Bye Bye Dirty Swishy Pail

Ten years ago dirty cloth diapers had to be swished in the toilet or a pail of sick nasty water.
Ten years ago, we put our diaper in the nasty pail till wash day, or in a plastic sack.
Those days are over.

Every diaper (disposable or cloth) needs accessories. This segment will cover some of the different things you would need to cloth diaper your baby.
*I have left out a changing table, and changing pads. We have a tiny apartment and we found it cheaper and easier to change our little one on our bed or on the floor. Changing tables and changing pads don't really vary from disposable to cloth.*

Diaper Pails/Dirty Diaper Collectors
These days stylish and classy disposable diapering mom's use ingenious Diaper Genies. But since you don't throw away cloth, why waste a plastic sack, and why not find something WAY cuter.
I bring you Wet Bags. This is my favorite brand, PlanetWise.

These handy diaper bags are earth friendly (for my granola friends) and come in many sizes and colors.
You can never have too many wet bags. I have several sizes. They also have cloth wipe wet bags, on the go wet bags, medium wet bags and large hanging wet bags (which I use in place of a diaper pail).
They also sell plain wet bags and diaper pails if you prefer that system. Wet bags are made from the same material as cloth diapers PUL, no wetness gets out and they are machine washable.
Check out their wet/dry bags which I love for on the go or travel. The front pocket of the diaper bag is for dry or clean cloth and the back portion is for dirty or wet cloth. These are also great for swimming/gym gear or wet baby clothes.

Diaper Creams
Most diaper creams aren't safe to use with cloth diapers. The cream causes a moisture barrier and won't let the diaper absorb liquid. I've ruined a few AIO's (all-in-one's) testing this out myself.
This is my favorite all natural diaper ointment. And for everyone whose ever put diaper cream on a baby's bottom and no matter how much hand washing you do, you can still feel it on your finger, this solves all problems. At our house we call it butt chapstick. It comes in a neat tube so you don't have to touch it, I love it! GroVia magic stick.

My local Cloth Diaper store recommends...

And believe it or not I still use my back-up favorite (which happens to also be great for marathon runners, in case you were wondering). Boudreaux's Butt Paste.

Note: This has ruined some All-In-One's I owned. But on my pre-folds this stuff comes out. I have to use a process called stripping which is basically lots of soaking to get all of the BP out of the fibers of my pre-folds, but I love it. Most CD momma's say this is a BIG no-no.
A few weeks ago Adley has a bad bacterial infection causing lots of diarrhea. (Sorry!) Her little bottom got raw, and for the first time Adley had a diaper rash that lasted more than a few hours. We covered her little bottom in BP and did frequent diaper changes, when the infection had run its course Adley was rash free.

Last tip on diaper ointment: I don't usually use it. 99.99% of the time I don't even use the butt chapstick, why? Because I don't need to. The beauty of cloth is that the natural fibers wick away moisture from the baby's bottom. And since I'm not trying to save money by making her sit in a diaper till it is 'full' I can change her the second she is wet. Most of the diaper rashes that Adley has had up to this point have lasted no longer than one day. When I see the start of a rash, I have a little system.
1. Let her bottom have some air. When she was little I layed her on a chucks or pad of some type, if that didn't clear it then...
2. I put butt chapstick on her and only put a pre-fold on her so I could see when she was wet, I then would change her right away.
3. That would usually clear it up within a few hours and then we were back to pre-folds and covers.
If you had a daycare scenario I would just have them use the diaper ointment at every change.

The Icky Stuff
The part of cloth diapers everyone grosses out over...the poopy part. I have some good news and some tough news.
Good News: I am a huge supporter of breastfeeding for many reasons and here is one of them. If you breastfeed your baby you will not need to remove any poopy before washing until you start adding in solids (which for most babies is around 6 mo.). I'm serious. It won't ruin your washer, and all stains can come out in the wash or in the beautiful sunlight.
Tough News: Yes you do save a lot of money using cloth diapers...and there is a 'catch' I guess. Once you start feeding your sweet little baby solids you need to get rid of the solid waste before washing it. If it isn't solid...then you don't need to dispose. Example: My daughter started on 'solids' when she was 4 months old, but we did mostly pureed fruits, so until we started adding cheerios and such at 6 months I still did not need to remove solids from her diapers.
The ease...
Imse Vimse has these wonderful flushable diaper liners that you can add in at each change. If your little one has a bowel movement, just remove and flush...easy peasy.
Flushable Liners
If however you are a cheapskate like me you can use this. It easily attaches to your toliet and helps you deal with nasty food. Generally I just use dispoable wipes to get rid of poopy, but I don't recommend this since they aren't flushable.
I complain about this part, but honestly I still wouldn't trade my cloth in for disposable, even with this job. (And I make it hard on myself.)

Wipes:
I'm lazy and I use disposable wipes. There, I said it. I usually can find good coupon deals and get them for next to nothing. However if you are a better person than me...check out this. This is a cloth wipe system. I have also seen people make their own disposable wipes, and their own cloth wipes. You can be really cheap when it comes to these. I personally never started, I think I was afraid that I would use too many and run out to fast. I've never really done research on these though, so don't let me be the example.

Hope this helps!