Cloth Diapers and Me

Okay so we know I'm "green" or as some members of my husband's family like to call me "an effin hippy" lol, but I have yet to post all about cloth diapering and why I love it so much. When my husband and I were talking about getting pregnant with my 2nd child(Violet), I started doing tons of research on natural childbirth(although I decided against this and opted for a repeat c-section and it's a good thing I did because I would have needed an emergency one..) and I found a lot of articles and posts about cloth diapers. I was intrigued but at the time thought it was nuts. One big reason...I lived in an apartment with no washer and dryer. I did learn a lot though and was introduced to Diaper Swappers. I bought 2 used diapers I think for like 3.00 each just so I could see. haha I wasn't even pregnant yet! They were cute but I packed them away. A few months later I did get pregnant and a few months after that decided to move from PA back to AZ and so I packed them with all our stuff in hopes of using them some day.

My friend Karen gave birth naturally to her baby girl in December 2008 and began cloth diapering using prefolds, snappis and Thirsties covers. She talked to me about it and I got all giddy again. I wanted to do this for my daughter. Those 2 diapers I bought so long ago? Stuffed in a storage unit somewhere lol. So I started out very basic. At first I didn't even do it full time at all, just sometimes. Once we got our own place out here in Arizona I jumped in with both feet and haven't looked back.

I laugh now when I think about asking my friend Karen "But what about the POOP?!" haha it's a piece of cake....well maybe not cake lol but it's easy. When I was just breastfeeding, it was even easier. I mostly felt really really GOOD about my decision to use cloth. Now dont get me wrong, I was scared at first to use it all the time. I didn't want her getting rashes, so I changed her every single hour in the beginning lol. Her butt has never looked better and I have a better handle on when I need to change her. Honestly, disposables give her a very red butt now. I put her in them all day the other day to get all the laundry washed so I could take pictures of my stash for my friend Karen, and her butt looked horrible. Never again. She has had the real deal and wont be going back!

My routine:

I put dirty diapers in a garbage can that holds 13 gallon trash bags....I dont use bags but that's the size I use. Right now I admit I do not have a pail liner, though I do want one! When a diaper gets dirty I disassemble the pockets and throw the pieces in. Poopy ones get dunked a little in the toilet, although some people just wipe the poop off and throw into the pail. Breastfed only babies' poopy diapers can go straight into the pail.

I wash on Monday and Thursday and this works out great for me. Since I dont have a cool pail liner with a built in fabric swatch for essential oil, I use a baby washcloth with essential oils and just keep it in the pail. Works great and my bathroom smells like the beach(I use sweet amond and coconut oils mixed-thanks Karen!).

I do a cold wash cycle as my rinse and then a hot wash with a squirt of dawn and 1/8 of a cup of homemade laundry soap. Then I do an extra rinse with a downy ball of vinegar and essetial oils. When they are done I give them a good sniff to make sure no smells are piling up and then I hang them outside on a drying rack to dry in the Arizona sun!

My favorite part? Stuffing the pockets and folding everything when they are dry. It gives me an excuse to play with my diapers without my husband thinking I am weird lol. He probably thinks I'm weird anyways.

I store my diapers in different baskets on my changing table.

That's it! Believe it or not, I look forward to washing my cloth diapers lol so 2 extra loads of laundry are not a burden for me at all!

The Big Reasons:
(I am getting these facts from http://www.realdiaperassociation.org/diaperfacts.php. All the sources for these facts are listed on their website.)

Disposable diapers contain traces of Dioxin, an extremely toxic by-product of the paper-bleaching process. It is a carcinogenic chemical, listed by the EPA as the most toxic of all cancer-linked chemicals. It is banned in most countries, but not the U.S.

Disposable diapers contain Tributyl-tin (TBT) - a toxic pollutant known to cause hormonal problems in humans and animals.

The instructions on a disposable diaper package advice that all fecal matter should be deposited in the toilet before discarding, yet less than one half of one percent of all waste from single-use diapers goes into the sewage system.

No one knows how long it takes for a disposable diaper to decompose, but it is estimated to be about 250-500 years, long after your children, grandchildren and great, great, great grandchildren will be gone.

The manufacture and use of disposable diapers amounts to 2.3 times more water wasted than cloth.

Over 300 pounds of wood, 50 pounds of petroleum feedstocks and 20 pounds of chlorine are used to produce disposable diapers for one baby EACH YEAR!

The average child will cost about $1,600 to diaper for two years in disposable diapers, or about $66 a month.

The cost of cloth diapering can vary considerably, from as low as $300 for a basic set-up of prefolds and covers, to $1000 or more for organic cotton fitted diapers and wool covers. Despite this large price range, it should be possible to buy a generous mix of prefolds and diaper covers for about $300, most of which will probably last for two children. This means the cost of cloth diapering is about one tenth the cost of disposables.


So there you have it! To me it is a no brainer! Cheap and healthy and eco friendly! Now I just have to try and make some...