It's amazing how diapers can be such a conversation starter. Everyone has an opinion. Who new! Since my decision to use cloth diapers with baby Berg I've received a wide array of comments/opinions ranging from:
"Well now I'm really not changing a diaper" (guess who!)
"Why? Why!"
"Your crazy"
"Your such a hippie!" (which of course I took as a huge compliment.)
"Awe, I used to use cloth diapers on my kids." (usually coming from the 60 and up club)
Actually, now that I think about it most everyone thinks I'm crazy. I don't know why. Cloth diapering has made a huge resurgence in a reasonable way to take care of your little ones biznass.
My take: I really love it. Pretty much everytime I change a diaper I muse on how cute my baby looks with the wealth of fabric wrapped around his behind. Changing the dooties isn't so much a chore these days.
Now there are some definate trade offs to using cloth as opposed to disposable diapers. Here they are for those of you who may not think I'm too off base and may be considering cloth diapers yourself.
-Packing the diaper bag includes a few extra items. I have to have the absorbant diaper, the cover, and the bag to put the dirties in.
-The laundry is constant. I have to do a load of diapers everyother day (although if I had more diapers I could probably strech this out better.) Laundry has never been my thing so the process took a little getting used to. Each load needs a pre-wash, a hot wash, and two rinses. It is a lot of water so the environmental trade off could be debated. I figure that the amount I use to wash these diapers still less than the water used to create the paper product for disposables. Ocasionally I put the diapers on the clothes line to bleach them out and save the energy from my dryer.
-There are also the benefits of surrounding my babies behind with natural fabrics versus product that has any number of chemicals used on it. And, of course, don't forget reducing the waste that goes to a landfill.
Ridiculous and cute. I know the diaper is huge but it helps keep his pants on better!
-The amount of money I spent on diapers and accessories was about $280. Kind of a lot up front but seeing as how I haven't spent anything since I'm feeling pretty good about the investment. There will come a time when I need to get larger diaper covers but there are quite a few options out there.
-Because cloth diapering isn't super common I had to do quite a bit of research on what I needed and the different methods. Yes, there are different methods. Cloth diapers are now are different than what our parents or grandparents used. Of course, I like the old school method. Mainly because I like to do everything the hard way (just ask my hubby!)
There are some great websites (like this
one and this
one) that help walk you through the basics but it wasn't until I purchase a sampler kit and put them on the baby that it all finally clicked, which really says more about my defective brain than the diapering system!
So there it is. My two cents. My only regret on choosing to cloth diaper is that I didn't start sooner! If any of you have more questions or want some product suggestions let me know. I'm more than happy to ooze over the cuteness!
A little of this...
And a lot of this...
