The Most Dreaded of Duties

Dear Friends,

Like most parents, we wash our baby.

We like the way it makes him smell. He likes to play in the bubbles. Besides, a bath sure beats trying to give him a less-than-adequate wipe down after he gets applesauce all over himself.

Never underestimate the value of thirty minutes.

Around here we also wash the baby's diapers.

[gasp] I know.

I have actually been putting off admitting that to you all.

I mean,  how you diaper your baby has become a huge issue.

People actually fight about it!

I have issues with issues. Let's just say that I have enough on my mommy plate.

So I'll tell you right now, this post will not be listing all the benefits of cloth diapering. I will let others write about that.

And plenty of people will... have already.

I dare you to Google it.

I promise not to preach, pressure or hound you to change the kind of diapers you change at your house.

After all, it is your house. And you can't get much more personal than a diaper. If you are happy with what you are doing, don't let my blathering get in your way.

 By all means, if it's not broken...

This post is merely featuring something I love. Period.

I was not happy with what we were doing.

I groaned every time I forked out the money for another box of diapers. That said, it took me forever to wrap my brain around cloth diapers. I didn't even come close to doing it with my first two. I thought about it for about, oh, five minutes when I was pregnant with my third.

I am a researcher by nature. I want all the facts. So I thought about it long enough to Google "cloth diapers". Big mistake. A 1,520,000 results mistake, to be exact.

Then my system went into overload. I shut it down and that, my friend was the end of that.

Until Pip was about three months old.

Then I was visiting my favorite boutique, Milkworks. They were offering a class on cloth diapers.

"Hmmm" I thought. "I could handle that."

Mr. Loggerhead wasn't too impressed.

Poor guy, he felt so bad because he had to work that day and couldn't come.

Ha! Anybody smell the sarcasm?

I learned a lot.

Prefold? Pocket? Cover? Fitted? Snapi? Liner? All-in-one? One-size? Sized? Snaps vs. velcro?... All organic or not? Hemp, microfiber? Unbleached or regular cotton?

 These were all Greek to me. Talk about overwhealming. We got to see them all. Explore all the options. Just my style.

The gal who taught the class told us some people use disposables some of the time, some build up their diaper stash until they can go all cloth. And some are perfectly happy not doing any cloth. And that's okay.

It was refreshing to hear someone express the idea that there is no "one-right-way" to diaper.

She was there just to show us the options and answer any questions. It was up to us to decide what was best for our households.

So what did we do?

What was our solution?

I'll tell ya, it's not magic. It's not perfect. But, it works. For us. Everyday.

We do prefolds (think: the kind of cloth diaper your grandma used but way more absorbent).

With a Snappi (think: handy hooky thing to replace slightly dangerous diaper pins)

With a one-size cover (think: waterproof layer that snaps bigger or smaller and is disguised as darling fancy pants)

We also use some one-sized pocket diapers with prefold liners (think: waterproof outside, micro-fiber inside, grandma diaper stuffed in "pocket" to be sandwiched in-between, magic snaps and darling-ness included)

I'll have you to know that up to this point I thought that cloth diapers were gross and smelly and just meant more laundry.

I was wrong. 

All diapers are stink-ated equal. I only do one load of diapers every two or three days. I can handle that. Especially since these cuties have saved us money already.

So I guess it comes down to this, we didn't do it to  "go green" or for many of the other reasons people go with cloth. 

We did it because we like saving our "green"

We like using it on other, more exciting things. Besides, the baby doesn't care what his diaper looks like. He just wants a clean one now and then. He just wants something comfortable on his little bum.

We got that covered. [hee-hee]

Love,

Changing in NE

Plus, it keeps the children occupied for at least a half hour.