The fabulous Jennifer of An Unsuccessful Wife? guest blogs about what she didn’t know about cloth diapers before she tried them:
What They Never Told Me About Cloth Diapers
by: Jennifer of An Unsuccessful Wife?
Hi, I’m Jennifer, author of An Unsuccessful Wife?. I had started this blog originally to share how I’ve been making green changes to my families’ life and one of those things is cloth diapering. I’m a mother to an almost 3 year old son and 5 month old daughter. When Vanessa said she was doing a week to celebrate cloth I couldn’t resist the opportunity to share. Thanks Vanessa!
Things they never told me about cloth diapers…
I started cloth diapering originally to save money because my husband and I were dealing with some tough times due to layoffs. I researched cloth and managed to get Hubs on board with it. It’s a decision we’ve never regretted and would never consider changing. Things they never told me were:
The cost savings really were huge. You don’t think about it but I actually sat down to calculate what I’ve saved just since the switch to cloth. My son, Tot, went through anywhere from 15-20 diapers a day the first two months when we were using disposables because he pooped so much. And then we had blowouts on a daily basis. When we switched to cloth at two months old the blowout factor went to near zero even with a little user error in there. He still used a lot of diapers while in cloth but he was actually contained! We’ve saved over $2500 so far in using cloth on Tot alone. Add in Baby, who has been in cloth from the start and that’s an additional $500 so far. I guesstimate that we’ll have saved close to $6000 when all is said and done in diapering our children. And our electricity and water bills did not go up with the extra two loads of laundry per week. And doing laundry is easy enough. I’m too lazy for disposables. To me that means going to the store, carrying them in the house, and carrying a bag of dirties to the trash everyday to prevent stink. Plus, it’s money I don’t have to waste nor do I want to leave that legacy of trash for my children.
I knew that there were hemp inserts out there but hadn’t tried them until Tot was just over a year old and became a super pee machine. We just used the inserts that came with our diapers. Then I tried hemp and fell in love. I easily had Tot waking up in the mornings feeling better because he wasn’t busting at the seams any longer when we made the switch to hemp. It is incredibly absorbent and was like magic on his skin. The kids both have fairly sensitive skin so I have to take notice of everything going against it. They both wake up every morning after being in their diapers for twelve hours with beautiful skin. If there’s anything that needs to be in a diaper stash it is hands down some hemp inserts. Anyone who has a heavy wetter can vouch for this.
Then there’s the world of wool. I used to be afraid of wool until I actually tried it. Most recently I’ve been using this as our nighttime solution for Baby. I put her fitted diaper on her with a hemp doubler in there, of course, and put her wool soaker or longies over the diaper. When I change her the next morning the soaker is barely damp to the touch but her skin has had breathability all night long. The other plus to this is that with the lanolizing of the wool it actually keeps her skin incredibly soft because it’s moisturizing her skin at her waist and legs as well. I know that a lot of people seem to be put off by wool because they are not sure of the care process. It’s simple! A few drops of baby wash and a quarter size amount of lanolin in some hot water. Soak your wool for a half hour, take them out of the water and gently wring the excess water out. I put the wool in a towel and roll it up tightly to get the water out and then hang on the drying rack to dry. I only need to do this every 3 weeks or so. And the options for cute patterns in wool are endless. Which leads me into my next point.
Cloth diapering when you get down to it is addicting. There are so many different kinds of diapers out there between flats, prefolds, pockets, all-in-ones, fitteds, and contoureds just to name some of the key players out there. It’s easy to go as inexpensive as you want or as extravagant and still love everything about using cloth. We’re a pocket family when it comes to Tot and a prefold or fitted family when it comes to Baby. And I have enjoyed scouting through the different prints available for fitteds and the embellishment that can be done to prefolds. I had started out with the pockets to get Hubs on board and to help him see that diapering was easy. Now that he’s a pro he puts the prefolds on with wool or covers no problem. And it turned out for the both of us that using prefolds was easier than we gave them and ourselves credit for. As for our stash of diapers you can definitely see what I mean by addiction. We have 30 pockets, 8 pieces of wool, 36 prefolds that split between infant and toddler sizes, three wetbags, two contoured diapers, 12 fitted diapers, 8 covers and 3 snappis. And I have 10 diapers cut sitting on my sewing table ready for me to serge up just because I loved certain prints and wanted a project! As for the hemp inserts I have close to 75 of them that get stuffed in the pockets in different variations for daytime, naptime and nighttime usage. Some were bought and I made the majority. And if that weren’t enough I’m also in the process of making a couple more soakers for my kids to have as gifts during the holidays.
There are plenty of things you’ll hear about cloth diapering some of it being negative because people don’t know what a modern diaper looks like. But, give it a try. I can guarantee that it’ll be something you get caught up in when you really start looking at all the different kinds of cute fluff you can put on your child’s bum. And don’t forget since it’s summer time to show it off and let the world see how cute and far cloth diapering has come since our parent’s generation. Happy diapering!
