My Cloth Diaper Journey

The journey to cloth diapering, for me at least, has been a long and crazy one. The idea to cloth diaper came to me while I was still pregnant with our third, who is now 2 months old. It had honestly never occurred to me to cloth diaper; and truthfully that was just because I was completely uneducated. Like many people I think, that don’t cloth diaper, I was overwhelmed with the daunting task of prefolds and pins, and rising and washing, and on and on and on it would run in my head. My main reason for being interested in cloth diapering was the money saving factor; but that overwhelming aspect had really ever kept me from taking it further than just a fleeting thought. Then I began to really commit to my blogging, meeting new people and really diving in. I came across these new and fancy cloth diapers! No prefolds, no pins, and the most adorable prints and colors I had ever seen! I was hooked from the moment I laid my eyes on them. I thought, holy cow, I can do this for sure! I soon became completely obsessed. I was reading blogs, researching websites, watching youtube videos. Then I discovered Diaperswappers.  Best discovery I ever made.  I was able to get used cloth diapers from moms that cared about diapering, that took care of their diapers.  We became the proud owners of used diapers that looked brand new and saved me even more money!

On top of the used ones I’ve gotten, I’m also the proud owner of some dipes that I won from some of the amazing cloth diapering blogging moms. And since this was Phillips first Christmas at only 2 months old…what better than to request from Santa than some adorable Gro-Via diapers in the owl print!

My sweet husband is a saint.  Not only did he listen to me for hours and hours about what we should, could, would do, and about all the things I was learning about, and the different cloth diapers; but it wasn’t that difficult for me to get him aboard the cloth diapering train. Although, he did once say to me “if you can not talk about cloth for one month you can buy anything you want!” Oh heavens. Of course that was completely crazy because I couldn’t. I was discovering new and exciting fun things every day and I wanted to talk about it.

I will say that I have the worst luck when it comes to running into those that were a little too passionate about cloth diapering.  I know that sounds crazy, being too passionate about something, but we all know they are out there. Its like with anything in life, there are people who are really passionate about stuff and don’t do well on the respecting other people’s fronts. And I don’t know about you, but that just turns me off from whatever it is they are talking about. I think more people would cloth diaper if it was a fun, relaxed thing. Before I had decided to do it i had people in my life who would talk to me about natural diapers and chlorine free and all that stuff. They would be so aggressive when talking to me, saying “how dare I put my child in that horrible stuff”. Not really ever offering me detailed alternatives or telling me what they really did, just that I shouldn’t do what I’m doing. Its my strong willed self that wants to completely do the opposite of whatever that person is saying. My two older kids are wonderfully healthy and I was never super-green minded so the idea never occurred to me. Then one day I ran across my sweet friend Holly’s recently uploaded pics when she was pregnant with her second girl. And there was these adorable pink diapers that her sister had given her. I was like, what are those adorable things?! And it was with that question that I began my journey to cloth diapering. It was a great discussion. She taught me so much in just a few facebook conversations and gave me some wonderful advice and pointed me in the right directions. It was a simple, nice, normal conversation between two friends. I credit her for my transformation to a cloth diapering mama! I have now paid it forward and the same conversation with two of my friends and they are extremely interested in cloth diapering, and one is doing it now!!!

I will say that I still am a little lazy about it, and I feel like I’m still working out the kinks.  Every once in awhile I mess up my rhythm and run out of diapers before a wash.  I use a disposable.  I try not to be too hard on myself.  I was pretty proud of myself recently though because I went on a three week trip to my hometown, with my three kids in tow and by myself, and cloth diapered!!  I was very intimidated by the fact of cloth diapering on vacation.  But it was way easier than I expected once I figured out how to transport them all with everything else I had to take with me.  Traveling with your cloth isn’t light.  But I did it and I am kinda proud of myself.  Gave myself a little pat on the back.  I used a slightly smaller version of my regular stash and didn’t use any of the disposable inserts.  I really haven’t given those a try yet so I really need to.  I have a feeling that during camping that will come in handy.

Right now my cloth diaper collection includes mostly Gro-Via and Flip (stay dry and organic), but I have a Best Bottoms, a Knickernappy, kawaii, Done With Disposables and Smarti Pants.  After using them for a month or too I’ve come to just be in love with my Gro-Via and my Done With Disposibles.  They fit my little guy so perfect and keep all that EBF where its supposed to be.  I use Planet Wise for my wet bags. And so far all of them have made the transition completely easy for me. I haven’t once felt overwhelmed. I’ve not noticed my laundry chores going up. The biggest con to disposables, for me, is the trash! Tons and tons of unnecessary trash is created, on top of all the other trash, from diapers. As I’d mentioned before, I don’t consider myself a super green person; I recycle and stuff like that, but that’s about the extent of my greeness. But when I saw how easy it was to do my part it was like an added perk to what already seemed like a great idea. The only con that I’ve experienced so far isn’t something that the normal family would experience. Since we are a military family we have to experience the occasional move, and this state that we are in right now has been long term when we weren’t planning on it. It has gone from a week and a half to now about three weeks. It is really hard to cloth diaper in a situation like this. But like I said, I can’t imagine most people would experience that problem and I don’t think cloth diapering while doing normal, well-prepared traveling would be difficult at all.

There are so many different kinds of diapers! I couldn’t possibly blog about them all at once. Cloth Diaper on!!! Hooah!