A.C.
Sorry for the book I have written below. ^_^
I did disposable and cloth with my son and now am doing the same with my daughter. I started with disposables with my son and switched over to cloth when he was 8 months old. My daughter began with cloth from the very beginning (by the time she came around, I knew what I was doing, so it was easier to put a newborn in cloth). I still use disposables for both kids at night, though. Truth is, I prefer cloth, but my son is a very heavy pee-er at night, and we have to use specialized overnight diapers.. I LOVE Fuzzi Bunz because my kids are both very tall, and Fuzzi Bunz has a very high rise. However, for kids who aren't so tall but more pudgy, BumGenius makes a great one-size-fits-all diaper, and I have never had a problem with either leaking. If you want to go simple and cheap, you can try prefolds with snappis (no pins) and I personally like Bummis covers. Visit http://www.jilliansdrawers.com/products/clothdiapers/tryc... because she has a cloth-diaper trial option. I have never used it, but I have heard it highly recommended and you get to try out a couple different types of diapers.
Pros: Fewer chemicals on your baby's porous skin, much better for the environment (especially if you consider all of the water & petroleum used to MAKE disposable diapers), less waste, makes it easier to potty-train your kids, and it is cheaper (although you don't break even for 6-10 months depending on which diapers you buy). Both of my kids are allergic to regular Huggies (but not Huggies Naturals) and Pampers. I don't know why. Cloth is cheaper in the long run, and a LOT cheaper if your kids have allergies and require more expensive diapers for some reason.
Cons: You have to change diapers more frequently, you have to carry a wetbag when you go out (to store soiled diapers), bulkier, slight increase in laundry (actually, it isn't that much), and some daycares won't take them.
You clean cloth diapers pretty much the same way you clean any clothes. I prefer to run it through a prewash/rinse first to get urine off the diapers before I wash them, but you don't have to. If you are breastfeeding, you can just toss the diapers into the washer, even the poopy ones (breastmilk waste breaks down in water). If you are formula feeding or feeding solids, you dump the poo in the toilet first. You can buy flushable inserts so that you don't even have to rinse the diapers, you just dump the poo and you'e done. If you don't want to use the inserts, my CDing friends have a poop bucket. They dump as much of the poo as they can in the toilet, then put the diaper in a bucket of water. When it's time to run the laundry, you pick up the diaper (one friend uses tongs, the other just washes her hands afterward) and put it in the washer, then dump the dirty water in the toilet. You can also buy diaper sprayers, although I don't personally know anyone who has one. Bum Genius makes one, I think.
I use Charlie's Soap (get it off amazon.com - it costs more than most detergents, but it lasts FOREVER. I've been on one bottle for 6 months now, and it's not done yet!) and I use it for all the baby clothes, not just diapers, and there is another detergent called Rockin' Green made especially for cloth diapers, and I have friends who swear by Seventh Generation (which you can buy at Target and some supermarkets). Whether you use a special detergent is up to you. With any of the above-listed detergents, you don't have to wash the diapers in hot water. I use cold regularly, and then do one hot wash a month. I don't use bleach in my house, but I have friends who throw some bleach in occasionally with the diapers to sanitize them.
In response to Gamma's posting, I don't spend hours swishing out poopy diapers. Actually, I hardly even spend a minute on it. I dump the poo and flushable liner in the toilet, and I'm done. I wash a single load of diapers every two to three days - not several a day (I have two kids). To prevent the washing machine from smelling, you run regular white vinegar either through the prewash or the rinse cycle with the diapers - it's very easy to get the smell out. I don't have a HE washer, though, so I'm not sure if the same trick works for those. I rarely use hot water (several studies found that hot water didn't clean any better than cold when used with modern detergents), and I personally use fragrance-free detergent for all of my baby clothes, because it's not just hineys that I worry about, so I don't buy any extra detergent. I throw my diapers in the dryer with the rest of the baby clothes - no extra time there. I don't mind if someone prefers disposables, but if Gamma tried to use cloth diapers and had these problems, I am very sorry, but also a little surprised. Cloth diapers these days aren't really like the ones our mothers had to use, and there are plenty of tricks to the trade. If you need help or have any questions, diaperswappers.com is a great resource.