Cloth Diapers: Take Two
I’ve been meaning to write for quite some time about how our adventures in cloth diapering is going with the youngun’.
In short, it’s going pretty well. Pretty much the same.
Digging out the diaper stash for the newborn stage was both fun and annoying. Fun because, Hello, those tiny fitted cloth diapers are so stinkin’ cute! Annoying because two brands in particular had elastic dry-rot. My favorites, the Kissaluvs, and some Fuzzibunz. The other brands did fine — Motherease and other miscellaneous items.
This is annoying because the two with dry rot are brands with really good resale value. I’m slowly replacing the elastic in the Fuzzibunz because they’ll be in use for quite a while (they’re size medium and the Boo used them for at least a year) but the Kissaluvs I replaced the elastic in two of them before I gave up. I realized the kiddo was going to outgrow them faster than I could get elastic in them (because it’s quite the operation) and the wider leg holes and waist band actually extended their usefulness in terms of fit. I went through more covers, but oh well.
The bad side of this, though, is the resale side. How am I supposed to sell something with rotted elastic? I’ll either have to replace the elastic myself to get a decent price, or sell them to someone who can do it themselves, for a pittance.
On the bright side, I figure they each got used for at least 180 days so they were worth it regardless of resale value :)
One thing I’ve found interesting about using cloth diapers with my kids is that I don’t think they ever really get diaper trained. That’s just my intuition speaking, but they seem to know when they gotta go, if you know what I mean. Sometimes they tell us, sometimes they ignore it, but I still believe the know. However, they’re opposite about which needs they vocalize.
The Boo screamed bloody murder when he had to pee. He hated wet diapers with a passion and told us to change them before they even got wet. This was a good thing — I suspect I had far less wet diapers than I would have, otherwise. It started us down the toilet training path far earlier than I anticipated because he just flat refused to wear them after a while. I was okay with that!
However, poop was a mystery. Couldn’t tell when that was happening until after the fact.
Now, the Bean is a poop machine. He goes semi-regularly, and almost always first thing in the morning. So I put him on the potty, which totally cracks me up. I started doing this mostly because it made a great seat for him, better than the floor, in fact, but it’s also hard not to follow the logic, I feel. Then recently I saw something that said if you can save one diaper a day, that’s over 700 in the course of a normal diaper-wearing life cycle. Well holy crap, that’s a lot of diapers and a lot of washing saved! Bring on the potty!
He’s not so vocal about the pee, but will still go when he sits on the potty, so there you have it. Can’t hurt, at any rate. I hope he’ll stay somewhat aware of down there and continue using the potty until he asks for it himself. But I’m not going to get hyped up about it either — it will be what it will be. Not many people are in diapers in college. No worries.
One other thing is different this time around with the Bean. My backup diapers are gDiapers. Honestly, I love them. Were it not for the cost of them and the fact that I already HAVE cloth diapers, I’d use them 24/7. I know a lot of people have complained about clogged toilets and inserts moving about, but I haven’t (knock on wood) had any of these problems. In fact, I’ve used these diapers in 3 different household toilets, and still not had a problem.
I love that you can compost the wet ones, that the soiled ones are way easier to drop in the toilet than poop on a cloth diaper, it’s not the end of the world if you have to throw them away, and that they’re nice and trim so fit better under clothing. I love that they’re not plastic, that you can wash the covers, and the liners aren’t nearly as plasticky as they used to be. (I have both old ones and new ones — old from when they first came out when the Boo was a bitty babe.)
Yeah. I like them a lot. But, like I said, they’re expensive, and I already have cloth. So they’re my backups and I’ve only gone through one pack in 9 months, so I’m okay with that. In fact we’ve only purchased 3 packs of disposables in Bean’s lifetime. One for the hospital, and two on vacation. I was annoyed at that second vacay purchase — I hoped to make do with one! I really hate disposables. I’m sure I’ve mentioned that before. The poop up the back thing? Honestly.
Anyway! So what would I change about our cloth diaper experience?
Well, I do have to talk myself regularly out of splurging on some things. Good thing the economy is in the toilet because otherwise I might indulge. In my opinion we could use another dozen of our regulars, the Mother Ease One Size diapers. I run out of them way too easily, go through the random stack, and then are onto the prefolds before I’m prepared to do laundry again. That annoys me. It’s not like when the Boo was a baby and I had nothing BUT time to do laundry. This time too much laundry can reduce me to tears.
There are also some brands out there I wish I could try. For example, I love everything at Better For Babies. Besides wishing I had a dozen of those organic cotton cuties, I wish I had a pair of the long organic wool trousers. We have the shorts (the only thing I bought for the kid in the diaper department; pre-birth) and I love them. They’re perfect. I wish I had the longer version because I’m pretty sure he’d live in them at home. Just so easy, effective, soft, comfortable, and breathable. All good things. But, they’re $50, so not likely.
I’ve also been pining after these Nikky cloth diaper covers that a friend uses. They’re just so soft. Not plastic. Not squeaky or stiff or bulky. I wish I had discovered them sooner.
But, I already have covers, right? Sigh. Being practical is a bitch.
Otherwise, things are going well in the cloth diaper department! I’m still using the same microfleece liners for sleeping, I’m still loving the wool I already have and wishing I had more, I’m still changing diapers what sometimes seems constantly, but I’m okay with that too. Better than diaper rash. Washing every other day at this point; sometimes even squeaking one more day out but we’re really running low at that point. Still doing the dry pail with no problems (hell, there’s hardly any poop in there these days) and still doing diaper changes at night. No problem with that either.
It’s all for the benefit in the long run, I hope!