Bailey Bouwman  00:00

Welcome back to the cloth one on one series here on the cloth diaper podcast where we’ve been going over the basics of cloth diapering from what is a cloth diaper to why, where, how, when what and today is the where episode.

 

Bailey Bouwman  00:13

 This series is brought to you by my book, cloth diapers The Ultimate Guide to textiles, washing and more. It’s available in black and white and color on amazon.com.ca as well as through the Book Depository and a few other of your favorite bookstores. The cloth diaper book is a simple guide to get you going on cloth diapering, it has all the basics written down. And I have learned so much over the last couple of years, I probably need to do an update, but I don’t know if I’m going to get around to that this year.

 

Bailey Bouwman  00:44

 Keep in mind that the cloth diaper industry is a place of growth and knowledge. So what we knew last year isn’t was always the same. It does have a good chunk of basics though. So today you’re here because we’re going to talk about where to buy cloth diapers. And I hate that I get asked this question so much because there are so many amazing places to purchase cloth diapers that I don’t know where to start, but I know that you don’t know where to begin.

 

Bailey Bouwman  01:10

 So where do you begin? Well, cloth diapers are available almost everywhere. And increasingly in both online boutiques and in person stores.

 

Bailey Bouwman  01:22

I generally like to encourage you to Google cloth diapers near me and see what pops up. A lot of times we don’t know that there’s a cloth diaper retailer or boutique near us. Just because we weren’t looking for it. It might not have crossed our rabbit our like radar and cloth diaper boutiques tend not to have like massive budgets. They’re not spending millions of dollars trying to get in front of you. They’re just trying to stay alive and afloat. So sometimes if you type in cloth diapers near me, you’ll come up with a boutique or you’ll come up with an online retailer. Sometimes you don’t I just googled the cloth diapers near me It popped up my local baby boutique everything baby. I know that they do carry cloth diapers they carry they carried by Bummis was alive and they carried Lighthouse kids so local baby boutiques do carry selection, it might not be the best diaper for you or the best choice or the best diaper all around.

 

Bailey Bouwman  02:16

 But it’s a great place to start. It also showed up the green sheep that eco shop near me, I know that they don’t carry diapers anymore, and it showed up a few others. It doesn’t always work. But sometimes it’s a good place to start because there are some amazing retailers and boutiques near you and you might be able to find something you didn’t know and find a local shop to support.

 

Bailey Bouwman  02:43

Now if there’s nothing near you, there’s a lot of other great options, you can look at a broader national or international platform to purchase cloth diapers. I sat down to write this episode I think I found four broad categories about where you can buy cloth diapers, the first being you can buy them simply from the brand themselves. You can purchase them through a retailer or a larger store.

 

Bailey Bouwman  03:10

You can purchase them through the second hand market and you could purchase them through larger platforms like Amazon or Alli Express. You can also acquire diapers for free through cloth diaper banks and libraries around the world. So if you cannot afford diapers, I want you to know that there are resources available there are people working to get diapers in the hands of families who need them. In my area we have cloth for cars, which serves northern British Columbia. But there are lots of different diaper banks including Jake’s diapers Milwaukee, South Salem cloth project, diapers for Delmarva, and so many other passionate people, we’ve done some interviews on the past. And again, this is something that you’re just kind of going to have to reach out and look at, you can go to the Jake’s diapers website and they’ll see have a list of people they’ve supplied diapers.

 

Bailey Bouwman  04:03

Hopefully in the future we’ll have some more concrete lists. So when it comes to purchasing diapers directly, most brands offer this as an option. So you can go to southern fluff love, you can go to thirsties you can go to grovia you can go to imagine baby pewters Lillian Frank and you can purchase diapers directly from the brand. This is usually the preferred choice for a lot of work at home moms and smaller brands to wholesale your diaper with a retailer as a whole nother layer of expenses and navigating all that purchasing direct with a brand is a great way to get started. And my advice when it comes to purchasing direct from a plant brand is most of them are good if they’ve got an established website and a gram following and all that like I would trust it. It’s fine

 

Bailey Bouwman  05:00

The only time it becomes begins to get a little bit questionable I think is like the pre order seen. But that’s just because so much can go wrong in the pre orders and we’re going to talk about pre orders actually with Lauren next week so maybe save those thoughts but generally shopping with directly was a brand is a great, easy, safe way to do it. It also gives the brand the most profits and you really like to find a brand’s website, you type in the brand and you go find it. So the second option that you have is to shop direct with a retailer.

 

Bailey Bouwman  05:35

This is a broad category, and I’ve kind of lumped it in you’ve got two choices, I guess you’ve got boutiques and then you’ve got cloth diaper retailers. A cloth diaper retailer is someone who specifically sells cloth diapers when I think about cloth diaper retailers in the Canadian marketplace. We have cloth diaper kids, they really only sell cloth diapers. Or lagoon baby lagoon baby used to really specialize in cloth diapers now she’s brought it up to toys. There’s also a little monkey cheeks. So those are like some Canadian cloth retailers in the United States.

 

Bailey Bouwman  06:07

The cloth retailer market is looking a lot different. Nicki’s Diapers used to be the go to but now I think you’ve got retailers like Lil Tulies, Jemm & Way would be another recommendation I have. We’ve seen a lot of change in the US market and and so I don’t really have some good names. The thing about retailers is that they will carry brands they trust and enjoy. So that’s one thing that I really love about shopping with a retailer. The downside about shopping with a retailer is that sometimes they don’t have all the great up and coming brands and boutiques.

 

Bailey Bouwman  06:41

When it comes to other boutiques, you’ll find cloth diapers at baby boutiques and maternity boutiques around the contrary many of them will carry a small selection of cloth diaper brands usually brands that they can get through their wholesale networks or brands that their followers have recommended. There’s a few brands that I see commonly across eco stores and boutiques that includes grovia thirsties, Lighthouse kids, an Imagine Baby these have been brands that have worked with with wholesalers for a long time and get recommended. In Canada we used to see AppleCheeks everywhere but AppleCheeks just got bought out. So who knows. you’ll sometimes find smaller brands at local boutiques you’ll sometimes find local brands and boutiques so there’s all sorts of options you never know when you’re going to walk into a baby boutique and find a cloth diaper.

 

Bailey Bouwman  07:31

You can also find cloth diapers now at big box stores. Sometimes when you’re in Target or Walmart you’ll find a cloth diaper brand assembly baby recently partnered with target so we know that you can find them there. And online retailers like Costco Barnes and Noble Chapters Indigo also a partner with cloth diaper brands to bring you their products online. This is a great way to add on cloth diapers any purchases, especially if you’re Canadian and you have to deal with big shipping costs. Oh, I forgot a cloth diaper retailer. I’m reading my notes here.

 

Bailey Bouwman  08:02

Green Mountain diapers is another phenomenal US based retailer that carries a wide selection of natural base products. Definitely check them out as well as diaper deep depot. I’ll have all of these in the show notes.

 

Bailey Bouwman  08:14

 I also wrote blog posts on www.simplymombailey.com to kind of if you’re more of a blog reader, but you’re listening to this because you’re a podcaster not a blogger. Okay, so you can buy directly from the brand you can bribe directly through a retailer and the third option for shopping for cloth diapers is to buy them secondhand and this is really going to vary on your local community because every community has a different place like to buy for used items.

 

Bailey Bouwman  08:36

While you can find cloth diapers on Poshmark or Facebook marketplace in specific buy and sell groups. You can also find them in hyper regional areas like Kijiji local buy and sell to groups or even secondhand stores. I know our local consignment store will consign cloth diapers.

 

Bailey Bouwman  08:53

 So, the secondhand market is really anywhere that you would shop for secondhand goods. It’s kind of divided up into several little spaces in that you can go to Facebook and you can find a group specifically for a type of diaper. So you’ll have thirsties, resales, grovia, resale groups, all of these specific resale spaces for brands but you’ll also find larger cloth diaper buy and sell groups. You’ll also find cloth diapers on the marketplace and regionally. Now traditionally, as a cloth diaper parent I’ve always bought from local parents because I’m not going to pay shipping on a used product just because there was so much incredible local products to purchase. When you are looking at the price of cloth diapers and you are looking from buying from other parents around the world think about that and somebody’s got to pay for shipping and the other downside about shopping internationally or nationally is that you don’t get to inspect the product right up a hand though if you are purchasing online. Be sure to ask for as many photos as possible and use a secure payment site like PayPal where you can

 

Bailey Bouwman  09:56

make a claim if you don’t get what you bargained for. There’s A lot of risk there. But for as much risk there is kind of that. Now when you’re looking at prices or purchasing used cloth diapers, I generally would recommend that you look at what is the price for a new cloth diaper.

 

Bailey Bouwman  10:13

And if that new cloth diaper was to go on sale, could I buy it for the same price or not from the retailer? Yes, there are spaces in this marketplace where you’ll see diapers go for triple their value. This is a weird cult like following in the cloth diaper community where we just I don’t know what happens guys. I don’t even want to acknowledge it at this point. But it happens if you’re shopping secondhand. Ignore that and look for the diapers that are actually a sale.

 

Bailey Bouwman  10:38

So I don’t like to purchase cloth diapers, or new prices from us people because then I don’t have the warranty and I don’t have the same band bragging, I generally want to get a 25 to 50% discount when buying used. And I won’t pay for damaged diapers or diapers with broken elastics it is so much work to replace elastics I don’t understand why people charge people for that. So much of the rhetoric in the cloth diaper industry for years has been Oh, you can make your money back when you sell your cloth diaper stash. And I really think we should end that because this idea that we need to constantly be making money back from our second hand products has probably done more damage to the industry than good. Yes, you can sell your cloth diapers but don’t be expecting to make bank because as a consumer as somebody buying a used diaper, I don’t want to pay more than 50% of the new price for it.

 

Bailey Bouwman  11:30

Because I don’t get the warranty anymore. I don’t know what you’ve done to it, and I gotta go pick it up from you. Anyways, those are rants for another day. But you can buy directly from the retailer, you can drive buy directly from the brand. Both of these include warranty options and support. You can buy it secondhand. And probably the last idea here is that you can buy cloth diapers from large online marketplace, like Amazon, Ollie Express, and Etsy. There’s lots more including wish and I’m sure there’s a few that I don’t even know Amazon tends to be a go to place for cloth diapering. If you’re in Canada, guys, Amazon has one of the worst selections for cloth diapers and I would compare all their prices because sometimes the prices are out for lunch. The selection really varies on your country and what options are available.

 

Bailey Bouwman  12:19

 Amazon is got a wide selection of products a wide selection of quality, we see a lot of direct from China brands on Amazon, which means low cost diapers, which can be really great for those of you who need to get started. But it also means that there can be a lot of quality variances. And just just expect that I guess there’s nothing wrong with that if you need to buy the cheap diapers buy the cheap diapers. As a critique of the industry, I struggle because sometimes when people are purchasing from Amazon, they’re getting a wide array of experiences and quality and that can be just really challenging. Like from my perspective, but there’s lots of places online AliExpress is another place to kind of buy direct from China and wishes another place. One thing about buying cheap diapers is I usually recommend the threshold of about four to $5 any diaper that’s priced about two to $3 is if I mean if you need to buy the two or $3 Diaper please look secondhand, please look for us stash the the two to $3 diaper is is it’s

 

Bailey Bouwman  13:27

gonna fall apart and it doesn’t have a lot of snaps and there are so many diapers in the secondhand market right now that I think that’s a better way to go. And there are so many people trying to support families with access to free diapers that I would also recommend them.

 

Bailey Bouwman  13:45

There are a lot of diapers on Etsy and Etsy is one of these marketplaces that really ebbs and flows as well. Etsy is where you’re going to find a lot of work at home moms you’ll also find some made in China stuff on Etsy again, it really varies and if you’re curious you’ll find their socials do a little internet sleuthing. I know we’re good at internet sleuthing for parents. But those I think would be about it when we wrap it about where to find the cloth diapers, you can purchase directly from the brand. So if you’re on the gram and you’re scrolling and you’re like Oh, I love that diaper. Go find out what brand it is and buy it directly.

 

Bailey Bouwman  14:19

You can also shop from retailers. We’ve got a wide selection of retailers both in Canada, the United States and internationally. You can shop secondhand and you can shop on big retailers like Amazon, a wide array of selection, lots of people who are ready and eager to serve you and support you. Over the past 90 shows we’ve interviewed many of these cloth diaper brands and retailers. So just go to their website, visit them check out their selection, their deals, their promotions, our shipping prices, and make an order. It doesn’t matter where you buy your diapers just that you use your diapers, buy the package that’s easy for you You use the diaper someone gave you an embrace the diapers that you have reminder that the perfect cloth diaper doesn’t exist. So stop looking for it and just start cloth diapering by the pretty ones, guys. All right, so this is going to be the hiatus we’re going to take a break from the cloth one on one series for a little bit because I have so many incredible shows to share with you and then we’ll come back. I had lots of big ideas, but I am a person of big ideas and sometimes life throws me a curveball. So I hope to see you over on Instagram or Facebook. Check out the cloth diaper podcast at WW cloth diaper podcast.com and I will see you on the internet. Bye guys.