Cloth Diapering

I am a huge fan of cloth diapering. I started using cloth diapers when my second child was born. Adriana had the worst diaper rash you have ever seen when she was tiny. I tried every kind of rash cream and brand of diaper you can think of and nothing ever seemed to help. Then I had this stroke of genius and thought “hey, maybe this is some sort of reaction to the chemicals in the diapers”. The safety of SAP or super absorbent polymer, the chemical that makes up that jelly-like substance in a disposable diaper is a hotly debated topic now days. I did a lot of research but never really found any hard facts one way or the other, just a lot of speculation and opinion. Who really knows the long term effects on our health and environment SAP will really have? I figured at the least it could be causing my newborn daughter’s rash so I invested in a few cloth all in one type diapers and viola, the rash disappeared. I never looked back.  All in one or AIO refers to a cloth diaper that has velcro or snap closures and a built in cover and eliminates the need for a separate outer cover.

One of the best thing about cloth diapers is that I was able to re-use them for the kids born after Adriana. While the up-front cost is quite high, over all I estimate that the initial investment of around $450 on cloth saved me around $ 11, 400 over the course of 4 children!! That’s huge! One of the not-so-nice things is that I had a problem with these particular diapers leaking. Therefore I still had to buy disposables on occasion. I have bought quite a few different types of clothies (coining a new term here, maybe?) but never was 100% satisfied with any of them. After 9 years of usage I felt like my original diapers started to leak all of the time. I was about to give up on them and start using pull-ups because my youngest is now a toddler and mostly potty trained but then I found out about Fuzzi Bunz. These diapers are great. They are an AIO pocket style cloth diaper. I have been using them for months and not had a single leak. They come in perfect fit sizes and also in one size fits all, I especially like the adjustable snap closure. My old ones had velcro and they picked up stuff in the laundry and looked kinda..well, gross. Fuzzi Bunz even come in bright beautiful colors. I mean, how cute is this?

Fuzzi Bunz are also very trim compare to other cloth diapers. Depending on the insert that you insert into the pocket, it can even be as trim as a disposable! (an insert is the most absorbent part of the diaper) Speaking of inserts, there are  many types to choose from out there: hemp, flannel, microterry..my personal favorite is the hemp. Even the thinnest ones make it through the night without leaking even though I tend to have heavy-wetters. Hemp is not only super absorbent but is naturally anti-bacterial often unbleached and without pesticides and also it comes from a renewable resource.

You may be put off thinking that you have to wash these things instead of just tossing them in the trash and being done with it. Let me just tell you that it is really not that bad.  I keep a pail with a lid in the laundry room to keep the soiled ones in (but not before flushing any poop down the toilet) I use a dry-pail method where you just throw the diaper in a pail. I also tried the wet pail method where you soak the diapers in a pail of water while waiting to be washed but this was gross. The water was smelly and then I had to deal with pouring out the nasty water and wringing the diapers before washing. YUCK! You also have to be aware that having a bucket of water is not the safest thing in the world with a curious, mobile baby/toddler in the house. When it comes times to wash I just toss the diaper covers and liners in the same load, and set the washer to a normal cold/cold cycle wash. This helps to make sure that stains and smell does not set in. When that cycle ends I run them through one more sanitizing cycle with an extra rinse. If your washer doesn’t have that cycle you could just run it through the hottest cycle that it has. I only use Charlie’s Soap on my diapers and there is absolutely no smell at all. I have one of those wooden sweater drying racks and dry both the insert and diaper on it in my laundry room. I would prefer to dry them outside on a clothes line in the fresh air and sun but my homeowners association does not permit them.

How many cloth diapers you have and how many your child goes through a day determines how many cloth diapers you will need. For an infant I typically went through 7-9 diapers a day. Newborns can tend to use more but instead of buying more diapers than really needed , I opted to just wash a bit more in the first few weeks. So if I wanted to only wash diapers twice a week I would need about 20- 30 diapers, and for a toddler not yet potty training I would have no less than 20.  For my toddler who is currently potty trained during the day, I only use diapers at nap and bed time so I only have 6 diapers in her size and it works out well.

Not only do we not ever have diaper rash but I can feel good knowing that I am not dumping the 10, 000 diapers my child will use in his/her lifetime into a landfill.  *It is estimated that roughly 5 million tons of untreated waste and a total of 2 billion tons of urine, feces, plastic and paper are added to landfills annually. It takes around 80,000 pounds of plastic and over 200,000 trees a year to manufacture the disposable diapers for American babies alone. Although some disposables are said to be biodegradable; in order for these diapers to decompose, they must be exposed to air (oxygen) and sun. Since this is highly unlikely, it can take several hundred years for the decomposition of disposables to take place, with some of the plastic material never decomposing. The untreated waste placed in landfills by dirty disposable diapers is also a possible danger to contaminating ground water.

Even my husband doesn’t mind using them. Plus its cool to be green!

*http://www.thenewparentsguide.com/diapers.htm