The wearing of the cloth

Bronwen at about 2 weeks old, modelling her 'clementine' coloured diaper...

The last few posts have been strings of newsy pictures.... meant to update everyone on our happenings in life lately.  I haven't really done a lot of writing, and one of my purposes of having this blog was to be able to write about whatever strikes my fancy. Not that it even has to be of interest to those reading... just whatever is on my mind.

I have a whole string of blogs that I read, despite trying to keep the list down to a minimum. I regularly go through and delete the ones off my 'blogroll' who no longer seem relevant, encouraging, interesting, or any of the above. But the truth of the matter is, I love to read about how other moms do things and those are some of my favourite ones! (besides 'real-life' good friends, of course :).

Lots of mothers seem to talk about how they do things, so I thought I would write a little blurb about cloth diapering. Because, honestly, I am really glad that we made the decision to use cloth diapers in our house! (this post may be very boring, but no one is forcing you to read it ;)

I would say that probably about 40% of the moms I know here in St. John's use cloth diapers. This surprises me still, because when I was pregnant with Bronwen and considering our diapering options, I didn't know anyone locally who used them. My primary inspirations were my 2 sister in laws, Krista and Janine. But since then, all sorts of cloth diapering mamas have been coming out of the woodwork!

Brian and I were on a trip to New Hampshire for one of his engineering conferences in summer 2011 when I made the definite decision to use cloth diapers. I had a lot of time on my hands, and so was wandering the streets of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I stumbled upon a cute little baby store, and they sold the cloth diapers I was interested in as a result of the limited amount of research I had already done- Flip diapers. The owner of the store was kind enough to have a long discussion with me about which diapers (and there are MANY different kinds) would be good for us based on the climate here, how much work I wanted to put into it, and the amount of money we wanted to spend.

I chose the Flip diapers because they are easy to use, well made, a good price, and cute! The cover is made of a waterproof material and is separate from the insert. The insert is made of microfibre, with a 'microsuede' side that faces the baby, so they don't have to feel all that wetness. When the baby pees, you just change the insert out for a new one. And when they poop, you only have to change the cover if it gets dirty (which happens a lot before the kid starts solids, but not much at all after they are eating solid foods). Cloth diapers have come a long way from the white-tea towel like diapers I remember my mum carefully folding for my brother and fastening with safety pins!

We just put the dirty diaper parts in a white plastic pail with a snap lid. It does stink when the pail is opened, understandably, but otherwise there is no smell. When the pail is full, it's time to do laundry! I currently only have to wash diapers about every 6 days, also because Bronwen is learning to use the toilet a little bit (that's a whole other post!). When she was younger, it was every 3 or 4 days. But the washing routine is relatively easy... rinse on cold, then wash warm, with special diaper detergent. The inserts go in the dryer (or outside in the summer) and the covers air dry. And you're done! I figured since we were washing diapers anyway we may as well use washcloths instead of wipes too, so they go in the same pail and are washed the same way. It doesn't bother me at all that we wash diapers in the same machine that we wash our clothes in. They are rinsed well first anyway in the rinse cycle, so I don't think it is really an issue.

And that's it! What do I like so much about cloth diapers? Well, I never have to buy diapers (except when we go on trips, so I don't have to wash them in other people's machines/ carry around the dirty ones). The initial set-up cost was $225, and I would have spent a lot more than that on disposable diapers by now! (a pack of 20-30 diapers is about $10, at least, depending on the brand). I have been keeping track of every time I do a load of diapers and we are well over 1000 diapers used by now (24 diapers for every load). So that is at least $500 worth of diapers for Bronwen's first year alone! We went on several trips last year so that means we used the cloth slightly less, and the diapers we used on these trips were often bought for us or a baby gift from when Bronwen was born). Cloth diapers can also be used for multiple children, meaning that the start-up costs are less and less! (depending on if you need to increase your diaper stash or not).

I like that our garbage can is not full of diapers and wipes. Disposable diapers get very stinky and heavy when they sit around. I also like that I don't have to put Bronwen into a sweaty disposable all the time. Some brands can hold a massive amount of waste, and it turns into a gel substance.. which gets sweaty and yucky feeling against the baby's skin. Who really knows what chemicals are in there as well to make that super absorbency possible!

Cloth diapers are also cute! They come in all sorts of fun colours (see below). They are easy to use once you get the hang of them, and the laundry part is really not so bad after all. To be honest, of course it would be less work overall to put disposables on your child, and I am not faulting those who do so! There are a lot of decisions when you are a parent and everyone has their reasons for their choices. But, the cloth diaper choice has been a good decision for us for the reasons listed above.

And there you have it, cloth diapers in a (sort of) nutshell. More parenting/ kid-related posts to come.. any ideas for me?

here are the diapers which we use...