Not Your Grandma's Diapers

The idea of cloth diapering isn't new. In fact, it's been around for centuries--officially, anyway. Swept up in a world where convenience overpowers anything else, however, cloth diapers are usually looked upon as a hassle or 'gross' by the modern mom. I agree that the idea of not disposing of something covered in pee or poo is pretty nasty, you've got to imagine that cloth diapering moms aren't just leaving poo sacks all around the house, right? Right. So today I'm going to let you in on my experience with cloth diapers and maybe shine a little bit of glory light on the situation.

 A modern take on cloth diapering

When I first had the thought about using cloth diapers I admit I was a little scared. My mom cloth diapered both my brother and I so I had thought "well, why not?" And then the thought of folding and pinning had me all up in a panic (what if he won't stay still and I poke him?) so I decided to do some research.  To my surprise, I could hardly find anything on flat diapers because diapers like the G Diapers, Bum Genius, and Bumkins (to name a few) are sweeping the cloth diapering nation.

Well, because my dad is an avid Ebayer, and Nikolai was going to be his first grandchild, he and my mom hopped right up onto the internet and found what I consider to be THE BEST DIAPERS EVER. (pictured above, though I have yet to buy that colour)

I do have two of the G Diapers and they are really nice, but I have three issues with them:

• They are quicker to leak than my other cloth diapers
• They are expensive. I believe mine cost $26.99 for two diapers (and the inserts maybe?)
• They are sized.

What I love about the snap diapers, aside from how stinkin' cute they are, is that they will grow with my baby. It's very convenient to be able to buy 10 or so diapers (that's all I have as of right now and it's all I need because of how frequent I do laundry. It's incredible.) and not have to worry about buying more when he doesn't fit in them. That's probably my absolute favourite feature.

I also love how they function. They are completely lined with fleece, and then a (very grabby) terry insert goes between the fleece and the outside, you snap it up and baby is diapered! When it's time for a change, I pull the liner out of the diaper/nappy put both pieces in a bowl of water and a tiny bit of non-chlorine bleach where it can sit until I am ready to do laundry.

I may or may not be obsessed with the price. I'm sure there are American brands of these diapers somewhere, but because of her prices and selection, I buy them at the Ebay store linked above. Each nappy with lining is around $5 shipped from China. How many people can say they diapered their baby for years on $50? Okay, maybe not $50 because I'm sure I'll be needing more than 10 by the time he is potty trained, but you see my point.

I have noticed less diaper rash, not that he had much before I started on cloth, but when I was doing research, I read that cloth diapered babies suffer from less diaper rash and that puts many a mama at ease.

Now, cloth diapering, like breastfeeding (maybe a future post?), is a big choice to make. The type of diaper you put on your baby has nothing to do with his/her health, but diapers are such a big part of baby life that maybe it's worth looking past the pampers. I've come up with several reasons why you might want to make the switch, but also the downside of cloth diapers.

PROS

• Cloth diapers will save you a significant amount of money. Let's say you change your baby seven times a day (an average). That's 2,352 diapers in one year. There's about 96 diapers in a case, let's say. You'd need to buy 25 cases of diapers in a year, and at about $25/case, that's $625 in disposable diapers per year. Whoa. Put that money away for the holiday season.
• Eco-friendly. Having grown up in a town that houses the landfill for the entire state (not actually that impressive though, since RI is so tiny), I have to say that I would not like to be responsible for putting 2,352 diapers/year/child into it. It smells bad enough without having baby poo in it.
• Washing is easy! I personally do laundry at the end of the day when the baby has gone to sleep. While they are waiting for their turn in the wash, I have a large bowl of water with a little bit of non-chlorine bleach that they soak in during the day. The bleach cancels out any odor and since he is so little, his poo is still pretty creamy and soaks right into the insert so I haven't had to do any diaper to toilet transfers yet. I do wash the diapers with all my other laundry. They are too small to make a separate load of without wasting water/energy and in the months that I've been doing it, have not had any damage, poop or otherwise, done to my other clothes. To me it's the same as washing a shirt that got spit up on or something.
• Again, they're so cute.

CONS

• You have to wash them. This isn't necessarily a con, but it could be. I know a lot of families just starting out may be in an apartment like we are, but may not be fortunate enough to have laundry in their unit, or even on the premise. I feel that I would still use clothies even if I didn't have my own washer and dryer, I would just buy more and upgrade my bleach bowl to a bleach bucket. I can understand that it might present a hassle though.
• Working mom? I'm not sure how day care works exactly, since I was well out of diapers when  I attended, for that short, short point in my life, and I get to stay home with mine. I imagine that if you made sure to have a good supply of clothies in your diaper bag, and provided a wet/dry sack for your day care provider that it could definitely work. There are a lot of cloth diapering moms out there and even more than that, there are a lot of working moms! Someone must have figured it out!
• Shipping. This con only applies to the snappy diapers that I buy on Ebay. Because they ship from China, they take about a month to arrive in the mail. Buy in bulk, folks

As much as I love cloth diapers, I haven't thrown out the Huggies entirely. I do still use disposable for overnight use. The substance inside them that turns the pee into a gel is more comforting on the no-leak front then just cloth, especially having a baby that pees like a faucet and sleeps like a rock. I also use disposable diapers when I go out to visit someone. As soon as I buy a wet/dry bag though, I'll probably kick this. I just don't want to carry around poo diapers with me or have them sitting in my diaper bag. Having a wet/dry bag will help a lot with this, especially since we are a very social family.

I also didn't start using cloth diapers until Nikolai was about 3 months old. He was a very skinny baby so when I did up the snaps so they would fit him, the diaper was so bulky his little pants couldn't fit over his bubble butt. Not only that, but getting into the swing of just being a mom, I couldn't seem to be able to get into the swing of using them. Now that I have, though, I wouldn't go back for anything.

Something that I just recently stumbled upon (when I was doing an image search, actually) was a blog by a woman who is putting on a phenomenal fund-raiser! Covered in Hope is what it is called and she is collecting used (and I'm sure new as well) cloth diapers for babies and children in Ethiopia. If her campaign is still raging when Nikolai is potty trained, I will absolutely be donating my diapers to her. I will also most likely be purchasing some specifically for her and the children, and if you could spare the $5, I encourage you all to do the same.

Diapers for Ethiopia is linked with Covered in Hope where you can make a $1 donation and she will send a diaper to the children of Ethiopia for each dollar donated.

Happy diapering!

:: Celeste