Cloth Diapers for Beginners

Reasons to Cloth Diaper

You may be thinking of cloth diapering your child. If you haven't yet made the decision, here are some reasons that you may want to give it a try. It may be because you don't like the idea of wrapping your child in plastic for the first couple of years of their lives. Perhaps, you just think they are super cute, because they are! It may be to reduce the amount of waste that is entering our landfills. Disposable diapers are literally throwing money away, and lets face it, diapers are not cheap. You can save money by cloth diapering your child, and you still have those diapers to use again with future children. Whatever your reasons, I think that cloth diapering is a great experience, and if you are even thinking about it, I suggest that you give it a try.

Diaper waste is the third most prevalent item in our landfills. Lets face it, you will change a lot of diapers before your child is potty trained. It is nice to know that you are not contributing to the problem of waste disposal. There is an argument to be made that the energy used by your dryer to dry the diapers may offset the ecological benefit to not throwing diapers away. But, I feel that since landfill space is limited, this is a worthy trade off. You can always line dry your diapers saving the environment from that energy usage. The sun is a fantastic way to remove stains from diapers.

Things I have Learned

Before my daughter was born, I decided that I wanted to exclusively use cloth diapers. I am proud to say that aside from a vacation where we did not have access to laundry, I was able to accomplish my goal from day one through potty training. Here are some things that I have learned along the way.

First, cloth diapering is much easier than people try to make you think. I remember when I would talk with family and friends about my decision to cloth diaper, their response was "We'll see how long that lasts". Well, it lasted, and honestly, I can't even think of why I would switch to disposables. I mean, you are doing laundry, so it isn't like you are really even making more work by adding cloth diapers to the mix.

Second, cloth diapering is fun! There are so many different options available in cloth diapering. There are traditional flats or prefolds with covers, fitteds with covers, pockets, all in one, all in two or hybrids. I know that it seems daunting to find a good place to start. I suggest a variety of cloth diapers when you are building your stash. Everyone is different, and have their own preferences. After my daughter was born, I found my favorites. My preferred option is prefolds with covers. I had three sizes which took my daughter from the newborn stage to the change to training pants.

Life now...

So, I started writing this blog post while I was pregnant with my second daughter. And let me tell you, I finally figured out why I might use disposables. Life with a toddler, although she is one who does not wear diapers, makes getting everything done a lot harder. There are some days where we just run out of diapers. And, while I always used cloth diapers with my first daughter, I use disposables with my second overnight. She just isn't as good a sleeper, and to change her diaper overnight always wakes her up. My older daughter slept, and sleeps, like a rock. I could change her overnight and she would sleep right through it. My little girl wakes up thinking I am performing some sort of torture on her.

Also, while I loved prefolds and covers with my first daughter, I hardly ever use them with my little girl. She is really hard to keep in one place while changing her diaper, and she always wiggles the prefold out of the cover while I am trying to get her snapped in. So with her, I use AIOs. I have a bunch of BumGenius AIO One-size with organic cotton that I bought used off of Ebay when I was preparing for my first child. These are my favorite diapers. I also really like the Simplex One-size. And this time around, I do not like pockets at all, all those liners to keep track of and finding the time to stuff diapers is not something that I have the time for right now.

I guess the moral of the story is, you have to be a little bit flexible as a parent. And, what works for one child doesn't always work for the second. I still love cloth diapers, and using the ones that I bought for my first child for my second has been wonderful! But, I can no longer say that I exclusively cloth diaper. That is ok though, because I know that I am still saving diapers from ending up in a landfill.