cloth diapers

I am sure that to many (if not all of you) the whole "cloth diaper" idea sounds like a noble experiment at best, and at worst...just plain dumb. That's okay. I'm not on a mission to change the world, I just think it's a good idea for us. Plus, I'm really jazzed about it, so that's why you get to read about it. Cloth diapers are so different than they were years ago and the new styles seem like they'll be just as convenient once I'm on top of the learning curve. There's a great store here in Fairbanks called Blueberry Baby. The two store owners are pretty granola and they are a wealth of knowledge about cloth diapers. Fairbanks doesn't offer much in the way of specialty shops, but since it is a bit of a hippie town, I lucked out that there's a great baby store.

These first two pictures are of the regular ol' prefolds. I have done a lot of research and pricing and I think that I'll stick with prefolds for the newborn stage (with a wrap covering it, you'll see that picture in a bit.) At night I'll use the fancier (and more expensive) snap diapers, but during the many daytime diaper changes I'll just use these things. The baby store has these cool clips that hook the diaper together instead of using diaper pins. They work like the metal things that hold together an ACE bandage, except that the little teeth are plastic instead.

My pictures are a little out of order, sorry. This is the inside of the wrap that goes over the diaper. This is size Small, which will work for 8-15 lbs. Check out the cool gussets along the sides. This is a polar fleece wrap, so the inside and out are supersoft fleece and in between there's a waterproof laminate layer.

This is the newborn size of the wrap in the regular fabric. It's a really soft polyester knit. This size only fits up to 10 lbs. so I don't intend on buying too many of these. Especially since I'm predicting the baby's weight to be in the low 9's. I was in the upper 8's and Erik was 11 lbs. Plus, the due date from the ultrasounds and the 40 week calculation due date are almost two weeks apart. So that says to me that the baby probably isn't coming earlier than I thought, he's just coming bigger. That sounds great to me, though. I imagine that nice, sturdy babies are more apt to eat and sleep well.

This is the cloth wipe. It took me a while after deciding to use cloth diapers to come to the question, "but if I'm not throwing anything away, then where do I put the yucky wipe?" I would never have guessed that cloth diaperers use cloth wipes. But I guess it makes sense. You're washing a diaper anyway, so what difference does it make to throw in a wipe? These are super soft cotton terry and they're the perfect size. Plus, they're inexpensive and I imagine that I'll be using them for just about everything.

So this is the most exciting part. The actual diaper. This is the brand that I'll be using, Kissaluvs. After some price comparison research and weighing pros and cons of different types, I really like this kind. Plus, this brand came with a very high recommendation from my local hippie baby store owners (who have each cloth diapered 3 kids) so I figure they know what they're talking about. This is the smallest size, fitting 5-12 lbs. I think I'll only use this diaper during the night, until he gets to the next size. The next size goes from 10-25 lbs., so that will last him a long time. They have snaps that hold it together and adjust for size. The fabric is incredibly soft, unbleached cotton sherpa. They also come in different colors. So I plan to use these guys once he's out of the 10 diapers a day stage. Also available for cloth diapers are flushable liners, these cool things that you put in (especially great for when he's starting solid foods) and then you just dump the yucky liner into the toilet. No soaking or scraping, yuck.

This is the diaper folded up and the top edge folded down so that it doesn't mess with the umbilical cord.

Last of all, this is a liner that you can put in for night-time or whenever you want extra absorption. There are also some really cool all-in-one diapers that have the waterproof lining right on the outside of the cloth diaper. Those are very cool and I think that I'll go for those once he's older and starting solid foods. There's not much of a difference between all-in-ones and disposables, at least in terms of construction. They're cool.

So that's the story. For our first baby I don't think we'll see much in the way of financial savings by using cloth diapers because these new-fangled kinds can get pricey. But we'll definitely see savings once Reid's little brothers and sisters come along. And as far as the energy issue is concerned, I realized that that's probably a wash too. Disposables use energy in production, as do cloth. Cloth also use energy and water to launder them. But the one-time energy use for cloth production + laundering energy = the production energy for the thousands of disposables. I don't have any stats on that, that's just what I figure. So the real difference between the two for me is that these won't end up in a land fill, they'll end up on the next baby's bottom. Plus, stats do show that kids in cloth diapers potty train much earlier. That is a big plus for me. When I was at the hippie baby store, the store owner had her youngest son with her, less than 18 months. He is starting potty training. I think that's pretty great. Don't worry if you think that I'm crazy for all of this. It won't hurt my feelings. In fact, if you've known me long enough, this won't be the first time that you thought I was crazy. You've probably come to expect this sort of thing from me. But if you have any ideas or suggestions, I'd love to hear them. I probably won't be talked out of it, but I like to hear others' ideas. Plus, I'd love to hear suggestions on how to fold the darn prefolds. That is something that I've never really done, and I'm going to have to get good...fast. Thanks for hanging in there with me, this was a lot of ramble about a topic which I'm sure is only exciting to me.