Saturday, July 10, 2010

Cloth Diapers: The Adventure Begins!

I wrote this post for my blog over at Our365, where they just asked me to be a featured blogger! Of course this blog is my baby and is my every day blog, but it'll be fun coming up with weekly posts about being a mom! And this is a topic I'm very excited about:

I am a little in love with my new discovery. I never thought that it would happen. In fact, if you’d told me that I would even consider using cloth diapers two years ago when I was stocking up on disposables for Baby #1 I would have laughed. It didn’t even seem like something that I would be vaguely interested in trying.

Fast forward two years.

After reading a lot of blog posts by cloth diapering moms I was curious (I was especially influenced by Delta Flute and MK on this subject!). The bloggers I read really seemed thrilled with the way cloth diapers worked, they weren’t sending huge bags of diapers to landfills and they didn’t have to pay ridiculous prices for disposable diapers on a weekly basis. And frankly, the idea of buying diapers for two was not appealing. I’m not sure how much longer my older daughter is going to be in Pull-Ups, but I think we still have a few more months (at the very least).

A couple of months ago I began researching. I asked moms on forums what they used and which folds worked the best. And then after comparing prices on a half dozen different sites I placed a few orders.

I ordered two dozen pre-fold cotton cloth diapers and a half dozen flat diapers (just to see how the flat diapers worked). I ordered a couple dozen fleece liners for the pre-folds. Next I added two Snappi’s (that hold the diapers closed) and six diaper covers.

When the orders arrived I went to work. I reviewed the sites that showed the folds and re-read every cloth diapering thread on the forums that I could find. And then I watched You-Tube.

If only we had taken pictures of what followed. A week and a half ago I sat in the middle of the living room every night for almost a week, surrounded by my washed and dried diapers. Sadie’s Curious George doll sat in front of me and my computer was nearby. Step by step I followed the videos and written instructions. And little by little, each night, I got a little bit better at making sure George’s diaper was snug and positioned correctly.

I tried out a cloth diaper as soon as we got home from the hospital. The first one felt a little clumsy as Maggie squirmed and I tried to make the diaper stay in place. The second one was still awkward. But by the fourth it had started to get easier, and now, on day three of cloth diapering I am thrilled. I can put a cloth diaper on Maggie as quickly as I can put a disposable on and so far I really do like them better than the disposables (and it’s not just the price, although that’s great too!). After having Maggie blow through a half dozen disposable diapers during her first few days of life, the last three days have gone much more smoothly. The cloth diapers have contained everything! We haven’t had a single leak!

I still plan on using disposables now and then. I bring a few when we leave the house, mostly because they’re less bulky and my diaper bag is already full. But using one or two disposable diapers a day is way easier on my pocket book than using eight or nine.

I’m not going to know what to do with myself when Sadie’s out of diapers and I’m not making weekly trips to the diaper aisle!

5 comments:

  1. Welcome to the big world of cloth diapers! Watch out though, they can become quite addictive! :) I've loved seeing how my sposie trash pile dwindled so quickly once I started cd. I still use them for night, but like you said, sure beats using 8-9 diapers a day.

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  2. I plan on doing what my parents did once our little boy is born. I'll cloth diaper for the daily round and any disposables we get as gifts will go towards any traveling we do, such as camping or visiting relatives. I thought is sounded a little gross in the cleaning department but I could see the payoff was tremendous. All that money saved and knowing exactly what was touching your baby's skin. Does anyone know what those disposables do to baby skin? I know what my feminine pads do to my skin and I can only imagine that it could be quite a bit more harmful to that which will be so precious to me. After all, when I'm menstruating I only have to wear them for a few days. My baby will wear diapers every day all the time until he is potty trained.

    You'll have to post which videos helped you the best and what you had a hard time figuring out. Thanks for the post!

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  3. :-D Glad its going so well for you. Having had Kalila in sposies for her first 5 months, I was really looking forward to cding Zavier from the start & it has been so much nicer.

    Honey Bunny - LOL that's one of my nicknames I have for my daughter. Seriously though, did you know there's cloth for women too? I mostly use the Diva Cup but I made some pads for PP and they were so much more comfortable than the sposies.. and I don't have as sensitive skin.

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  4. My daughter started using pre-folds as soon as her daughter's naval healed. Unfortunately, she then struggled for months with a diaper rash that came back every time she put the baby back in cloth. They had pretty much resigned themselves to disposables, but decided to give cloth one more try. They got Bum Genius one size diapers. The rash started again, but this time my daughter treated it with something different (a paste of breast milk and acidophilus powder). Voila, no rash. They are loving the BG's. We got them a pail with an attached sprayer for a baby gift, and that plus some great eco-friendly detergent and hanging the diapers out to dry has kept everything sweet smelling. They are still using the sposies at night, but trying to find a cloth alternative that will work well for nighttime as well. They have a wet bag and even use cloth when they are traveling. At my house she usually does a load of diapers while she's here.
    The BG's have velcro tabs and are super easy to use as well as being really colorful.

    Boy have cloth diapers come along way since the era of flat diapers, diaper pins, and plastic pants.

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  5. Liz - that sounds like a yeast rash, we dealt with them a lot w/ our oldest. The easiest way to help the prefolds is to boil them. Putting some TTO in the wash with the diapers will help too and can be done w/ pocket diapers too. I prefer prefolds when dealing with that because they're easier to get the yeast out of so there's no reinfection. When we used BG's I had a hard time of that until I got the TTO.

    We use pockets for nighttime... Katydid's are my favourite for it so far. They're softer than BG's and have snaps instead of velcro.. that stuff ends up falling apart way too quickly. I'd like to get hemp doublers cause my boy is a heavy wetter and has sensitive skin, but we're on a strict budget.

    Good luck to your daughter w/ finding something for nights.

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