My love/not so much relationship with cloth diapering
Ive had some people asking me about cloth diapering lately, why the hell we chose to do it, and asking if its worth it. Well here's a run-down of why we chose this route, as well as my personal loves/hates with cloth diapering!
I have always been environmentally-aware, but when I was pregnant with Camila I was in a kick of really trying to reduce our carbon footprint. We switched to cloth napkins and I was washing and reusing any gallon sized plastic bags we had to use. I considered composting and still would love to, but its a challenge I haven't taken on yet.
Anyway, I heard a statistic that if you were to take all the diapers that a typical child goes through in his first 2 years of life (roughly when you potty train), the dirty diapers would fill a 3,000 square foot house. THAT'S INSANE. And disgusting. And those things are made to not break down easily. Not to mention human waste should not be sealed tight and buried like that, for loads of disgusting reasons.
Enter cloth diapering. I started doing research, and once I was pretty set on this path, I pulled my husband aboard. He wasn't as excited about it as I was (understatement) but agreed to give it a shot, especially when I showed him a chart of the monetary benefits. Once I started talking about it to others, I got a LOT of negative feedback. Lots of "thats disgusting" and "You'll never keep up with it" and "You don't know what you're getting yourself into". Which is all well and good, but when I say Id done my research, I had DONE my RESEARCH. I knew all the ins and outs of it pretty well, all the negatives that could pop up, and all the benefits that would outweigh those. I already knew it was disgusting. I already knew it was hard to keep up with. I already knew lots of people tried and gave up ... and I was ready to tackle it.
Now that we are a year in to cloth diapering - which means a lot, because I don't even want to go in to how much baby poop changes from newborn to toddler - I can definitively say that I love and hate cloth diapering. But mostly love. :)
Loves:
~ We spend virtually NO money on diapers (aside from the upfront cost, which ranges depending on the type of diapers you buy - still cheaper than the cost of disposables over time. Like a LOT cheaper.) I say virtually because on the occasional vacation or day when Im backed up on laundry, we do resort to disposables. We also buy wet wipes with technically counts as a diapering cost that we use about half the time for diaper changes, but we also use cloth wipes.~ They're cute. Enough said.
~ Diaper rashes are extremely rare. I remember when Camila got her first diaper rash, she was in disposables because she was a newborn and still too small for our one-size cloth diapers. She had just reached the point where she could fit in them, so we switched her over, and without using any diaper cream, the rash disappeared.
~ They are 85% as easy to change as disposables. Instead of having a trashcan with a plastic bag to chuck the dirty diaper into, we have a trashcan with a washable liner. Take it off, chuck it in, put on a new one. Voila.
~ These aren't your grandma's cloth diapers. My mom was imagining the single cloth with pins that she had me in as a baby. We've come so far! Cloth these days go on just like a disposable (velcro OR snaps) and have waterproof outer layers to hold it all in.
~ They double as swim diapers.
~ NO blowouts! Seriously. Cloth diapers have elastic around the waist and legs, so even the nastiest poops stay contained. This is definitely NOT true with disposables - whenever we go on airplane trips and chose to leave the cloth behind, we now bring a few cloth diaper covers (just the waterproof outer layer) to go over the disposables, because we have had too many vacation outfit changes to count and its NOT fun. Cloth for the win on this one, by far.
~ While I do laundry more often, we haven't noticed a noticeable increase in our water bill.
~ Its natural. Theres no funky chemicals or strange material used to make cloth diapers, so you can be assured that theres nothing harsh on your babies skin. Actually, some babies with sensitive skin NEED cloth diapers for this reason.
Not so much:
~ When something goes wrong, its a b*tch to figure out what it is. When I say "wrong" i mean issues like stink build up or repelling. Both of these are easy fixes, but figuring out what fix you need is sometimes tricky. Now that I am a pretty "seasoned" cloth diapering mama, I can pinpoint how to fix a problem and do it quickly. For example, we recently used diaper cream on C without using a protective liner (almost all diaper rash creams are not cloth diaper safe) out of pure laziness, and the cream build up caused repelling and leakage. I fixed it in a day by scrubbing them with some Dawn dish soap and running them through a few hot washes in the machine, but when something similar happened 6 months ago, I spent days trying to figure out what was going on and why.
~ When you DO get a diaper rash, its tricky to treat. Part of this is because most creams aren't cloth diaper safe. You can either buy a special formula for cloth diapers ($$$) or try using coconut oil (works well for basic redness). Camila had a few bad rashes from acidic poop and yeast build up (yuck) and the only way to fix it fast was to switch her to disposables so we could slather on some Neosporin and diaper creams.
~ They are 85% as easy to change as disposables. That extra 15% comes from having to spray poop (with a sprayer attached to your toilet - so convenient). Newborn poop is no biggie - you don't have to do anything. But solid food poop is a different story. You gotta get that stuff OFF the diaper BEFORE you chuck it in the wash can. Sometimes this is no biggie because as kids get older their poop solidifies, so it just kinda falls right off into the toilet. Our daughter, however, drinks kale smoothies like its going out of style, and the consistency of her poop is a definite side effect. I will say no more.
~ You have to do laundry. I do diaper laundry every 2-3 days. I also stay at home, which I believe makes it more manageable. As a working parent, I don't know how much of a pain this would be. Its easy though, you just dump your diaper bag in the washer and let it go.
So there ya go. My ultimate advice? Give it a shot - the benefits outweigh the cons, and its so much better for the environment and your baby's lil butt. BUT, this is definitely one of those things where I can see both sides of it. I can totally see why cloth diapering would be hard for some families. Many natural baby stores do a rental program so you can try out cloth diapering without the monetary commitment. Its totally a personal choice, but worth a shot! By the way, my husband is definitely a fan.
