NeeNooBug's Nest : Bring Sexy Back... with Cloth Diapers!

So even before I had Oliver I knew I wanted to cloth diaper. Why??? Well these are my top 6 reasons...

(1) Disposable diapers are full of chemicals that are on your babies genitals 24/7. I don't want chemicals near my genitals and sure don't want them on my baby's.

(2) I hate making so much waste! I compost and recycle... Our weekly ratio is about 1 garbage bag: 3-4 recycle bags: 2 compost buckets per week... so seeing all the waste disposables make kills me inside. (The Environmental Protection Agency reports that about 20 billion disposable diapers are dumped in landfills each year, accounting for more than 3.5 million tons of waste.)

(3) I hate wasting money. Constantly buying diapers to fill with poop and pee made no sense... it was like flushing money down the toilet and since I am not working to be at home, I can not afford to do that.

(4) I had many poop blow outs and leaks with disposable regardless of size and brand. So really how much worst could cloth be?

(5) My baby kept having diaper rash...and I really believe that the disposables were the culprit.

(6) I really wanted to try to do Elimination Communication with my baby and cloth diapers are easier to put on and off. (We haven't given up completely but it has been challenging...)

Oliver in disposables!

When I told people this, most gave me negativity about it saying things like "Oh just wait, you say that now...". However I really wanted to at least try. Well since I got a ton of disposable diapers at my baby shower...and not being big on returning things I decided to start off with those. I did buy a starter kit of cloth diapers from Baby's R Us since I had many gift cards from there. [As a side note, can I say I don't really care for Baby Depot stores. After Oliver was born I realized most of the things I needed or wanted weren't offered at those type of stores. Lesson learned! ] So back to the diapering... I bought a starter kit of G-Diapers because once again these baby depot stores don't have much to offer in way of natural parenting.

Oliver in the G-Diaper (Small Size).

Oliver in the G-Diaper (Newborn Size).

So I used disposable diapers until I ran out of new born size ones which was around a month... and started using the G-Diapers. I loved using the newborn size model they had. I had great success but the problem I was having is I didn't have enough. The kit only gives you 12 and when you don't have a washing machine at home you find yourself without diapers. So I did some disposable and some cloth. Since the G-Diapers are quite pricey and you constantly have to buy new sizes I didn't want to purchase any more since he was going to be needing the next size soon. The kit also contained 6 small sized diapers which I switched to around month 2. Once again I didn't have enough and they constantly leaked all the time! NO matter what I did. So I actually gave up on the idea of cloth diapering...because I knew very little about it and didn't research into it at that point.

Then a friend of mine recommended a cloth diaper company called Comfy Rumps. She told me they are one size adjustable (so no need to buy different sizes), they don't leak, and they are affordable. She had me at "Hello"... lol. So I went home and went to their website (http://comfyrumps1.mybigcommerce.com/) and saw that they were affordable compared to the G-Diapers and other cloth diapers on the market... cloth diapers typically are between $15-20 per diaper and that's a lot. I read tons of reviews and watched a bunch of 'Youtube product reviews on them. Reading mainly everything positive about the product, I bought a set. I was able to get a package of 25 diapers which included inserts (G-Diapers did not), extra inserts, and two wet bags (one for the hamper and one for traveling) for around $250. Sounds like a lot but it really isn't considering you never have to purchase another diaper again! So on Oliver's 3 month birthday they arrived at our door! I was ecstatic!

Did I mention how frigging cute cloth diapers are.. we have a ton of colors and prints! So I have 25 diapers and we roughly go through 5-7 per day, so I find myself washing diapers every 3 days. I wash them by hand and to be honest I actually enjoy doing it... it is kind of therapeutic. Since Oliver is exclusively breastfed his poop doesn't smell bad at all, I prefer that smell over the urine smell to be quite honest. I have a method of pre-soaking in baking soda and/or soda ash. Then I wash them in an organic detergent, rinse, and hang to dry. If I can do this then someone with a washing machine should be able to without a problem. Another amazing factor is the line drying... many people do not know this but the Sun is a natural bleacher... all the yellow stains magically disappear before your eyes in the Sun. My husband even helps out washing the diapers by hand, because he is such a great daddy!

So we are almost at 6 months old and we have not used a single disposable or even felt the need to have them as back-up. The diaper rash cleared up immediately (we don't even have diaper rash cream at home). One of the biggest benefits is that Oliver never looked cuter with all his adorable diapers! We do have a few small urine leaks when I push the envelope of a double stuffed all nighter diaper (12 hours) but nothing like the disposable diaper leaks. I also have yet to have a poop blow out or up the back blow out with the cloth diapers, even though there is much more poop these days. I had quite a few "Up the Onsie" and "Down the Leg" blowouts with the disposable. I will never go back to disposables!

So is there any downfall to cloth diapers? Well one thing is that since this is a one size adjustable diaper, they tend to look very bulky on newborns to 3 months. So a lot of the cute outfits that you get will not fit. Unless you invest in smaller sized cloth diapers as well. Another issue some parents have is having to carry around soiled diapers when on the road. Well that is what wet bags are for and to this day I have yet to have to carry a really bad soiled diaper. My little one usually doesn't poop when we are out and about, but if he did I don't see the issue of putting it in the wet bag. Another one I hear is that cloth diapering is labor intensive... well anything you do for your child is labor intensive, however the labor you do for your child's well-being should be considered a labor of love and not an inconvenience. To me this has been one of the best choices we have made for our little guy. Who said washing diapers is hard? and I am doing them by hand...