Yes people, let me tell you, it's an addiction. I drank the kool-aid.
Cloth diapering has changed my life. And no I am not crazy, I promise ;)
Recently,
a lot of people have been asking me how and why I got into cloth
diapering, and what made us want to do it with our baby. Many people
have commended us on our choice saying "good for you" or "you're brave"
or "I really admire your dedication, and wish I had the time" etc. etc.
etc. Let me tell you that Andy and I are no more dedicated or brave or
commendable because we chose cloth. Because it's honestly something
anyone can do! I felt the same way when I first heard about cloth. I
thought "Omg, how can you choose cloth in this day and age when
disposables are so easy?" and "What?! Why would you want to run the risk
of pinning your child?!" I, like most, had NO idea how far the cloth
revolution has come.
I am here to tell you that any parent can do cloth.
Yes, I said it, any parents! And grandparents, and babysitters, and daycares too!!!
Why am I so passionate about it?
Well,
partly because I am a pretty crunchy person as many of you know, and I
feel strongly about protecting the environment and reducing my carbon
footprint. I will admit, I was not as crunchy a person a year ago, which
you will year about in a later post, but I am not ready to quite go
there yet :)
I also LOVE how much money we have and will continue to save by using cloth. Don't believe me? Check out this
cost comparison for different kinds of cloth vs. disposables. I don't
know about you, but kids are expensive, and I would much rather spend
between $400-$600 on diapers than around $2,500. And the $400-$600 is a
one time purchase. The $2,500 is EACH child. I can think of much better
uses for $2,500, can't you?!
Let me tell you my story.
A few years ago when my friend Kim was having her baby boy I got her shower invitation in the mail and saw she had registered at an online store called Jillian's Drawers for cloth diapers. I thought to myself, "Huh, that's weird, who uses cloth diapers?" I tossed the little insert about cloth aside and proceeded to take a trip to Babies R' Us and bought her some other things off her registry. Cloth, in my opinion was a thing of the past and I just didn't get it. (Kim, I humbly bow before you, because you've helped me see the light!)
Months went by and Kim gave birth to an adorable and amazing little guy. She cloth diapered him and our little group of friends continued to get together for our monthly game nights and cloth never really came up. After all, out of the four couples at game night, only Kim and her husband Justin had a kid. The rest of us were enjoying our last few years as DINKs (Double Income No Kids, natch). Andy and I were just newlyweds and I had just started my new teaching job so having kids was far from our minds!
Fast forward two years. Andy and I had, after months of trying, and after my recent stint into holistic and natural living, found out that we were expecting our own baby. Up until this point I was still expecting to throw Hubs a diaper party because I knew those babies were expensive and Lord knows he had been to enough and it was about time we get some for ourselves! I was terrified at the costs of a new baby and while I was planning to breastfeed which would, if all went well, offset the costs of formula, but I was still uneasy about how much money we'd have to spend on diapers.
Then one Saturday in February, I believe, we were sitting home doing nothing and I saw on facebook that there was a Baby Expo at Children's Hospital. I told Hubs I wanted to go so we hopped in the car and drove downtown. Turns out Kim was there for work. So we got talking. We talked about the next game night and how things were going and how excited we were to be parents when Kim introduced me to her friend Mary Jo.
Mary Jo is the owner of Baby Bongos, which is Western New York's cloth diaper and holistic hub. We got to chatting with MJ over free cookies and juice (of which I took seconds because, let's face it, I was eating for two and those of you who know me know I will never pass up anything free, especially cookies!) But I digress. So we're chatting and she tells me all about her free cloth diaper classes and has me sign up for her mailing list and we figure, why couldn't we do this? We weren't 100% sold, but we were intrigued. And being the crunchy-frugal couple that we are we figured we would check it out.
So in March we headed to Rising Sun Yoga in Williamsville for the cloth diaper class. The class is what sold me. I walked out of there feeling overwhelmed because of the enormity of all of the choices, but I also felt EMPOWERED. Empowered because I had a CHOICE that I never knew I had. I never expected to have a choice in diapering my baby and now I did and I felt liberated. There were so many options! And what? I could reuse them for each kid?! And then when I was done with them I could resell them?! This was like a dream come true! I wanted to shout from the rooftops:
I didn't shout on my roof but I did tell our parents and friends. Some people tried to talk us out of it, saying "You'll change your mind when you see how much a baby poops." Or, "Yea maybe for the first kid, wait until there are two." Or, "Is your husband/wife making you do this?" My mom, whom I love dearly even said I was crazy (she had cloth diapered me for awhile but stopped when she kept sticking me with pins in the middle of the night). She was very worried I would stick her grand baby. Once I showed her the options and how far cloth had come she was ALL about it! Others were supportive, but in a way that made it seem like they still thought we were crazy. "Good for you for having the patience and time for all that laundry." We faced a lot of judgement and questioning about our decision. But we held firm! We were adamant that this was the best choice for us. And our baby wasn't even here yet!
We still get questioned about it. My favorite are the people who say "If you're washing diapers so much, how could it REALLY be good for the environment?" I will share this excerpt for you from Mama Natural:
"An average child will go through anywhere from four to eight thousand diapers in his or her life.
Nationwide, parents in the USA use an estimated 27.4 billion disposable diapers each year. That’s around 3.4 million tons of diapers that end up in landfills each year. Now think about all the trees that are used to make the diapers. And all the plastic, which is made from petroleum. All the chemicals used in the process. And the water. Then all that water and chemicals returning to the environment as waste. Then the plastic packaging, the transportation – airplanes and trucks carting those diapers around the world – not to mention the energy you use driving to the store and back. And then the energy used to produce your garbage bags, the trucks to haul that trash to the landfills, the equipment used to manage the landfill. The environmental footprint of disposable diapers is staggering. Compare that to using the same twenty cloth diapers over and over, cleaning them with safe detergent in a high efficiency washer. There’s just no contest."
For Mama Natural's 6 Reasons Why Cloth Diapers are Better than Disposables check out this really great video:
We have been using cloth with Little Miss since she was about two weeks old. And I have never once questioned our decision. We love our choice to cloth and we do it for all the reasons above. And so can you! Don't be afraid. I promise if you take a little bit of time to look into it you will be pleasantly surprised at how easy and fulfilling it really is.
Come on, try the kool-aid...you know you want to...
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