what, you DON'T want to know about Maria's diapers?

I realize this post might have a limited audience - sorry if this is the absolute last topic you would be interested in reading about... So, we're 6 weeks in and have been using cloth diapers with Maria since she was about 2 weeks, right after her belly button was mostly healed. With her umbilical hernia her button stuck out quite a bit, and the cloth diapers come up a bit higher on her tummy than the disposables, which was irritating the spot. But we're using cloth about 99% of the time now. She does just fine in them, and it really isn't that much extra work. We use two different types - prefolds with covers, and pocket diapers. You might have seen her the other day in a prefold/cover. We have 16 bleached Indian prefolds in the infant size. This is what a pile of prefolds looks like:

And like I've mentioned before, this is the cover we mainly use (Thirsties X-Small), although we also have a few newborn size Bummi's Super-Brite (I don't like the way they fit). These are sized and as Maria grows we will have to buy more covers to keep fitting her. The X-Small looks like it will fit for at least another month, if not more. We have two of them, and also two in the next size.

And this is the pocket diaper we use, the bumGenius 3.0:

I love these pocket diapers - they are nearly identical to put on to disposables, and will adjust to fit her until she's about 30 pounds, hopefully up to potty-training time. We have 6 of these, and hope to continue building up the stash until it's what we use most of the time. They are expensive, but so far seem to hold up very well. I keep two of them stuffed with the larger insert, and we use those at night. She can go about 10 hours in one, with no leaks, and she has had no rash from staying in it so long.

I wash the diapers about every other day - we store them in a small lidded garbage can from Target with a large Bummis Diaper Tote in it. I've never noticed any odor in the room from the diaper pail. She's still breastfeeding, so the dirty diapers don't need to be rinsed before putting them in the can. I wash once on cold/cold with only a tiny bit of laundry detergent, once on hot/cold with the same amount of soap, and one additional cold rinse. Oh! And I've been telling anyone who will listen how amazed I am that the sun really does bleach out any leftover stains on the diapers. I put them out on the hammock for about 30 minutes, and they are as white as could be! Then I throw everything in the dryer and that's that. The diaper covers, pocket diapers and their inserts only needed to be prewashed once, but the prefolds need to be washed about 5-7 times so they'll be absorbent enough to work for you.

I am surprised that a lazy person like myself is taking what seems like a harder road with the whole diapering thing. I'm not exactly sure what has come over me lately - first natural childbirth, then breastfeeding, then cloth diapers? What could possibly be next?