|
It was a given I'd choose cloth diapers for my daughter
As a vegetarian Gen-Xer who does yoga three times a week and tries to help the environment any way possible, it was a given that I'd choose cloth diapers for my daughter. In fact, it was something I decided a long time before my husband and I decided to start trying to get pregnant. After all, my mother used cloth, and her mother used cloth on her. Why not use cloth on our baby too?
Where and What Cloth Diapers to Buy
I love research, so I put myself to work early in my pregnancy to find out the best or easiest method of cloth diapering. I knew if we went with the traditional cloth diapers with the pins, my husband and I would probably give up within a couple of weeks. So I read reviews, like DiaperPin.com and found out which diapers would best suit our lifestyle and budget. I didn't want to be bothered with Velcro, because I read that I'd have to take extra steps in washing and drying to make sure the Velcro didn't tear covers or get full of lint. The Kissaluvs fitted and the Fuzzi Bunz pocket diaper system seemed like the best and easiest for us. The next step was finding the right vendor. I wrote to a few different work-at-home-moms (WAHM) that sold both brands and asked lots of questions. I also did comparison shopping on price and shipping charges. This part of the process is like shopping for doctors: Use your instincts and go with the person that makes you feel comfortable. I actually created a registry at one site and ended up purchasing all my diapers from Soft Cloth Bunz.
Beware of Cloth Diapers on Clearance.
I got a few items at another website, because they had a big blowout clearance sale. I ended up with a bunch of diapers that I now have to resell at an even lower price, because I can't use them. I made the mistake of ordering a lot of each (Kissaluvs and Fuzzi Bunz) and the Kissaluvs, which I thought I would like more, ended up not really lasting very long for my long-torso baby who has been growing super fast from the day she got home. Since we weren't really happy with the Kissaluvs, which I still believe is a fine product, I ended up selling them on Ebay and investing in more Fuzzi Bunz. I learned from my mistakes and hopefully others can learn from mine. My advice to anyone considering or sure of choosing cloth is this: If you don't mind supplementing your cloth diapering with disposables—something I highly recommend in the first couple of weeks—then just order a few of each diaper styles that you think you might like to use. Try them out and see which one(s) fit your lifestyle and work best with your child (i.e. How does your baby's clothes fit over the diaper? Is it convenient for changings at 3 A.M.?) After a week or maybe less, the winner will reveal itself and then it's time to invest in a lot of diapers. We have found that having a little more than two-dozen diapers on hand is ideal, so whatever your budget allows for, if you can handle buying at least that many, you'll be in good shape.
Cloth vs. Disposable
For me, after my C-section, I couldn't do laundry or heavy lifting, so we did supplement with disposables. However, we have definitely noticed a difference in our baby's comfort level. She gets diaper rash easily when wearing disposables and has no problem in the cloth. She has had an equal number of “blowouts” or leaks in either cloth or disposable, so neither is completely immune to such mishaps no matter what the commercials say. I am a total cloth advocate now. Even though we have a diaper load of laundry every other day, it is still much cheaper, easier and more healthy for our daughter; the last factor being the most important one. If we can prevent her from having to deal with the pain of a burning, sore diaper rash by just using cloth diapers, I'm in!
During a short, but intense bout of diaper rash (possibly due to disposable irritation or detergent residue on the Fuzzi Bunz), our baby was screaming and yelping in pain from a bright red area between her legs. To give her some extra air circulation, I took a day break from the Fuzzi Bunz and just used traditional cloth (which we usually stuff in the Fuzzi Bunz pocket) and the Aristocrats wool cover. This worked great! She was comfortable and healed completely within about 36 hours. It was a good thing I kept the one cover when I sold everything else on Ebay! So I recommend that anyone going down the cloth path invest in a wool pull-on cover as well as some extra standard cloth diapers.
Washing Cloth Diapers
I have to say that the cloth experience has been and continues to be a positive one. We don't use much detergent in the washings (half measurements are recommended) and the drying time for the Fuzzi Bunz on Low Temperature is even faster than a normal load of laundry! They clean great and if you don't let your dirty diapers sit for more than a couple of days, they don't even stain (we have experienced a couple of light marks after a delay in laundering). The Fuzzi Bunz are as easy to use as a disposable and the snaps make them great for any size baby.
Another factor that hasn't become an issue is that we live in an apartment building, so we have to do our laundry in Laundromat style washers and dryers. We have no problems with washing at all, except there may have been a soap residue issue one time. Our washers here have a pre-wash or soak cycle, but no extra rinse, so if the person who used the washer before you used too much soap, it can carry over into your wash. What I do is throw some vinegar into the softener dispenser about twice a month and that seems to help keep the diapers intact and more absorbent.
Diapering, like all other baby things, is the parents' choice. What works for some, might not work for others. However, with the cloth experience being just as easy as disposable and much less expensive, I have found that choosing cloth diapers has worked for us. Our baby is now two months old and we're very happy with cloth and ready to buy the next size up in the Fuzzi Bunz, as she is growing at an exponential rate! It makes us happy to be participating in a modernized version of the diapers we were raised in. Plus, we're not only helping the environment, but we're literally saving our child's butt! (From the pain and discomfort of diaper rash.)
Happy Diapering!
Written by: Michelle K-S, Freelance Writer/Yoga Instructor/Work at Home Mom
Other testimonies about choosing cloth diapers are available for you to read: Cloth Diaper Articles, written by parents of cloth diapered babies.
|
|
