Those of you who did not research cloth diapers for months will have no interest in this, sorry!

If I give Jack the blue and green diapers and Molly the yellow and white and brand new pink diapers, then they're divided about evenly in half. I think that's about two and a half days for Jack and two days for Molly, and two days was about how long I wanted dirty diapers to sit in the pail anyway. The extra laundry doesn't bother me so much. I do fifty loads of laundry every day anyway. What's another one?!

The problem with color coding was that I wasn't sure if some of the stretched out diapers were yellow and white. I didn't want all the blue and green diapers to be Jack's, except for the ones I switched out with the yellow and white ones that wouldn't fit Molly. I guess I could have distinguished which was which from the snaps, but I am lazy.

Thankfully only one yellow diaper is sort of stretched out and one white diaper is extra stretched out. I'm going to see how those do on Molly (maybe it won't make such a difference since I'm making them so much smaller anyway?) About half of Molly's diapers have newborn inserts and the other half have the regular inserts. I tried both on her yesterday and I didn't think the regular insert diapers looked too bulky. Of course, I'm used to what we will call Cloth Diaper Butt by now and Molly's also a lot bigger than Jack was at this age. Molly is in the 90th percentiles for height and weight while Jack's category is simply labeled Shrimp. At this rate Molly will be beating him up by kindergarten.

The other problem was where to put them. I change all of Jack's diapers upstairs in his room, but I change the majority of Molly's in the living room (I have a changing table attachment on the pack 'n play.) I just decided I'd change her upstairs too, for now. I'd have to march the dirty diapers upstairs anyway, since the pail is in the bathroom up there. Hopefully this is going to cut back on my baby wipes use too (I use little baby washcloths with the cloth diapers) because MAN those baby wipe containers are IRRITATING. The ones that come in the nice little box are expensive, and the cheap ones either come out 40 at a time or you have to peel back the top or they stink or they're not soft or something else I can't stand.

We'll see how it works. I am annoyed, though, at the fact that I have so many stretched out diapers. Most of them are blue and green because I tend to favor those when I'm changing Jack. But only a handful of them are even over a year old. I think they've held up beautifully otherwise- even the the velcro that so many people complain about on the diaper message boards looks great. Age doesn't seem to be a factor, though, since my oldest diapers (I can tell which ones they are because they have white snaps instead of color coordinated snaps) are fine. They're not brand new and super stretchy, but not as stretched out as others. I don't want to try other brands or do the prefold thing, just because I've already spent so much money (with the intention of using them for more than one kid!) Right now they're fine. And now that they have some new colors I may not be opposed to replacing a diaper here and there. Those hot pink ones are TOTALLY Molly's color.

And now I'm going to go type up the eBay ad for the boy. He won't eat his yogurt. Won't stop whining. Wants his daddy and daddy ONLY. Jack can be such a prima donna. Thank goodness we're going to grandma's today.

Comments

[Elizabeth]

Um, I didn't get any of that, but I would try a letter to the company about the stretched out diapers. Mention everything about the message boards, how they aren't even a year old, how you wanted to use them for lots of kids, how much money you've invested, that you have a blog, all of that, and see what happens. I am guessing they'll come through in some way...I have great success with the polite letter to a company mentioning all of this kind of stuff.

[Liz]

Elizabeth is a genius. A strongly worded letter would be entirely appropriate.

[Jen]

I just bought the same kind, mainly because of you mentioning them in the past. Then I started to hear about them everywhere. I got the new colors too and they are gorgeous!

[Pippi]

You can replace the elastic if your crafty -- I believe there's even a tutorial online. If you're not crafty, like me, and you have generous, crafty friends they can replace it for you :) I think there might even be some WAHMs who do that for a small price. I can't remember links, but if you google it as search around you'll probably find it.

My Kissaluvs got all stretched out and while I wouldn't say they're as good as new (we'll have to wait until I have a #2 to test out the breastfed-poop leakage) they're still doing the job after Crafty Friend went at them. I got mine used so I expected this kind of stuff, though.

I've seen people comment on message boards that the Bumgenius only last through one kid because they get so much more use that a sized system. If it's just the elastic, though, you might get away with more than kid -- just make friends with someone who sews :)

[Pippi]

Ahhh!!! Grammar mistake!! "You can replace the elastic if YOU'RE crafty." Sorry, I had to correct myself. It was just too painful to see that in print.

[Jessica]

I love bumgenius, but I cannot get my husband to agree on forking over the cash.. no matter how much I try and explain the long-term investment opportunity (he looks at me as if I am about to try and get him to sell Amway).
So, we're still spending $60 a month on pampers for 2 (actually, my mother and sister-in-law have taken it upon themselves to stock us up every time they come over, as if I can never leave the house to buy stuff. And I pretend like I can't because who looks a gift horse in the mouth, right???)
We do have 3 bum genius 3.0s that I bought used off of diaperswappers.com just to try and convince him that they are awesome.
Didn't work... and 3 diapers is not enough to even attempt.
I have to say, though, that Van (my newborn) is HUGE compared to Charlie (17 months). At 4 weeks, Van was over 10lbs, and Charlie didn't weigh 10lbs until he was at least 6 months old... I wonder when Van stops wearing the hand-me-downs and becomes the one getting the new stuff.

[Katherine]

I was also going to recommend contacting Cotton Babies. From what I hear, they have fantastic customer service, especially if your diapers are less than a year old. If that route doesn't work, you can replace the elastic yourself or get a seamstress to fix it. I've looked at the tutorials and it looks pretty simple. We love our BG diapers. I remember reading your reviews of them while diaper shopping and they are our favorite diapers now.