The Diaper Stash

In an effort to decrease landfill waste, we've decided to try our hand at cloth diapering Baby B.  Half the people I've told think we're crazy, the other half applaud us for doing it.  I've heard the pros and cons of cloth vs. conventional disposable diapers in terms of ease of use and environmental effects, but we're still going to try it out.  I've heard cloth diapering decreases diaper rash by 70-90% and that babes who are cloth diapered potty train earlier, so even if it does moot for Mother Earth, maybe we'll get some good out of it.  Apparently I was cloth diapered for a while but my mom got tired of people getting stuck with pins -- either her when she was diapering me, or me when my dad was doing it.  Kae even said she cloth diapered Mikki as a baby too.  Lucky for us, pins are hardly used with cloth diapering these days.  When I first decided I'd like to try cloth diapering, I was amazed at all the options.  The diapers look really cute and appear to be easy to use.

This is a picture of our "stash" so far.  Let me share with everyone what I've learned about the different products for cloth diaperers.  We have an assortment of different diapers we plan on trying, most of which are pictured here.  

• The bright blue and bright orange ones are Thirsties diaper covers, which are waterproof covers that go over the cloth diaper (either a fitted cloth diaper, which essentially looks like a regular diaper made of cloth, or a prefold cloth diaper, or what most people use as a burp cloth).  These come in sizes, but the ones we have have adjustable snaps to last from about 6 lbs to 18 lbs (XS-S).  
• The dark orange and vanilla colored diapers with the "g" are gDiapers.  These are like a combination of disposable and reusable diaper.  The outer diaper is made of cotton, and the waterproof aspect of it is the snap-in liner.  The part the baby pees/poops in is a disposable/biodegradable liner that you change out as needed.  You can reuse everything else as long as it's clean.  The disposable liner has no plastic in it, and you can even flush it down the toilet (after disassembling it, which doesn't really appeal to me because 1) I'll have to touch it more,2) I'll waste water flushing them, and 3) it has the potential to clog my toilet).  You can also put pee-soaked ones in a compost pile, or just toss the entire thing in the garbage.  Since it has no plastic, it will biodegrade in 50-150 days, compared to a traditional disposable diaper which takes 500 years to break down.  The gPants (outer cover) come in sizes, so you'll have to buy larger ones as the baby grows.
  
• Near the back of the picture are a light orange, white, and light green diaper.  These are Bumgenius 3.0 one-size pocket diapers.  A pocket diaper is a one-time use diaper that you can stuff with the inserts (either a prefold or their included microterry inserts) to adjust for absorption.  Once the baby does it's business in it, it needs to be washed.  The convenience with this type of diaper is that it goes on like a regular diaper.  Another convenience is that it's an adjustable-size diaper that works for babies from 8-35 lbs.  
• The green bag is our Skip-Hop diaper bag, a gift from Lolo and Lola.  The ice blue one behind it is a seatbelt diaper bag that we bought a long, long time ago (we picked it up when we got Guy and Erin's black seatbelt diaper bag when they had Kate).  The green bag you can get at Land of Nod, but I don't think Harvey's Seatbelt Bags makes the diaper bag anymore.

We'll probably end up using some disposable diapers at first since the baby might be too small for our cloth ones, and also if my dad ever needs to do a diaper change.  He came over the other day and I showed him our diaper stash.  He kind of made a face and put a cloth diaper on his head, a silent way to express his lack of enthusiasm for it.  He seems to think it's too much extra work.  I found an eco-friendly disposable diaper (Nature Babycare) that is plastic, latex, and chlorine-free that we'll have around for when my dad babysits.

Thus concludes my post about cloth diapering.  I'm really excited to try it out and see how it works.  I've heard stories about how people's garbage exponentially increases after having a baby, and most of it is diapers.  Since I'm married to an OCR (Obsessive Compulsive Recycler), it only made sense to find something that wouldn't increase unnecessary waste.  Hope it all works out well!

In other baby news, we have our anatomy ultrasound tomorrow and will find out if we're having a little Juanita or Miguelito!  Our appointment is at 11 am and we plan on spending the rest of the day blowing a paycheck buying cute baby things.  :)