Much Ado About Baby Poo - Submitted by Megan Liette

I am the kind of person who likes to go against the norm, but only in little ways, of course. I am not loud and obnoxious about it, but I like to be a little quirky without drawing too much attention to myself. So why would it be any different when it comes to making decisions on mothering or caring for my child? When becoming a parent you have so many decisions to make. Like how should I decorate the nursery? What doctor do I choose? What kind of diaper to use, cloth or disposable?

Wait what?

Cloth or disposable… is cloth even really an option?

Yes! Yes it is. All you need is a reasonable upfront investment and a sense of adventure. When I first brought up the idea of cloth diapers to my husband, you would have thought I was suggesting to get rid of our internet access, which he could never live without (well he could, but he would have some severe withdrawals). His biggest problem with the idea of cloth diapers is what to do with them when they got dirty. He just could not wrap his head around putting dirty diapers in our washer. But then I hit him where it matters most…

MONEY.

My daughter wanted to model the look for everyone.

Depending how long our child would be in diapers we could end up spending half of what we would spend on disposables.  So we ventured onto the Internet to find some cheap options. We found diaper covers with pre-fold inserts were the cheapest way to get started. With these, the covers are supposed to last several changings, while you simply switch out the pre-fold insert. Here’s a picture of a cover and insert, as an example (these aren't the exact ones we used, but the same idea):

We ordered three different kinds to see how they fit and what we did and didn’t like about them. Then we bought twelve pre-fold diapers to put in them. Well, our daughter arrived and I couldn’t wait to give it a try. First obstacle: the covers rubbed her umbilical cord stump, so the diapering was delayed until that was gone. When we finally were able to get started, I thought things were going really well until she had been wearing the cloth diapers for about 24 hours,  and she had began to develop a pretty bad rash. So back to the drawing board and disposables.

Since I still was not happy with disposables, I searched the Internet for other cloth options. I found something called a pocket diaper, which looked similar to disposables. These diapers had snaps or Velcro and were one use only before needing washed.  The other nice thing about these were they were one size fits all. So I bought two, because of the rash with the other cloth diapering I didn’t want to invest too much.

Let me just say I fell in LOVE. I didn’t know you could fall in love with diapers, but it’s true. So I ordered twelve more. Did I mention these diapers come in many cute colors and patterns? Well they do!  The downside? Compared to diaper covers they are more costly. You will need at least 24 diapers unless you have time to wash them every day, and even with 14, I am washing every day. At the cheapest of ten dollars apiece it’s costly at first. But still pales in comparison of 20 dollars a week in disposables.  I personally would recommend Go Green Pocket Diapers. Their customer service is great! I have ordered diapers from another site and have yet to receive them, but I should be getting them next week, 3 weeks after ordering them and their customer service has not been incredibly helpful.

 I know what you’re thinking, Yay! They have cute patterns, but what do we do when those cute patterns are covered in baby poo? Well I can tell you what we do. First off newborns diapers are easy because more times than not there isn’t much to clean in their dirty diapers, you can toss them in a diaper pail (Mine is a trash can with a diaper pail liner from amazon.com, and when the diaper pail is full, throw them in the wash. Now if you have a fuller diaper that you aren’t comfortable with throwing in the wash, you can dunk it in the toilet (GROSS! I know!). This is why my husband followed this guide to install a DIY diaper sprayer (He was so proud of himself).  Basically, it’s a kitchen sink sprayer attached to the water line on the toilet. Sometimes I think he did it just so he could play with it.

So, yes I started cloth diapering because I wanted to be different but, all in all, my cloth diapering experience has been a good one! I actually prefer it. It has been an adventure trying to find things out about it because there is so little, but once you get into it you find there are a lot more people out there doing it than you think.

Whenever this conversation comes up, people share their cloth diapering experience, whether it is current or from 30 years ago. I would love to hear how you did it. So leave a comment below! Have you or someone you know tried using cloth diapers? Have questions about it?