Cloth diapers rock. They are cute, cost effective and environmentally savvy.
I knew we would use cloth before we even got pregnant. Because well when it takes YEARS you find time on your hands.
When it finally happened I read a few articles about cloth diapering and talked to the parents we knew. Everyone in real life thought we were insane. We were told that they would be messy, hard to wash, wouldn't keep baby dry and would, in general, be annoying to use.
We were also told that disposables were just as environmentally savvy as cloth. Because you have to use water to wash cloth. Which, not surprisingly, research does not bear out. Sure, *some * disposables are 'biodegradable,' but since ours would not go into a mile-high compost in the back yard, but into a trashcan a later a landfill, I am thinking all those biodegradable diapers sure would make a big pile. Plus, a day's worth of diapers is half a load of laundry and with a newborn, you do laundry everyday anyway.
We chose to use bumgenius 3.0 pocket diapers because she did. ('she' is a long time internet buddy who is even more anal retentive than myself and had already done 1000 hours of cloth diaper research I would have done). There are all kinds of cloth diapers and most are pretty good, some are awful, and these are great.
At first, because newborns have to be changed every 4.5 seconds, washing them was obnoxious. So, we spent another $70.00 and bought 6 more. Now, if we wanted we could go three days without washing any. In fact, we just used all cloth for a weekend trip and all went well.
Cloth is cost-effective. We probably spent $500.00 or so on diapers to get started. But we won’t spend more because they are reusable. We could use them and will, god or the universe willing, for another child. We figured out that we would have spent about that during the first few months of diapers were we using sposies. And these diapers grow with Cate, so that we won’t have to buy different sizes.
Cloth is so good for Cate. These diapers keep her very dry. I have to take them off to see if they are wet, because it's hard to tell from just feeling the inside of it. And get this? Cate has NEVER had diaper rash. Plus, like her father, she has sensitive skin, so I can wash these with organic as possible detergent, and know that her bum is exposed to as little as possible chemicals.
So, that's all. We like cloth diapers. All the warnings we got didn't bear fruit. And that's a great thing for the environment and cute butts everywhere.
(these are random pictures i have on the computer).
