Everyday ramblings of momma: Cloth diapering is for grandma's and hippies....right?

    It's funny how not only people but things are stereotyped. We've all done it, some more than others, but we've all done it. We've all been guilty of saying "those people" sometime in our life. I remember actually being dead set against cloth diapering with my other kids. I rarely heard of it but when I did, I thought to myself why would anyone do that. Why would you want to wash diapers? Aren't your babies always wet just having a piece of cloth on them? Aren't they big and bulky? What about diaper rash, having that wet fabric against their skin can't be good can it?............................Fast forward to my 5th child. It all started when I was pregnant with my 5th child. I was a member of an expecting mom's message board and several of the women were talking about cloth diapering. I was amazed at how many people were talking about this. I really don't remember how many women it was but even if it was 2 that was amazing to me. What kind of board was I a member of ...these are crazy women. I thought these are all 60yr old women or I missed the notice of "tree huggers" only. I had to go see what all this hoopla was about. So of course I went to google. I expected to find plain white cloth squares and safety pins and maybe some rubber pants. Boy, was I WRONG. I could not believe all the possibilities out there. I was Clueless. I quickly fell in love with the look of the cute fluffy diapers but that didn't answer the question about how they worked. I was tired and pregnant and gave up the research pretty quickly. I bought my Huggies and waited for the baby. Lilly was born on Dec. 30, came home in her sposies and wore them for about 2, 2.5 months.
I started looking in to the pretty fluffy diapers again and what I learned amazed me. I really would save money, there were all different prices and styles. They absorbed and absorbed well. They contained breastfeeding blow outs and people talked about how rashes were less due to no chemicals against the baby's skin. What was I going to do with all this information?
   I bought one. I bought a Bum Genius 3.0 AIO with pocket because it was on sale. This would be a nice trial. The brand was talked about a lot and once again....it was on sale. I got the diaper just a few days later and loved it. I hurried and prepped it and put it on my little Lilly. It was cute, it fit her good, now will it work? I'm ashamed to say I left her in that diaper for 5 hours (please do not call child services on me), I just wanted to test the diaper. Five hours later and the diaper was full but Lilly's skin was DRY, not only was it dry but she didn't have little gel things all over her. I washed and dried this diaper 2x a day so I could use it until I got more. $10.00 spent and I was hooked. I found several websites that I loved. I will post links to those sites at then end. I'm sure the owner of these websites won't mind me sending you there way but if anyone does just let me know and I'll remove the link. I'm now up to...I think 11 diapers, which is still less than I would like to have. I will get there, slowly but surely. I have 2 custom made diapers, a pretty pink one with skulls on it and a World of Warcraft one...yes you read that right. I bought it more for my husband but I thought it was super cute. I've bought Kawaii, bumpkins, Zany Zebra, Sunbaby, Grovia, Econobum and several others. I have yet to find one I didn't like. I lean toward my pocket diapers the most but love the Econobum at night.
   That brings me to the next part of diapers....the inserts. There are different types there as well. Microfiber, microfleece, flannel, cotton, hemp, bamboo, and I'm sure others I haven't found yet. I haven't tried the bamboo yet but that's the next I plan to try. I love the absorbency of the microfiber and I love the trimness of the hemp. I don't like that microfiber can't go against the baby's skin and I don't like how long hemp takes to dry, but I wouldn't give up either product. You can also use prefolds but I just haven't figured them out yet so right now I use those to change the baby on :)
   Are they hard to wash? I've never had a problem with it. Since I don't have many I usually wash every night. I use the dryer to dry most of the time right now, but when the weather is nice and I'm not waiting on diapers I like to line dry them. Speaking of line drying, the sun is AMAZING. If one of the diapers or inserts stain you just set it in the sun and it is gone, literally, I mean gone. The sun bleaches it. I have found this really amusing and actually like when the inserts don't come all the way clean. I will find everyone in the house and show them the before and after. Hmmmmmm maybe I can make a science experiment out of this, Could I make the kids do laundry for science?????
   So there you have it, cloth diapers aren't for grandma's and they aren't for "hippies" either. You have a whole range of styles from prefolds and safety pins to the gDiapers that have flushable inserts.
You've heard the old saying "Don't knock it till you try it" well some times it just doesn't hurt to try. You may like it and if you don't you can always sell it. Yes, that's right people even buy used diapers...a lot of people including me.

http://www.justsimplybaby.com/