Adventures in Cloth Diapering, Part I

Another thing no one ever tells you before becoming a parent is just how obsessed you become both with what goes in your baby and what comes out, not to mention how to best deal with the latter!  Before getting pregnant, I thought it was a simple matter of disposable diapers.  Period.  Of course, as a new parent, I wanted to get the best I could for baby Shay.  We ended up going with Huggies Pure & Natural diapers made with organic cotton (and a higher price tag!) until Shay out grew the newborn size.  Next came the diaper cake and package of Nature Babycare disposable diapers courtesy of friends from baby showers. 

At this point, my mom bought us a big Sam's Club size box of Huggies Little Snugglers.  No organic anything and I worried about whether these would irritate baby's sensitive skin.  However, with the price of diapers, I wasn't about to let these go to waste and Shay did just fine with them.  I attribute no diaper rash or irritation due to the fact that we started practicing elimination communication or E.C. with Shay when she was 5 weeks old.  Check out the book Diaper Free Baby and this blog posting from Angela at healthnutforlife.org for info. on the premise of E.C (which makes perfect sense to us!).  That and we make sure that, after wiping baby clean, we use the new clean diaper first as a fan to dry any moisture on the skin before putting it on her. 

Now, the whole time we've been putting Shay in disposable diapers, I had every intention of trying to go the cloth route.  Jeff & I have gotten big into recycling over the last year, making runs to the local recyle drop off near our home on a weekly basis.  So part of my wanting to try cloth is for environmental reasons.  While I definitely don't consider myself in the hippie tree-hugger category, I do try to make small differences wherever I can whether it's recycling, using more natural cleaning products (my favorite lately being bi-o-kleen), buying organic/local, etc.  I figure trying cloth diapers will be another way we can try to live "greener."   Not gonna lie...another big reason is, while cloth diapers are an investment initially, they are defintiely a cost savings over disposable diapers in the long run.

So with those reasons in mind, why has it taken me so long to finally order cloth diapers?  I started researching, got confused with the sheer amount of choices out there, then got overwhelmed.  BumGenius, Fuzzibuns, Smartipants, Tiny Tush, Gro Baby.  These are just a handful of names of different makers of cloth diapers.  While they certainly sound cute, it was overload for an indecisive individual like myself.  All-in-ones, pocket diapers, flats, pre-folds, fitteds, hemp, jersey, cotton, snaps, velcro...Ahhhhhhh!

Enter another diaper cake, this time from Jeff's parents and this time filled with Pampers.  I gotta admit...I was a little relieved that diaper cake #2 would buy me a little more time to figure out the whole cloth diaper situation. 

So what's an inexperienced new mom to do?  Make like the Beatles and "get by with a little help from my friends" (minus the drug reference!).  Big thanks to Angela (see blog link above), who took the time to message me a whole bunch of info. on her experiences with cloth diapers and even bring a few samples to CMT for us to try. 

Armed with a better understanding of some of the choices and an aresenal of websites, I started price hunting which is a force of habit before ordering anything online.  I ended up purchasing covers from Abby's Lane and birdseye weave flats from Cotton Babies.  Both have free shipping and I ordered everything on Friday morning and already got an email from Cotton Babies with shipment tracking that shows the flats are supposed to arrive tomorrow (Monday).  Pretty impressed with the speed from this company!  I got a couple each of extra small Thirsties covers,  size 1 Thirsties duo wraps, and size 1 Thirsties duo diapers.  They come in a bunch of pretty colors so Shay will have a pretty baby bum :)  That and I won't have Sesame Street characters on her diapers anymore like the ones from aforementioned diaper cake!  I'm hoping Jeff likes the flats because they seem pretty easy to fold and are by far the cheapest liner to pair with the covers.  If not, we'll try some other options.  I'm a little nervous about how this is going to go, but let the experimentation begin!  I'll have more on our cloth diaper adventures in a future blog.  Wish us luck!