It's Easy Being Green: Cloth Diapering for the Busy Parent
Allow me to introduce you to the latest series to hit the our blog: "It's Easy Being Green", which is all about being environmentally friendly and how to leave less of a footprint on our Earth. This edition is on the pros and cons of cloth diapering and our experience. Let's dive in!
Spoiler Alert: PRO: CUTENESS OVERLOAD
When I was first pregnant, I admittedly, hadn't quite put much thought into the diapering portion of parenting. It kind of comes with the territory, right? So I didn't really think I had much to consider. My husband had a diaper party and our basement had an entire stock ready to go- all different sizes, too! Newborn, 1's, 2's and 3's. We were probably covered for at least 6 months, but, as luck would have it, fate stepped in, as it often does.
As I was following along with the birth of one of my favorite bloggers, Laura Gummerman's, daughter, Lola, I came across her experience with cloth diapering and I was totally intrigued. My immediate thought? What year are we in?! However, I loved the concept and had to know more, since I've never loved the idea of tossing out 10-12 diapers a day for them to go and sit in a landfill. That, coupled with the idea of all the chemicals lurking in disposable diapers and me loving to do my part in taking care of this Earth was enough to make me begin researching and man, was I overwhelmed.
While there may not be many options, diaper-wise, it seemed like there were a lot of "rules" and I was already overwhelmed with everything we had to do before the arrival of our little one. Research told me you had to use special diaper cream, there were special washing instructions, you had to use special soap, there was a special rinsing system, there were wet bags and dry bags and ahhhh!!! I just didn't have time to think about all of this!
So, I decided that if I was going to do this...it would have to be my own way. As a business owner and a soon-to-be new mom, I had to play by my own rules - the kind that time would allow for.
I'll be honest, when I first told my husband, Christopher about this, I think he thought I was losing my mind. He wasn't not on board, but he wasn't totally onboard, either. He also may have thought that my ship had sailed. So, I told him I'd be the one to throw everything in the laundry and that if he wanted, he could use the disposable diapers that we got from the diaper party whenever he changed the baby's diaper. He agreed that was a good deal and off we went. It also helped that our good friends casually mentioned that they too, were going to cloth diaper - strangely enough, we hadn't ever mentioned that we were considering it as well! Crazy, huh?
Here's what we registered for:
Twelve total cloth diapers (each diaper includes 2 inserts) This Alva Baby set and two Charlie Banana sets: set 1 and set 2
A regular diaper pail (for when the grandmothers watched him)
Butt paste (probably not cloth diaper approved)
That's it. And let me tell you, we started from day 3. Reason being, day 1 and 2 were spent in the hospital and honestly, my head just wasn't there. So, we started the second we got home. To our surprise, it was amazing! Seriously, it was the easiest thing ever. I'm also happy to report that Christopher promptly forgot about all of his worries once we got home, on his own accord. He fully got on board with not wanting to put our brand new baby into chemical ridden diapers. It's funny how you have a baby and then immediately, have those protective parental instincts kick in. Also, we both realized how TRULY easy it was by taking our "cloth diapering for lazy parents" approach. No special washing/soap/diaper cream or rinsing.
Here's how we worked it: Whether tinkle or poopies, when we would change his diaper, we would toss it right into the "wet bag". Each wet bag held about five diapers. Once we filled both wet bags with 9-10 diapers, we'd run it down to the washing machine, pop it into hot water, using a little free & gentle Tide and then would dry it on a low setting. Once he started solid food, we would throw the poops right into the toilet before sticking the diaper into the wet bag. I would sit and assemble the diapers when they were dry so that they would be ready to go for the next use and voila! It was that easy.
We exclusively cloth diapered until he was 9.5 months, unless one of our mom's watched him and then it was too much work to try and explain how the diaper snaps worked, so we let them use the toss-away's. There were the occasional days where we would be out too long for the number of diapers that I would stuff in our amazing diaper bag and would have to resort to the disposables and let me tell you, we never had to use the butt paste until his poor buns were stuck wearing a disposable diaper. This is one of the beautiful things about cloth diapering that I didn't realize. Diaper rashes are zero to none. We only have one other friend who exclusively cloth diapered and of the friends that exclusively disposable diapered...I heard CONSTANT stories about their terrible diaper rashes, while the two babies who are cloth diapered are over here without one single diaper rash. Literally the only time that we had to combat a diaper rash (and it was always a really bad one!) was when we would stick him in a disposable, which we promptly felt TERRIBLE about.
So, what are the plusses? Well, considering we spent ZERO dollars on the cloth diapers, (had we bought them ourselves, they would have been $150), laundry was easy, ZERO diaper rashes. Oh, and the OBVIOUS.....THEY ARE DAMN CUTE. I mean, how could you not at least try it, right?
The negatives? There really is only one and it was the reason we ultimately stopped, but it could have easily been avoided and I'm taking complete responsibility for this. Since we took the blasé approach and didn't follow all the rules, after 9 months, our diapers developed an ammonia stink (also referred to as a "barnyard smell" but our's didn't smell so barn-yardy) and let me tell you, it stunk. I tried "stripping" them by soaking and washing them in baking soda and white vinegar and bleaching them in the sun, but nothing worked. We were at the point of solid food, which equates to solid poopies, so we decided to dig into our stash of "Daddy's Diaper Party" diapers that had been collecting dust in the basement.
Colton will be 1 year old in 6 days and to this day, we haven't spent one single penny on diapers. Since starting table foods, his poops are now solid enough that we can easily toss them right in the toilet, so we're considering just spending the $100 or so on another stash of ten new cloth diapers to begin again, until it's time to potty train (or until they get that stink going on again).
All in all, if there's a second baby in our future, we'll take the exact same approach. Sure, we endured a few eye rolls from those family members and friends who can't fathom such a thing, but whats important is that it worked for us and our lifestyle so we wouldn't change a thing!
Although I found that Laura's post had the best info that I had found on cloth diapering, I'm happy to answer any questions about it, so don't hesitate to reach out.
