So, I mentioned the other day that I cloth diaper. That I never planned on it. Not entirely true. When I found out I was pregnant with BabyGirl, I jokingly told Mr. Daddy Bear that I was going to practice EC (Elimination Communication), or at the very least, cloth diaper.
EC, in case you don't know, is where mommy, daddy, whoever the caregiver is, learns the baby's signs of "gotta GO!" and holds the infant over the potty, and the baby goes. I know, nuts, right? No, not really. It's done in many cultures. It's not really weird. Think about it; you take a diaper off a newborn baby boy and WOW! It's the fountain of... well, not really the fountain of youth.... The openness and air makes 'em gotta go. Kids actually learn to NOT go when there is open air, they LEARN to go in the diaper, and then we make them UNLEARN going when they feel material of some sort there when we start potty training. But, EC takes a lot of time on the parents' behalf, and forget about trying to do it in a child care setting, I just don't see how it could work!
And the cloth diapering I was imagining was what you might be thinking of. Prefolds, pins, plastic covers. But, oh, how we have evolved! Cloth diapering has changed so much in the last...um, not sure when the revolution started, but in the last couple decades, things have changed. Cloth diapers are now in so many different styles and varieties, there is literally something for everyone.
However, when BabyGirl was born, I hadn't done much research. And the thought of working full-time (I was a preschool teacher at the time) and then coming home and washing diapers as well as trying to keep up with the basic cleaning chores wasn't exactly appealing. So we did what most parents do, adding diapers to the weekly grocery list. Diapers, diapers, more diapers. Then, at about 6 months, I started my daughter on solids.
And made her constipated. Oh, bad mommy! I gave her a combination of first foods that stopped my kid up good. And nothing was working to get her relief. In a slight mood of desperation, I put her on the potty ring that we'd been given when I had joked a couple months earlier about potty training her by her first birthday. I put her on the potty, thinking that perhaps the position could help her to go. And...she....went.
Imagine my surprised face. Imagine me hollering to Mr. Daddy Bear. Imagine him thinking I. was. nuts. But I wasn't. Because not only did she go that time, but she started going regularly. Not both, just the #2. Hey, I was cool with that. Less for me to clean up! My co-workers didn't believe me; what 6 month old goes potty on the potty? MINE!!!!
Fast forward to a couple weeks before her first birthday. I had started doing some research on cloth diapers. I figured, if she's doing the ickier of the two in the potty, I don't mind washing a few pee diapers! And I had seriously had to change about three poo diapers in a six week span. There were some times she would cry in the car on the way home, because she needed to go and wouldn't, because she was in a diaper and not on the potty.
So, thru my research, I found a number of different kinds of diapers. Yes, prefolds; but also all-in-ones, pocket, all-in-twos, hybrids....I selected a hybrid diaper called gDiapers, since, though it is VERY different in style from a disposable diaper, it is so very easy to clean up. They just so happened to be running a special on a package that included six diapers and twelve inserts....it was fate, right? I talked with Mr. Daddy Bear, who agreed that I could begin cloth diapering BabyGirl. Note: *I* could. He was very clear that he was not changing cloth diapers. He stuck by this resolve for a couple weeks until he saw how easy they were to change. In fact, there was a clear evolution here:
"I will not change a cloth diaper. I will change a wet cloth diaper, but I will not change a poo'd cloth diaper. I will change a poo'd cloth diaper, but I will not swish a cloth diaper." Swish=swishing it around in the toilet to remove some of the solid material. Yes, it took a while, but he did eventually swish!
EWWW!!!! <--I just totally read your thoughts. Hey, did you know you are actually supposed to dump the solid waste from disposable diapers into the toilet as well, not just wrap them up and chuck them at the nearest can? Read the label. Most (though not all!) packages of diapers state so. Something about how dirty diapers with solids in them are a bio-hazardous waste, and landfills are not set up to handle such things? Hrm. I really doubt most people dump it (I know I didn't) and it's highly unlikely that they will track you down based on DNA testing of materials found in diapers to figure out WHOSE dirty diaper it was....
Ok, back to me. And my choices. And my diapers. My wonderful, marvelous cloth diapers. Do I enjoy washing them? No. Do I enjoy doing ANY of my laundry? No, not really, though washing new baby clothes is awfully fun....
But going to cloth diapers has got to be one of my better parenting choices. With BabyGirl still in childcare, we only used them part-time at first--nights, weekends, and holidays. And in the roughly six month span between shortly after her first birthday when we started using them, and her turning eighteen months, when I became a stay at home mommy.... I had those diapers paid off. JUST using them nights, weekends and holidays. And then, I was home, and didn't have to buy any more of those disposable diapers! Woohoo!
Are we still using those same gDiapers? No...but that's because our needs have changed. That's the awesome thing about cloth diapers now, there IS no "one-size, one-kind, and if your kid has different needs (more absorbency, trimmer waist, etc.) then you're out of luck" in the cloth diapering world.
Heavy wetter? Put two inserts into a pocket diaper.
Have two different size kids in diapers? No problem, buy one-size diapers instead of perfect size, and then either child can use it. No worries about running out of a size 1 at midnight and trying to fashion one of your toddler's size 4 on your three month-old...
BabyGirl is now almost entirely potty trained; might have been sooner, had Mommy not messed with her world by presenting her with an adorable baby brother. LilMan, who is now using the same diapers BabyGirl was using a few months ago. The same ones that she wears to bed still, since Mommy can just adjust to what size is needed. And LilMan? His booty has been in cloth since he was about 4 days old.
I have two children under the age of three, and I haven't bought a package of disposable diapers in over a year. That's money in my bank account, to be spent on something a little more fun.
Way more on cloth diapers than you wanted to hear, huh? And you'll probably hear more in the future....Just remember, you were warned!
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