WHY-Wednesday: Why do I cloth diaper? Part 3/3

Okay, so we have finally made it!

This is where the rubber meets the road.

The nitty-gritty. 

Why do I love to cloth diaper my babies?

*  They are environmentally friendly.  The Earth belongs to the Lord (Psalm 24:1).  We are only it's stewards.  We don't own it and thus, we must protect it.  What are you doing to fulfill your job as caretaker?  

*  They are free.  Aside from their initial cost and the (minimal) cost of water/detergent/power for washing and drying, they are completely free!  

(As a side note to this, you can register for them at just about any baby store, Target, diaper website or Amazon, and receive them as shower gifts). 

*  When it comes down to it, I am not the one doing the washing, my washer is.  I mean-- helloooo?  I even have a dryer, for crying out loud!  The physical effort required to keep up with my diapers is close to none.

*  I have no clue how much it costs to diaper my children.  "I can't wait to get my Tyke out of diapers" you say, "it will be like getting a raise!"  No kidding!  I honestly have no clue what paying for disposable diapers costs.  My guess is about $40 a month, but really, I don't know.

I think I'll just take those $40 each month and buy myself something nice... 

Something like, aaammmm, let's see-- a Vitamix (which I have), or a City Select double stroller (which I also have), or go out on nice dates with the hubby (which I do).

My point is-- are you sure you want to spend that money on poop-catchers?

*  Thy are cute.  

*  They are easy to use and handle.  These are not the diapers Grandma used.  As a friend once put it:  "cloth diapers have evolved faster than cell phones."  They are compact, durable, and easy to sort and put away after each wash.

*  Cloth-diapered babies are easier to potty train.  Granted, I've never potty trained a disposable diaper child, and granted... I've only potty trained Emma, but I'll tell you one thing-- when we did it, it was fast (at 25 months old)!  

I did not know this at the time, but when you potty train, you are essentially teaching your child to learn to make the connection between their brain and their bladder.  When you use disposable diapers, the urine is absorbed immediately, so the child barely knows he's even gone to the bathroom.  

A cloth baby, on the other hand, knows exactly when he has gone to the bathroom.  Because cloth does not give them a dry feeling after they've gone potty, they learn at an early age that when their bladder is full, something comes out.  You have basically potty trained your child while still in diapers.

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WHY-Wednesday:  Why do I cloth diaper?  Part 1/3

 WHY-Wednesday:  Why do I cloth diaper?  Part 2/3

Pull-up arrangement

It is ironic that I find myself posting a picture of my child with her 86 disposable pull-ups right in the middle of my WHY-Wednesday series on cloth diapering.  But it is what it is.  I hope you know by this that even though I really, really, really do love and encourage cloth diapering, there is a lot of grace involved in this also.

Anyway, so back to the reason why I was planning on posting this picture to begin with.

Emma is only wearing diapers at night.  She is in undies all during the day and at nap time.  We still had her wearing her cloth diapers at night (since I am already doing diaper laundry for BB), but it had started to become more and more of a nuisance.  She is almost thee years old, so laying on her diaper table to get her diaper on is no longer on the top of her priority list.  She would much rather stand up like a big girl when getting ready for bed.

I considered purchasing some cloth pull-ups, and may eventually do so, but for now, I thought it would be fun getting her some cartoon diapers.  She loves choosing which character she'll wear that night, and for $30 that will last two months of night excitement, I consider it worth it.

Anyway, so back to the picture--

Emma was doing her morning "quiet time" the day after we had purchased these pull-ups.  When I went in to get her out of her room, I was so tickled by her arrangement, I had to picture it!

WHY-Wednesday: Why do I cloth diaper? Part 2/3

Did you know that using disposable diapers is not the norm?

At some point over the past 50 years, using disposable diapers has become the "normal thing to do," and anyone who cloth diapers is weird and odd and probably has too much time on their hands (which may be the case, but I'm okay with that :) ).

Even though I was raised very "green," and have always been environmentally friendly, I remember initially dreading telling people I was going to cloth diaper.

You know-- the looks, the rolling of the eyes, the well-intended "oh-you-just-wait-until-you-have-to-rinse-those-dirty-diapers" warnings, etc.

I just couldn't understand it.

Why so much fuss over something that people have been doing for centuries?

Why so much fuss over something I am *privileged* to get to do?

My mom once told me she had gone to see Graciella (our former house-help from growing up) after she had had her baby.  She lived in a small, humble, brick home-- a luxurious home compared to how most lower-class Mexicans live in.

My mom says she held her little girl and noticed she had no diaper.

She had no diaper.

 No cloth, no disposable, no nada.

Did you know that using disposable diapers is not the norm?

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WHY-Wednesday:  Why do I cloth diaper?  Part 1/3

WHY-Wednesday:  Why do I cloth diaper?  Part 3/3

My favorite load

What is there not to love about this load of laundry?
It's easy to wash.
I save tons of money.
I help the environment -- God's creation.
No last minute runs to the store.
And they are fun and colorful.

Sorry, I'm weird like that...

A month into cloth diapering

A month into cloth diapering and loving it!

I love the fact that:
- I'm $aving tons of money.
- I'm helping the environment.
- No last minute runs to CVS for diapers because I've run out of them.
- They take the same amount of time to change into than a disposable one does.
- For some reason disposable diapers DO NOT contain my child's blow outs; cloth diapers do.
- For the first 6 weeks that Emma used disposable diapers, her room always smelled. Now that she uses cloth, it no longer does. Go figure!
- Because Emma is exclusively breastfed, her dirty diapers don't need to be rinsed before being put into the washing machine, which makes them super convenient for now. Things will slightly change once she begins with solids.

Instead of filling the large can with garbage every week, it's the small one that goes into the trash and the large one goes into the washing machine.

Person: "Gross! If you use cloth diapers, you need to wash them too"
Me: "No, my washing machine does"

Reusable diapers

One of the gifts we were blessed with from our shower were some reusable diapers. B and I have decided that "reusable" is a better term to describe these diapers (rather than "cloth"). It's amazing how the reusable diaper "technology" has advanced over the years. Forget about those bulky white cloths and pins that our parents used years ago.

Using these diapers excites me a little more than it should. Aside from them being super cute (I mean, look at the colors), they help the environment (God's creation, which we are called to steward and take care of), AND they save a ton of money! Depending on how good you are at looking for good diaper sales, you can save about $1,000 dollars per year by using these. For someone who just quit her job in order to stay at home with her daughter, this is very attractive information.

How do they work? The plastic wrap allows the reusable inserts to be snapped into it. This allows laundry not be as bulky, and hence, lesser time to dry.

Cloth baby wipes

As some of you may already know, I've decided to use cloth diapers with our little girl. I hesitated for a while whether this would be a good idea or not - I didn't want to be known as "the nut who uses cloth diapers." But the more I thought about it and the more I talked about it, I realized that there were a lot of people who use them, and they are not nuts!

Hence has begun my cloth diaper adventure, and along with it, cloth baby wipes as well. Last night I sat and cut out 70+ pieces of 8"x8" cloth wipes. I used a large blanket-like fabric that was given to us. I was so proud of them and had such a large grin on my face when I finished, that B couldn't help but to take a picture of me.

So now the question is - what am I going to do with 70+ wipes? Any takers???