My Cloth Diaper Story

In honor of Real Diaper Week, April 16-21, and inspired by the call to cloth diaper advocacy I am telling my cloth diaper story.

There a lots of blogs and websites dedicated to educating readers about cloth diapering so I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of that, this is purely my story.

When I was pregnant with my daughter in 2009, I did a little research on cloth diapers and knew that cloth diapers weren't the old prefolds with diaper pins but I didn't do enough research to know the difference between a fitted and an AIO. I was intrigued but not really interested. It wasn't that I thought they would be gross or difficult. It was the prospect of more laundry that drove me away. I mean, I was going to be a mom who worked full-time outside the home, I didn't have time to wash diapers. Besides, my baby was going to be in daycare so I was going to be buying disposables anyway. Finally, I knew there was absolutely no chance in the world my husband would be on board with cloth diapers. Boy they were cute though.

So I had my baby and like everyone else, I diapered here in disposable diapers for almost a year. I did lots of laundry to deal with those awesome baby blowouts.

But.....but, but, but I knew the truth about disposables. I knew how awful there are for the environment. I knew the chemicals in them were scary. I couldn't stand taking the most biodegradable thing on earth (I'm talking about poop, in case you didn't get that) and wrapping it up in one of the least biodegradable things.

So I researched cloth diapers some more and finally found the fact that put me over the edge. Cloth diapered babies potty train earlier than those in disposables. Well, sign me up.

I wasn't planning to go completely to cloth but I decided to get a couple of cloth diapers for my daughter to wear on the weekends. I excitedly ordered 3 BumGenius 4.0's and the next Saturday I diapered her adorable butt in cloth. And that started the snowball rolling downhill. By that afternoon, I had driven 30 miles to buy more cloth diapers so that I could cloth diaper more. Within a month, I had built a respectable stash and I knew all about pockets and prefolds and inserts and snappis. It was insanely addictive and I was amazed and excited that there was a whole community of women who were just as addicted as me.

Amazingly, the husband I thought would never get on board with cloth, embraced it. He even does diaper laundry without complaint. He still gets a little confused by all the different types and really wishes I would pick a brand and have only that kind in our stash, but that would take away the fun.

Caroline was happily cloth diapered anytime she wasn't at daycare. But at daycare, cloth was not an option. But in October of 2011, we had the opportunity to change to a less expensive home daycare run by a friend and jumped on it. When we went for a visit, I very tentatively pulled out an Aplix BumGenius 4.0 and a PlanetWise wet bag and made my case. Much to my delight, she agreed to use the diapers and my daughter has not had a disposable diaper on since.

Next: Cloth diapering round two

For more info on cloth diapering check out:

www.dirtydiaperlaundry.com
www.allaboutclothdiapers.com
www.change-diapers.com