A new adventure

As if having a baby isn’t enough of an adventure, Jered and I have decided to up the ante a bit and try to live a “greener” life. After realizing how much more trash we were putting out each week since Hazel has been born we started to do a little research on cloth diapers. The research we did actually started before Hazel was born when we looked into gDiapers- an alternative to disposable diapers that is somewhere in between cloth and disposable. We got a starter pack of gDiapers in May and had them on reserve until things got a bit easier with Hazel (those first 6 weeks we were in pure survival mode and didn’t even want to mess with anything that might possibly mean more work for us!).
We tried out the gDiapers, and after a few big messes, started to get the hang of them. Now, if you are at all offended by discussions of baby poop stop reading now- if not, continue on. Gdiapers basically are reusable cloth covers that you put a little liner and diaper insert in. When the diaper gets dirty you take the diaper insert to the toilet, swish it around and flush the whole insert- nothing to throw away. You can wash the liners and the little pants if you have any leaks (and in the beginning I had plenty of those!).
Gdiapers are great, and we’ve decided they are going to be a diaper option for when we go out, since it’s a whole lot easier to flush an insert than it is to tote a bag full of cloth diapers around!
Despite being impressed with gDiapers they aren’t really any more economical than disposable diapers as you have to buy the inserts- so while they’re a bit more “green” they don’t save you much green. So the research continued.
I went online and found a variety of different websites that presented an overwhelming amount of information about cloth diapers. To summarize there are about 5 or 6 different options for cloth diapering now- and cloth diapering is no longer limited to giant white gauzey contraptions that you have to expertly fold and pin. Now cloth diapering includes all in one cloth diapers that are just about as easy to use as disposables, pocket diapers that can be stuffed for extra absorbancy, prefolded Chinese or Indian diapers that are folded and secured in covers, and a bunch of others that I don’t know much about. If you’re interested in learning more about any of these diapering options I would highly recommend visiting  Pinstripes and Polkadots and checking out their FAQ.

After doing some fairly extensive research and taking a few deep deep breaths (there was a lot of fear involved in this process, trust me!), I ordered a couple BumGenius 3.0 all in one diapers and a dozen pre fold unbleached Indian diapers with two diaper covers. Once we got the diapers in the mail we had to prewash them (for more info on the prewashing process check out the FAQ mentioned above). The prewashing process was a day’s work in and of itself- thank goodness you only have to do it once! We also wanted to set up our entire system before we even tried them on Hazel- we didn’t want to put a diaper on her and then not know what to do with it when she was done with it! After setting up diaper pails upstairs and downstairs (we just use lidded trash cans with washable laundry bags as liners) we got out the diapers and gave them a try.

So… how did it go? Well- I am impressed, cloth diapering isn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. It doesn’t take much more time or effort than a disposable diaper, and we are putting out less trash every week. Don’t get me wrong, disposable diapers are great in many ways- they are so convenient and they generally work very well- but cloth diapering has surprised me- it is less inconvenient than I thought it would be, and I feel good about not throwing diapers away all the time. If you’re at all curious about what this switch has been like for us- send me an e-mail or give me a call, I’d be happy to tell you all about it!

Filed under Pregnancy by esther |