Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Diaper Duty



















Happy Cloth Diaper Tree!

Before I had a baby, I swore up and down that I would never use disposable diapers because I didn't want to be one of those people that filled up the landfills with their plastic wrapped baby waste. And then, well, I had a baby and the fancy G diapers that I had received didn't fit my little newborn so we had to use disposables. And oh the JOY of disposables! No more leaking of piddle & poo! No more rinsing, and soaking, and dealing with stains, and washing, and drying and folding! Of course this blog is about the beauty of cloth diapers but I have to be honest about the process ;) Anyways, it was just too easy to take a dirty diaper and throw it in the convenient plastic in plastic in plastic diaper genie. The guilt was immense but so was the satisfaction with the ease of diapering! And so we continued with our newborn disposables with the excuse that the cloth dipes didn't fit yet. But then...oh the horror...we bought the next size up of disposables. GASP! I hated the cloth G Diapers with a passion. They leaked and cut into Mo's fragile baby hips and thighs and made me miserable so I gave up on them. More than once we went to visit the Hollemans' in G diapers and ended up borrowing little boy clothes to get home in. Mo rocked little boy clothes but that is beside the point ;) So, once again in disposables, I decided to make myself feel better by giving all different cloth diapers a chance and ordered the $10 cloth diaper trial through Jillians Drawers and I cannot say enough good things about Jillians Drawers. For $10 they sent us every size Small cloth diaper you could possibly imagine. Cotton ones, wool ones, fleece ones, snappy ones, velcrow ones, hippie ones, Chinese ones, Indian ones and in every color imaginable! It was so fun trying out all the fuzzibuns, thirsties, tinklebottoms (ok I made the last one up) to see what worked with Mo's buns ;) We learned that all babies aren't made alike and different diapers fit different kiddos. And it's funny because every single cloth diaper failed us until, on our last desperate attempt, we tried the Thirsties. And lo and behold, they worked fabulously. No more leaks and as easy to put on and take off as disposables! So you say, this is where the Rogges hugged mother earth and bought a lifetime supply of cloth diapers. No, dear friends, the Rogges cheaped out and bought the next size up of disposables (we are now in size 3s if you're keeping track). GASP! It wasn't because they weren't lovely diapers and it wasn't because we didn't want to switch. It was because we were going to have to buy size Small cloth diapers that would only last about another month and it was too much of an investment for such a short amount of time. So, we decided to wait until her little baby booty got a little bigger to invest in the next size up of cloth diapers. And, once baby got some back, we did just that :) And I do love the Thirsties almost as much as disposables. I'm sorry but disposables are going to be easier no matter what. But I found little diaper liners that you can lift out of the diaper when you find poo so you don't have to deal with poo all over the cloth diapers which makes life 100 times easier. And we discovered that Borax gets rid of the stale urine smell that almost made me give up on my cloth diapering dreams once more. Yes, I have more laundry but I'm glad we are in cloth because I no longer feel like I'm giving the Earth the finger, the diapers fit Molly like a dream, they don't leak, and they're pretty (which, let's face it, is a plus). :) So, the moral of my story is...don't panic if you're in disposables because babies are difficult enough without processing pee & poo stained fleece but I do highly recommend a cloth diaper trial because it is fun and at the end you just might find that you love cloth diapers (well, love them as much as you can considering they aren't disposable)! Happy diapering!