversation with my sister-in-law and had asked lots of questions of my friend (and, the wonderful person she was, she responded in detail). I tried one. A cloth diaper, I mean. Just for Nathalie's nap. It was a gDiaper and while I was confused by the setup, I had reached a point in diapering where I was cringing every time I threw a diaper away. "There goes $.20 again" I would think to myself. So I researched it more and more.

I wanted to know two things. 1) Is cloth diapering REALLY cheaper than regular diapering, if you count all the laundry costs? and 2) Was it something that would work for me? So I set out on a quest, if you will. I ordered a diaper trial from diaperjunction.com and started doing the math.

And I did more math. And more math. And some more. In summary, I looked at our utility bills to figure out the price per unit of whatever utility was needed to wash the diapers (gas for our hot water, electricity for our washer and dryer and water for the washer). I compared the cost of buying store detergent or making our own homemade detergent (you have to use special detergent for the diapers) and the cost of soaking the diapers. Using this information and this website I was able to figure out how much I'd spend washing the diapers in many combinations of laundry-- hot loads, cold loads, line drying, dryer drying, store detergent, home detergent, etc. I figured out how many loads I'd do per month with Nathalie and then with Nathalie and the baby, and then with the baby after Nathalie (hopefully) potty trains by October. I added the initial cost of cloth diapering and the diaper liners (for poop catching) and calculated how much it would cost the FIRST year and the SECOND year for cloth diapers.

Then I calculated how much disposable diapers would cost, again with just Nathalie, then Nathalie and the baby, then just the baby. I used the cost per diaper for Sam's Club diapers and for the Luv's I buy at Walmart. I also added in the different sizes the baby would wear along the way and changed the cost per diaper accordingly.

Then I compared. And if you've made it this far into my blog post, I will not disappoint and withhold my findings. I wish I could post all the tables and calculations I made, but Blogger doesn't let me post tables. So if you would like them, email me or contact me on facebook and I will get you all my calculations. Essentially you're getting the low-down on cloth diapers without doing the work.

The results:

This year we plan to spend, starting tomorrow, a whopping total of $625.50 (Sam's Club) to $732 (Luv's) on disposable diapers. If I were to start cloth diapering tomorrow, spending $275 total on building my cloth diaper supply (we're going to use Flips) and $109.5 on diaper liners, plus the $73.12 I estimate we'll devote solely to cloth diaper laundry (calculating in the increase in loads after the baby's arrival), our total cost for THIS YEAR would be: $457.62.

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So Year 1? $625.5 to $732 VERSUS $457.62. That means we'll save anywhere from $167.88 to $274.38 .

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Next year, because we'll only have 1 in diapers, we'll spend $500.4 to $522 on disposable diapers. And on cloth, with the diaper liners and laundry costs, also including the changing amount of laundry loads with the baby with an added $60 for replacement diapers, we estimate we'll spend $244.38.

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So Year 2? $500.4 to $522 VERSUS $244.38 means that we'll save anywhere from
$256.02 to $277.62.

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So...Matt and I are switching to cloth. While I don't love it, I do love that I can save money. And not waste our money every few hours. I also love that I will no longer have to depend on "The Man" for my diapers, and if there is an emergency or I simply can't get to the store, my children will still have diapers. I'll be honest, I'm not totally thrilled about it. I don't hate it, but disposables are really convenient. I'll still use them for bedtime and for trips. And I still have a few disposable diapers (read: 500) from when Nathalie was baby that I'll be using on this baby while we're getting our new routine down. I must be crazy.

How fitted sheets are fun and what Emily does when I'm not around

Emily has a calendar we update which includes the date, weather, month, etc. Nathalie, apparently, doesn't care that she's being numbered.

The fitted sheets fit perfectly over the posts of their beds. It's great for tent making and after you've been in your house for 2 months straight, you need a little change in your surroundings!

I think that's chocolate around her mouth. Not sure.

They STILL call her a boy

Nathalie is a GIRL. A GIRL I'm telling you. But the people at Kroger don't seem to notice.

Take today, for example. Going to Kroger for this week. Standing in the checkout line. Nathalie has on a PINK coat with a little dark blue and a PINK and brown striped shirt. And black baby yoga pants. One man says, "Oh, he's pretty happy in there, isn't he?"

Or when we went to the Dr's last week for my glucose test. Nathalie is wearing purple. The nurse looks at my girls and says, "Well he just looks so much like her!"

My favorite though is this. After swim lessons, Nathalie and I take a shower while Emily finishes up her lesson without me. I was dressing in the shower stall. Nathalie escaped into the locker room and started climbing on the counter. I hear a woman say, "Oh, that little boy escaped his mommy!" And then a few seconds later someone else said, "It's a girl!"

Nathalie was naked.

A 3 yr old's take on food storage

I was making cookies today and used up the last of the sguar in my sugar container. Emily, who was helping said, "Oh no Mommy! The sugar's all gone." She paused and then continued, "It's okay. There's more under the bed."

Smart girl!

I'm a busy bee!!!

What's been happening--

--I have some new responsibilities at church. I have to teach weekly now....and I'm pretty overwhelmed. Feeling inadequate. I've been spending a lot of time on that. I'm not doing too great with winter and am getting a bad case of cabin fever.

--Emily is wonderful. And frustrating. And beautiful. And obnoxious. She's also a compulsive talker which drives Matt crazy. She is excited for the baby and told me the other day, "When the baby comes, I'm going to teach it how to draw a house!" We'll see, Emily, we'll see. She can write words on her own and has a lot memorized already.

--Matt is getting ready to start his bachelor's program. We're not sure what to expect, since supposedly it's easier. We'll see. Still working a lot. We were able to go on a date to the temple on Saturday. It was wonderful and with the drive, I got to be alone with him for a long time. Talking with no interruptions! Shocker!

--Nathalie can say "flamingo" (fungamo), "chocolate" (colocolate), "octopus" (opokiss), "medicine" (messemee), "broccolo" (bolocoli) and a bunch of other funny words. She talks in sentences, but isn't always clear. She has trouble going to sleep with Emily in the room....so Emily is falling asleep in our bed lately. Could be trouble when the baby is born since we only have 2 bedrooms.

You just wait. You'll be getting a monster post before the end of this week. And by monster, I'm talking huge.

Helllooooo Third Trimester!

I'm 27-28 weeks now. Between 2nd and 3rd trimester. These are the only belly pictures you get so soak it in! These pictures were taken this week. How I'm feeling physically: Normal for this stage. My back is starting to hurt more, I'm having more trouble sleeping because this baby has the lovely schedule of sleeping most of the day and being awake most of the night. I'm out of normal clothes now except my yoga and running pants and into my maternity clothes. I'm not telling you how much weight I've gained. I'm enjoying the pregnancy curves! I've had really low blood sugar this pregnancy, so I have to be careful and eat frequently. I am craving fruit. Lots of fruit. And carrots. Who knew carrots were so delicious!!!

How I'm feeling emotionally: Pretty good. It was at this point with Nathalie's pregnancy I started feeling depressed and in denial. But I don't feel like that with this baby. I'm starting to feel "nesty". I've been working on a lot of projects to get done before the baby, like a blog to book. I have big plans to get the house cleaned, fridge stocked and everything ready before this baby comes, which I didn't do with Nathalie. Except for when I'm really tired, I'm actually enjoying this pregnancy and looking forward to the baby. This pregnancy has gone a lot faster than Emily's and Nathalie's.

Finally!

For a long time I've been wanting to do Emily's hair....but she never let me. She didn't even start getting hair until she was older than a year! Just in the last few weeks she has wanted to wear her hair up. I'm so excited! I have hope that maybe this next baby girl will have enough hair as a baby to start doing her hair a lot earlier.

With a high score of 60!!!!

You know what's depressing? When your children beat you at bowling.

Let's clarify. Your 21 month old beats you by 21 points.

Your 3 1/2 yr old beats you by 22.

And pregnancy is no excuse.

At least Matt can count his score AND Nathalie's score. (Although he did get lower than me!)

Your 21 month old is gloating.

Your 3 1/2 yr old is cheering on everyone in the bowling alley. Including her parents when they don't knock down a single pin.

And your husband is getting really annoyed that he can only knock down 1 pin at a time. (Or maybe he's just annoyed you took a picture of him.)

At least she is a cute winner.

So.....we're not going to join a bowling league. Obviously!! (By the way, here is our FHE. I made a goal to hold it at least once a month for the rest of my life. Good thing January's is out of the way!)

Is that a model expression or what? "Please, you are not worth my time."

We got Emily a "jewelry box" for Christmas...complete with snap bracelets. Probably one of her best gifts ever. Nathalie won't let me snap them onto her wrists.

They lived off snow for the first two days.

Wheeeeee!!!

How we got around our neighborhood for a week.

Christmas, the summary

Whew! The holidays are over. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas. This year just wasn't quite relaxing....I did a lot of homemade gifts and procrastinated them. We had a crazy couple of days driving to and from family. Matt worked, the girls got sick and I had to play every song at church for the Christmas program. But so I don't forget, here are highlights.

----My birthday. I was born a few days before Christmas and so always felt slightly "shafted" about my birthday. But Matt did a great job. He did all the cooking for the whole day! We had a great dinner with the missionaries, complete with pumpkin pie. (Okay, so I made the pie. Baking isn't Matt's forte.) 25 feels old!

--Christmas Eve morning. We opened presents as a family on Christmas Eve morning. Pictures to come. The girls had fun, but what was better were the gifts Matt and I got for each other. We only bought 2 or 3 gifts for each other, but they were very thoughtful and I loved each one.

--Christmas Morning. We were able to fix that free trampoline I found for $6 and some work by Matt and a friend. And the girls adore it. It's definitely cut down on the jumping on my bed!

--Christmas Day at my in-laws. Matt had to sleep between shifts so I went by myself. It was fun and the girls were playing all day long. They loved it. I gained weight.

--The Cincinnati Children's Museum. We met up with Matt's family and went to the Cincinnati Children's Museum a few days after Christmas. My family (including myself) were completely exhausted from our crazy schedule, but I loved the museum. It's SO HUGE!

--Our lazy day. I'm going to start incorporating that more regularly.

I will be posting pictures in the next few days! Hope you had a great Christmas too and a good New Year.