Well, I have a limited amount of experience with disposable diapers, I only used them for a year and a half or less, but I've tried several brands to see if they would work for me. But my problem was that I would get a rash from sweating so much in them. When I switched to cloth, that problem went away.
I use gauze cloth myself, fron AdultClothDiaperCo., and their plastic pants too. I did try one flannel diaper on my last purchase a month or two ago, but I'm still trying to assess it's worthiness. I use only the night time cloth, even for daytime, as I have a large bladder and no control. One night time during the day is fine when I use a stuffer and a liner. At night, I triple up on them so I don't have any leakage problems. I almost ruined my chair from leaking when I was using disposables, and then from the cloth when I wasn't using enough material at first.
I also have no bowel control, and when I'm cleaning up in the shower, I'll hose off the cloth diaper in there after I remove the heaviest part of the mess, and I must say that the night time cloth will hold a huge amount of water.
The trick to keeping from leaking is a good pair of plastic pants. Cloth diapers will "wick" the moisture into whatever they happen to touch, and if your plastic pants don't cover all of it, that's what will happen. Basically, the plastic just keeps the cloth from touching anything else, they really can't stop a leak if you overload a cloth diaper, but before you ever get to that point, you'll know it.
As for diaper pins, I've found that the ones at a place called "Joanne's" I think it's spelled, has some called Skirt pins, that work really well for this. They are much thicker material than the ones ADC sells, and a lot stronger. But be sure to get the brass colored ones, as they will not rust. The stainless ones aren't really stainless and will rust on you and stain your diapers. I learned that the hard way.
Oh, one last thing, the price. Cloth dipes are going to cost you a large amount right up front, but in the long run, they'll cost you far less than the disposables, and they are more eco-friendly. I have to wear them 24/7/365, so it's cheaper for me to use these. I buy the extra large size, and if my memory serves, they were about $28.00 or $29.00 each. If you don't use bleach on them, {it eats cloth really bad, guess how I found that out!}, they will last you for a couple of years, depending on how many you have and how often you use them. I initially started with 8 of them for a year, and then I began to buy them a dozen at a time. You get a discount on them if you buy them in lots of 3, or more in lots of 6, over the individual price. I've still got some of the first ones, they're a bit raggedy, but they make excellent liners or stuffers. I let them get all stained up and save the newer ones that way.
I hope this helps you make up your mind.
