YES, you CAN cloth diaper your baby!

With my son, I thought the same thing you're thinking right now... entirely too much hand-to-poop contact, right? Wrong. I have discovered the perfect hybrid diaper for all of you who want the environmental benefits and cost savings of the cloth diaper, but don't want to spend your entire day with your hands in a wet pail and doing laundry :)

May I introduce, the gdiaper :

The g diaper is a cloth shell, that come in a variety of adorable color choices, with a snap in plastic liner. Now, into that liner you would place an insert. You can choose from a cloth insert or a biodegradable disposable insert. As long as you do not have a septic system, and follow the specific flushing instructions , you can put the poop where it's supposed to go... in the toilet! :) Or you can add it to your compost pile.

We choose to use the disposable inserts, and purchase them buy the case from my favorite website, www.diapers.com . Not only are they delivered to us within 2 days, but based on our order it's always FREE!

The g diaper, unlike some other cloth options, does come in sizes S, M, L. The upside is the great fit! The downside is that unlike one-size options, you have to continue to purchase different sizes. However, here are some options I have found to work GREAT for even more savings over traditional disposable diapers:

* watch your favorite retail location (I've found them available at both www.diapers.com and Target ) for sales
* ask around! Do your friends have any they are no longer using? The shells are always good! (I got all but 2 of my 12 g diaper stash from one of my besties!)
* check sites like craigslist for people selling their cloth diapers- you ALWAYS get a deal!
* follow fellow g diaper-ers on Facebook , there is always someone looking to SWAP or sell!

Keep checking my blog for the 1st NurturingtheNaturalMama Event, which will be a cloth diaper exchange!

Here's how the cost savings breaks down, in comparison to traditional sposies:

I've looked through several websites and books, and the average seems to be that one would change a diaper about 10 times in 24 hours in the first couple of months. Let's compare cloth diapering to Luvs diapers since they are one of the least expensive. A case of size 1 Luvs diapers, which is 264 diapers, costs $38.99. This would last you a little under a month, so let's say you purchase 2 cases, so that you would get the FREE shipping from www.diapers.com , and it would last you a whole month. So that's a total cost of $77.98 (not including wipes).  Over the course of a year, (taking into account that you use only about 6 diapers per day after 6 months), that would be a cost of approximately $690.

Your initial purchase of g diapers, should you buy them outright, would need to include shells, liners, and inserts. I recommend the g diaper baby bundle , which includes all of the above and the swish-stick for toilet flushing :) At full price, this costs $137.95 from our friends at www.diapers.com . (right now it's on SALE for $129.99).  So this would include 128 disposable inserts (keep in mind, this would be even CHEAPER if you chose to use the g diaper cloth inserts).

To make a long story short :) End result would be as follows, after your initial g diaper purchase;

1 year of sposies                                        $ 690
1 yr of g diapers w disposable inserts         $  412
(Smalls come in packs of 40/each x 6months, and M/L come in packs of 38 x 6 months)  
1 yr of g diapers w cloth inserts                  $ 120
(2 packs of small cloth inserts, and 2 packs of M/L cloth inserts)

And, really, how ADORABLE are they??!

What cloth diaper(s) do you use??