When considering cloth diapering, you might have been interested, but the initial cost outlay might deter you if you’re especially hard on cash. Though cloth diapering definitely can save lots of money over the course of your diapering period, coming up with the spare 200 dollars or so necessary to buy basic cloth diapering supplies (prefolds and covers) might be too difficult to do.
Fortunately, cloth diapering is possible even without that monetary outlay. How do you do it?
Cloth Diapers at Minimal Cost
- Second hand stores often have cloth diapers of all sorts. If you’re not picky, and you make sure to go on sale days where they sell things by weight/bag instead of by item, you’re able to get things very cheaply. My friend’s mother picked up bags and bags of prefolds and diaper covers for her for only 10 dollars at her local thrift store.
- Craigslist, ebay, and freecycle all may have cloth diapers for very low cost or even free.
If you want even cheaper and don’t want to purchase ready made diapers, here are some alternatives.
- Sew your own cloth diapers. There are many instructional websites as to how to do this, with this website containing the most comprehensive list of links. Sewing your own cloth diapers may be cheaper than buying them new, but once you factor in the cost of the materials, from PUL to snaps to a snap press to elastics to fleece and microfiber, this option may end up not being as frugal as you’d like.
- Fortunately, there’s a way to make cloth diapers from recycled materials. Here’s a link to terrific instructions for sewing your own prefold diapers made from old tee-shirts. You can usually get tee-shirts easily and often free from many sources, including freecycle and community bulletins. Stained and faded tees which would otherwise go into a landfill can get new life this way!
1. Start off by laying your shirt flat on the floor or any other large surface.
4. Fold down the top.
5. Fold up the bottom.
6. Bring up the bottom of the T to the front, bring over the sides, and pin it closed with a diaper pin, making sure to go through all the layers.
2. Fold over one side of the shirt a third of the way.
3. Fold the sleeve out.
5. Fold the sleeve out. You should know have a T or a cross shape, depending on the type of collar the shirt has.
6. Fold down the top of the shirt.
7. Fold up the bottom of the shirt.
8. Somehow manage to get your wiggly kid in there and secure it with the diaper pin while trying very hard not to poke your 100 mile a minute toddler.
Cover with some type of diaper cover. These work better for little babies, as they aren’t as absorbent as other diapers, and big kids pee a lot! If you’ll be using these on older kids or overnight, strongly consider using a doubler or two, made from microfiber or hemp or bamboo.
If you don’t have diaper covers or much money to spend on them, you can either buy a few plastic pants or some cheap diaper wraps. From my research, Gerber and Dappi plastic pants are the cheapest plastic pants, and Dappi and Kushies diaper wraps are the cheapest diaper wraps.
Cloth diaper covers can also be made at home from recycled, felted wool sweaters, or even from old raincoats or recycled shower curtains. Here is a link to a pattern for making cloth diaper covers at home. You’ll need to add velcro or snaps, with velcro probably be easier and cheaper to do.
Cloth diapering in the laundromat? No!
And if, unfortunately, you don’t have laundry facilities at home, you can still cloth diaper your kid- it’ll just be a bit more work. Diapers can be washed in bathtubs with plungers, boiling water, and if need be, your hands. (Wear rubber gloves to make this less gross.) It’s what they did in the olden days, and while annoying (and somewhat gross), can save you lots of money in the long run if it allows you to cloth diaper even without a washer and dryer.
Line dry your clothes to dry, either on a foldable indoor cloths rack, or even from clothes lines hanging from your windows (if such a thing isn’t against city ordinances where you live).
Tee-shirt diapers and prefolds (the cheaper diapers) have the added benefit of being extra quick to dry because the various layers unfold.
No, most people probably won’t need to do any of these cloth diapering tips. But for those that really are in desperate financial circumstances, here’s how they can cloth diaper, even without a penny to spare. For me- I only do this if I’m all out of diapers and have nothing else to put on my kid. But it definitely works well as a backup option.
P.S. If all else fails, you can always try Elimination Communication (potty training from birth), but I couldn’t do it, even if it meant not having to deal with diapers at all.
Do you cloth diaper? How much did you spend on your diaper stash? What method did you use to get your diapers cheaply, or did you not bother?
Have you heard of the new sew tee shirt diaper before? Have you ever tried to use it?
Would you wash cloth diapers by hand if you had no use of a washer and dryer at home, or would that be enough of a deterrent for you, even if money was very very very tight?
