Before I was even pregnant with my son, I knew I wanted to do the Cloth Diaper route. My cousin told me all about her experience of cloth diapering for her son, and it sounded amazing. Sold! Some time later I was pregnant and doing all kinds of research on every product we needed to get. Everything from the crib to what stroller we should buy. It became very quickly a stressful and sometimes emotional time trying to pick out the best for our baby! I had gone as far as registering for cloth diapers and then at the last minute I canceled it. I was just too overwhelmed at the prospect of being a new mom, I didn’t know what to do. And with my husband gone long hours for work, I’d be the only one taking care of a newborn and a pile of dirty diapers to wash. I just didn’t want to do them any more.
Since birth, my son has been wearing disposables. At first I was thinking to myself, “why did I ever want to do cloth diapers? I’d be doing nothing but laundry”. Fast forward to today, er a month ago now I ended up making the switch to cloth! My reasons for switching? Yes I am a tree hugger no doubt and I want to do my part to contribute to our earth and resuse instead of waste. I also want to be an example to my son J and show him how to care. But aside from the obvious the other two big motivators were convenience and our pocket book.
1. Auto Ship for Diapers just didn’t work for us. My son just seemed to grow so fast into the next size. We were constantly sending back diapers that were on auto-ship that no longer would fit him. It was incredibly annoying and unnecessary having to run to UPS every few weeks. Auto-ship is supposed to be convenient not work.
2. This meant us running to our local Target to buy diapers. We learned our lesson from buying in bulk through Auto-Ship so we’d just buy what we needed until it was time to buy more. This resulted in again, too many unnecessary diaper buying trips.
3. Buying Diapers adds up on the pocketbook! We were buying Seventh Generation disposables for J. There’s nothing wrong with their prices, in fact they’re comparable to other brands in the market. I just loved our experience with Seventh Generation! They sure make a great diaper! However, once you’re a parent, you can really understand the waste that happens with disposbables. I would literally change a diaper then 5 minutes later its soiled(#2). Now its a diaper that has to be changed and thrown away. We were practically throwing money down the diaper pail! Over time it adds up and I just cringed at the waste we were creating to the earth and with our money. It was time for a change!
I started to do research. Contacted friends and visited a local baby store where they sell cloth diapers. I ended up selecting Flip Diapers. They are a hybrid diaper- which means there is a diaper shell/cover and a removable insert. So changing a diaper mostly means just changing the insert not the cover. Also a diaper cover will last a baby from 8lbs up to 35lbs! So you will get lots and lots of use out of them, since the diaper grows with baby! I bought 5 covers and about 12 inserts, soon I will buy just a few more of each. I absolutely LOVE them! It is just as easy to use these diapers as it is to use disposables! I seriously mean that last statement. It also just feels so good to know that we are not contributing to all those diapers that just sit in land fills as much. We still use 1 disposable per day and thats actually J’s overnight diaper. I just haven’t made that transition yet. We will also use disposables when traveling. As far as “extra-laundry” goes, the laundry isn’t actually an extra step. We do so much laundry now since having a baby, I’ve gotten used to doing laundry often. I just throw this planet wise bag that holds all the dirty diaper covers and inserts into the wash every other day. Easy-peasy! 😉
I know that was a mouth-full but there really is a lot to dish on this subject! Do you use cloth diapers? Considered switching to them or know anyone who uses them!? Would love to hear your thoughts!
