Crazy hippie: Me
Since the only mom’s group I’ve found is at the crazy hippie baby store, (again, for the record, it is a lovely lovely place and I don’t mean it in a negative way at all) I spend so much time there I’ve starting to absorb their crazy hippie dust. The kind of crazy hippie dust they pump directly into the water supply in Connecticut. It also leads to pick-your-own farms, antiquing, dog parks, organic potting soil, hybrid SUVs and paying ridiculous prices for locally made anything. Oh, and gay marriage, so watch yourselves. I’m going to start a business selling the un-gay kind of water at the state line to Midwesterners and conservatives.
Besides turning me into a breastfeeding babywearer, the women at the store have almost convinced me to try cloth diapers. I say “almost” because I am 100% into the idea and E is 10,000% AGAINST it – but since I’m the one who did the baby growing and the contracting and the pushing (don’t even think of forgetting the pushing) my opinion counts more. I do enjoy E’s current help with the diaper changing and hate to lose his cooperation. There’s a chance I could bring him around though, as my other crazy hippie ideas have worked out really well (sling, lactation consultant, baby massage – now with 100% less screaming!) and he’s a pretty helpful guy over all. Since the disposables we use now aren’t particularly effective against the explosive butt blowouts my baby specializes in, I’m willing to try ANYTHING that results in less crap leakage. Nothing says “I have a newborn!” like orange poop stains on your shirt.
I got a really good look at a couple of different kinds of cloth diapers at baby group today and learned a lot. These are not the cloth diapers my mother used on me, with the folding and pinning and bleaching. These are fancy systems made with soft organic fabrics in pretty colors! I could save thousands of dollars! It’s so easy! Baby Jesus loves cloth diapers! Rainbows will fly out of your baby’s butt! *Ok, deeeeeeep breath* I got a little carried away there, which happens a lot when I’m talking about baby stuff, especially the crazy hippie kind. To be honest, my interest in cloth diapers is more about being a crazy cheapskate than a hippie. If they made super cheap cloth diapers out of the skins of baby seals I’d probably still be on board.
Based on extensive five minutes of internet research, it seems a lot of people do a part-time cloth diapering. I can see parents having trouble convincing a day care provider to hold on to poop filled diapers all day, but since I’ve got the baby full-time I would be the only poop-holder. I might be up for switching to cloth gradually, with disposables for day trips or overnight, at least this time around. The internet is full of explanations of the different types/styles/brands but most of it confuses the heck out of me. Any real-life advice is appreciated.
p.s. The crazy hippie dust also caused me to buy baby leggings. SO ADORABLE although E is concerned baby leggings are the gateway drug to baby tap shoes, baby musical numbers, baby glitter and a baby obsession with Liza Minnelli.
Hi – former Jezebel addict who is officially de-lurking here. I had a bebe 4 wks ago & can relate to everything you write about. Just wanted to add my support for cloth diapers. We use the Bum Genius diapers and they are BRILLIANT. I am so enamored of them. Since switching from disposables 2.5 weeks ago, my little boy’s butt went from being red all the time to being the same color as the rest of his body. Also, they really do keep in the blowouts and are so much cheaper in the long run. If you would like more info, I’d be happy to e-mail you directly.
PS: i’m not a hippie either, so no judgement from me if you don’t go that route.
We did cloth nappies with Ava for the first 3 months after she was born. It was a bit of a disaster. The worst thing was the awful, and I mean welt-like, nappy rash that Ava had. Apart from that, the incredible amount of washing and drying that we did (I live in England so they would take a week to dry unless we put them in the dryer or had the heating on full) turned our house into a laundry, and was probably just as bad for the environment to boot.
BUT! One of my friends swears by them and has raised 3 children with the same set of cloth nappies. She used to use a disposable eco-nappy at night which seems like a good compromise to me.
Anyway, excuse the impassioned rant – who knew I cared so much about such things! You can always switch back if it turns out they’re not for you.
ooh another thing (sorry). All was not lost when we decided to go disposable. My terry nappies were resurrected when I stopped breast feeding at night. My breasts were SO leaky that I would use one nappy per breast so I didn’t have to change the sheets everyday.
My husband found me irresistable, of course. Nothing screams sex-kitten like engorged breasts covered in reusable nappies.
A good compromise might be gdiapers. They have the cloth lining but the inside is disposable (and biodegradable) you can actually flush the messy part away in the toilet (100% septic tank safe) Andrew & I used them with great results. Of course, when we had a sitter or the parents watching him we used pampers, but I felt a little bit better about our impact on the environment then the 500 years pampers will be in the landfill. E might be more on board if he gets to flush away instead of store poop.
The same thing happened to me at my parent group. Before I knew I dropped hundreds of dollars on cloth diapers that make people squeal (let alone me) when they see the cute little farm animal covers. It was no big deal for me at the time since E had pretty solid poops. Of course that was due to a milk/soy allergy we have now addressed and I am living in a world of liquid poo that makes cloth diapering some sort of horror story complete with hockey mask wearing pyscho. We will preserver, I’m sure. I did manage to resist buying the leggings, though. Instead I purchased colorful socks 3 for $5 at Target and pull them up to his chubby little thighs. :D
We have baby leggings for Nick, although it’s waaaaay too hot for them now. I think they’re adorable. My mom thinks they’re “gay.” Sorry, Nick. I’m turning you into a homosexual. Hopefully by the time you’re grown you’ll be able to legally get married and all.
I have a pack of 5 kushies cloth diapers, never used. Let me know if you want them for $30.00 or so; they retail for a little over $50.00. They’re cute, but we don’t have a washer and dryer in our unit and the thought of schlepping soiled cloth diapers around isn’t doing it for me.
I can’t wait to read more about your experience with this! Of course, I’m just an idealistic non mom but hope to be a mom sometime in the next couple of years, and one thing I really hope to do is cloth diapers. Though I also hope to live in a city big enough to have a diaper service… because the washing out of poopy diapers sounds less than fun. One perk of a potential move to Colorado is this place: http://www.bundlebabyshop.com/t-diaper-service.aspx
I like Audrey’s idea. A good compromise between earthiness and sanity. But I’m not the one with the baby, and I say if you want to do it, go for it. You hardly sound like a hippie earth mother who will start sewing E hemp shoes and name your next child Rainbow.
I just read the title and I was like “NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!”
We so need to talk!!! I dont like the G-diapers, though I have heard some good things….its just that it is an awful lot to have to flush. We are using kushies liners with Bum Genius diapers (its like a pretty thin, toilet-papery-paper-towelish liner that you just lay in the diaper and then you can flush the solids without having to break up the whole diaper with a little wand and then flush the thing into your septic system like the g-diapers) They sell the kushies liners in big rolls at babies r us and you could probably use them with any kind of cloth diaper.
A good friend of mine just had her first and has been cloth diapering. Her partner (the baby’s dad) was totally against it beforehand, and now he LOVES it. He says it’s completely not what he expected, and he would never use disposables again.
ok.. i don’t think i would personally go the cloth diaper route but more power to you. I know that when Aubreigh started to have major ‘blowouts’ as we call them, i went to a bigger size diaper and the problem stopped. So you might want to try that route if you decide not to go cloth.
My godmother’s daughter went the cloth route, but was not into the washing-the-poopy-diapers-out part, opted to break even by going with cloth diapers (cheap) and then having a laundry service do the washing. That might be an option that could help get E on board with the cloth diapers. And to avoid doing seventeen loads of laundry every day, etc.
Another non-hippie (I’m a yuppie which I think means that I just buy the more expensive versions of hippie things.) here who cloth diapers though I will be honest – it was mostly for aesthetic reasons (seeing Baby Elmo everyday was starting to get to me). I’ve found it way easier than I thought I would. The liners definitely help assuming that the poo is fairly solid and doesn’t fill the entire diaper. I was rinsing the overwhelmed poo diapers in the tub, but then I read that if you have a decent enough washer, you can just toss them straight in and run a rinse cycle first. I now do that and it’s worked out fine so far. I’ve also started skipping the pail altogether and just tossing all of the diapers straight into the washing machine and running it when I need to (roughly every other day – if we have other laundry needs, we just do that load right after).
I started out with the Bummis starter kit, but if I had to do it all over again, I’d go with all Bumgenius 3.0s because they grow with your baby (mine is 6 weeks and already about to outgrow the small cloth diaper set) and because they cost slightly more than a single bummis cover of which I will need many as she continues to grow. Plus, I never got the hang of the stupid snappi.