First Impressions: Cloth

Note* I recommend not reading on if you become squeamish at the mention of dirty diapers, or worse yet, at descriptions of the contents (so, for example, Kaia Joye, you may want to skip this one...)

Eden's been wearing cloth diapers for about 36 hours. I placed a big order of bumgenius diapers through Kelly's Closet the other day (Cottonbabies is also a great site). It felt risky to be putting up so much money this late in the game -- Eden is almost 16 months -- especially with a daughter who is now telling me when she has to go to the bathroom. But, I figure better late than never.

As I was waiting for my order to arrive (I am still waiting, by the way), a friend gave me a bunch of hand-me-downs, most of which are Fuzzi Bunz. And so we began.

To answer your questions:

-Yes, cloth diapers are chubbier than disposables and make her have a big bum that is especially cute with skirts. So far, all pants still fit (though I haven' t tried the snuggest ones).

-I surprisingly like the fuzzi bunz diapers better than the bumgenius because the leg holes are adjustable and I can make them snugger. I may not have the bumgenius sized right (you can change the height of it) and I will try making it smaller and tell you if that matters.

*another note is that since I am using used diapers, it's possible that they are less absorbent than new ones would be*

-She's been wearing all diapers with double inserts.

-The diapers have worked WELL during waking hours, and I've found them to be easy to use.

-The toting-extra-things deterrent has also proved not to be bad.

-I have yet to wash them. It takes one cold wash, one hot wash, and one hot rinse. (the water usage is a problem. I am choosing to fight the landfills ). THAT will be a production, but I think I'll get into the routine. But as I said, I have yet to do it...

-She SOAKED through a diaper with double inserts the first night. So last night I changed her before I went to sleep thinking this would solve the problem. It didn't. So, we'll use nature babycare disposables at night.

-She also peed through the diaper while napping. Not sure what we'll do about that, yet. I'm going to try again.

[Now that I've seen the soaked cloth, I am in awe of how much liquid disposable diapers absorb]

-There is a magical product that eases the fear of dirty cloth diapers quite a bit. I don't know the name (will find out if you want it), but essentially, it looks like a dryer sheet that you lay in the cloth diaper. If the baby poops, you lift out the dryer sheet and flush the whole thing. If the diaper is just wet, you wash the dryer sheet with the diaper and reuse it. It eases the dirty diaper deterrent.

This morning I experienced what I think must be the very worst of cloth diapering. Eden had a dirty diaper. When I pulled her pants down, I found that poop had oozed out of both diaper leg holes (bumgenius) and coated the inside of her pants. The poop was HUGE. And like glue. Glue-mud. The easy shake-the-poop-into-the-toilet trick -- well, let's say there was no shaking. More scraping. I will stop there, but the whole process lasted a long time and is not one I possibly could have done in public (though I guess i would have just thrown the whole thing in a wet bag and dealt with it at home). I can't imagine the diaper will ever become clean again. Ever. I am tempted to throw it away. But I won't. Partly because that would defeat the whole purpose. And waste a lot of money. But still, I am tempted.

The good news, though, is that I DID it. And washed my hands in scalding water for a while. And moved on. The worst is over. I should add that I didn't use one of those dryer sheets this morning, and that may have made the whole thing easier. Except for the oozing. Gross.