Cloth Diapers

Well I don't know where I got the crazy idea to use cloth diapers, but it's something I had been thinking about for quite awhile.  Before Harper entered this crazy world I tried selling Tyler on the idea. 

His main concern was how much more laundry it would cause.  Without having a baby and knowing how many diapers or clothing this little bundle of joy would create it was based on assumptions.  We really didn't know how often we would be changing diapers, how many we would go through in a day, or how big the messes would be so it was hard to really do research.  Tyler's main concern was increasing our laundry loads.  Isn't it crazy how much laundry two people can make?!?!? Then think about adding a spitting, pooping, messy baby to the mix...we'd be doing laundry EVERY DAY, he thought it would consume us and with school and work we frankly didn't have time in the day to be spending every waking minute doing laundry.  He also thought we would spend a small fortune on cloth diapers and then I'd decide I didn't want to use them anymore and then we'd have all these diapers...  After some convincing and promising that I would do the laundry and I WOULD continue to use them we made the plunge and invested in 24 diapers.  These aren't your mom's cloth diapers, these come in fun colors and prints and have different adjustable sizes that can take the same diaper from 7 lbs to 35 lbs.  There are no pins, bleaching, "shaking out the solids" or anything like that.  These are made like disposables only a better quality and you can reuse them! :)

So you're intrigued now and you probably want to know all the dirty details (no pun intended) :) ...

Our daycare provider was actually on board as well (which makes for two babies at her home that use cloth diapers).  We give her a stash for three days and each night she gives us a bag back of the soiled diapers.  They go into a diaper pail in Harper's Nursery and then on Wednesdays and Saturdays I do laundry.  I put all the diapers into the washer and just cold rinse them.  I then add a little detergent and do the full cycle wash on hot water.  I hang them to dry.  That's it! 

Here are a few reasons that I used to sell Tyler on the great idea of cloth diapers:

1. It really bothered me what exactly diapers were made of... Is that really good to be on your baby's tush 24 hours a day 7 days a week for a couple years?!?  Using cloth diapers actually results in less diaper rash instances.

2. They are economical.  Our stash cost us around $450 and it will get us through potty training and all the DeMaris babies in the future.  The average cost of disposables for 2 years is $1,600 per BABY!

3. Each baby puts about 6,500 disposable diapers into the landfill--that's about 2 tons of landfill waste!  With disposable diapers have little to no recycling potential and the long term effects of them on the environment remain unknown.  They think ONE diaper can take 500 years to decompose. 

So there you have it...All you wanted to know about cloth diapers and so far it hasn't increased the amount of time we spend doing laundry... I'll keep you posted on when we make the steps into solid foods....