Using the Cloth

Thanks to the inventors of these, diaper duty has become both easy and economical in our household. Plain and simple fact: babies pee and poop (just like us--WOW). The recepticle in which these pint size people perform this job in can get pretty expensive. This is a Bumgenius 4.0 one size diaper. Some cool features include: it grows with the child up to 35 pounds; it is reusable; it washes well (haven't had a stain yet) with just detergent; it's a time efficient diaper--no spending hours scrubbing needed; and most importantly, Jude seems to like wearing them. The diaper wicks away moisture better than a disposable, in my opinion, and the leaks are not as frequent as with disposables. The best part--I put up a one time expense on these bad boys and never have to buy another diaper again. Sign me up!





I'm in total debt to my friend Libba for using them on her boys (who were born before mine). These diapers came highly recommended by her. Since she's a working mother like myself (and stays waaaaay busier than I do), I figured, "Why not give them a try?" Boy, am I glad I did.





Of course, as with any diaper, there are some cons: the main one being scraping the poop. However, Jeffrey and I invested in the Bumgenius diaper sprayer which hooks up to the toilet and gives off this supersonic jet stream of water to blast that poop right off of there and into the pot. We never have to touch it, and clean-up is done in a cinch!





Another con is the diaper pail. Holy Mackerel! Does that thing stink! At least with disposables, you can stick the diaper in a Diapergenie, and that plastic bag wrapping thingy covers up the odor, but for cloth diapers, it's an entirely different story. However, I keep the odor at bay with Lysol spray and I scrub it out with Lysol lemon scented wipes. That seems to help.








However, with the money I'm saving each week on diapers and the fact that cloth diapering is healthy for little Jude's bum (something I found out from my pediatrician--not sure how it's healthier, though), I guess I can manage the clean-up o.k.

Of course, others' reactions have ranged from utterly disgusted to sheer awe. Just as they don't give two flips what I think of any decisions they make, I could care less what they think of my diapering choice. (Supplemental thought--the second Jeffrey and I announced our pregnancy, people who were parents along with the childless people were hurling opinions at us as if they were stoning a radical religious martyr. The more "You should do this"s I heard, the more I ignored and did my own thing.) However, one opinion outside of our household does matter--the baby-sitter's.

In the near future, I want to write a post on how awesome our child care provider is. I'm not going to go out on a limb and say Ms. Lily loves our cloth diapers. She hasn't said one way or the other. However, she respects mine and Jeffrey's decision and keeps Jude in them rather than insisting he wear disposables. Also, even though I've told her to just put the dirty ones in a plastic bag for me to wash out when I get home, she rinses those dirty diapers before putting them in the plastic bag. I appreciate Ms. Lily for many things since she first started keeping Jude two weeks ago, but this is one of those things that tops the list.

Diapering certainly is far from glamourous. Things that excite me have gone from attending seriously awesome rock concerts to "Hey check out the pressure on this sprayer!" Jeffrey and I made a choice to use these cloth diapers, but I do understand others' choices to use disposables. In fact, friends have given us disposable diapers that their children have outgrown before they finished the package, and we've appreciated the generosity and use them whenever we're away from home for a while. However, I'm not necessarily going to rush out to buy my own since I have a perfectly good set of cloth ones that do the job just fine.

I'm just grateful to have this option available to me. The same people who have expressed negativity toward our decision more than likely aren't people I would turn to for sound parenting advice anyway.