Our Experience with Cloth Diapers

Many of my friends ask me about our experience with cloth diapers. I have general answers and specific answers.

In general:
We LOVE our cloth diapers. Our main reason for choosing cloth was a financial one- you spend WAY less on cloth diapers than with disposables over the course of the baby's diaper-wearing. Click here to read about saving $$ by using cloth diapers. The whole idea of saving the landfills from stinky dispoables is a great big bonus, as well, but mainly, I'm cheap. When you own your own business, you don't have a choice.

Specifically:
Lily has only had diaper rash a handful of times, mainly when she's eaten something that she's allergic to (you have to find out food allergies the HARD way!). Supposedly cloth babies have much less diaper rash than 'sposie babies. I don't mind dealing with washing & folding the diapers every other day. It feels good when I do it- like I'm being a responsible parent. Sounds hokey, but it's true.

The only downsides we've experienced are having to "scoop the poop" and the occasional diaper leaks that develop when I need to strip the diapers (of detergent build-up). Oh, and that the cloth diapers are physically bulkier than 'sposies, so sometimes we have to sacrifice wearing cute pants for stretchy pants. That's not a bad lesson for a girl to learn anyhow.

Brand Specifics:
We tried the Fuzzi Buns and some other locally-made pocket diapers when Lily was too small for the Bum Genius. I'm a fan of the pocket diaper style in general, but we really like the BG 3.0 because they fit virtually any size and we don't have to keep buying bigger and bigger sizes as she grows. They've held up really well for the 14 months we've been using them. At first we were undoing the sizing snaps everytime we washed them and learned that was too much stress on the fabric around the snaps, but Cottonbabies.com replaced all of those so it was no problem. the only other issue we've had is with the velcro tabs losing their "sticky" but I've fixed that by adding another velcro strip over the top of the tabs after putting on the diaper. Brian calls it the "30 cent solution."

So I hope this helps those of you out there trying to decide on cloth vs. disposables. If not, maybe this will help you decide: choose cloth. (-:

Hand-me-downs: A Cautionary Tale

I. Love. Hand-me-downs. We've gotten hand-me-downs (HMDs) from friends, family, even customers at my business brought me HMDs when they saw I was pregnant. Clothes, toys, bottles, spoons, cups, car seats- you name it, we've probably gotten it as a HMD.

We received a new car seat at one of Lily's baby showers that we use in my car. We also have 2 HMD car seats- one that resides in Ms. Deedee's car, and another that's been in the attic for a while that someone gave us before Lily was even a twinkle in our eyes. Since Miss Lori would like a car seat in her car so she can take Lily to the park on her days off, I decided to "dust off" the cobwebs (literally) from the old one in the attic. I brought it in the house yesterday and proceeded to remove all of the fabric so I could wash it. I always assume that what's been given as a HMD will need a wash or wipe down, so I expect to find a stain here or a bit of something there, but I was not prepared for the treasure trove that I found when I took apart this car seat. Here's what I found:

1 melted red crayon (stuck to the underside of the armrest fabric)
2 raisins
1 goldfish cracker
1 french fry
some bits of what I'll call dried pineapple
1 pink hair bow
1 tortoise shell metal hair clip
1 brown plastic hair clip
2 red stretchy hair bands
1 Tigger magnet
1 quarter (I wasn't sure what it was until I flipped it over)
assorted stickers
assorted other "bits" of food, etc.

I was so amazed with what I found, that I found myself getting out of bed at 10:30 last night to write it all down before I forgot. So there's a chance I found even more than what I remembered in my sleep stupor. I share this because, well, it's funny. Also, as a cautionary tale: be sure to wash your HMDs. (-;

Thoughts on Motherhood

I was watching 48 Hours Mystery on CBS tonight and it was the story of this 17 year old girl who was convicted along with her boyfriend of killing her mother. They kept showing pictures of her as a baby and toddler and I just cried because it reminded me so much of Lily and of the potential each of us has for causing joy or misery. I PLEDGE to do my absolute best to raise my daughter to be a person of value, but I will love her forever regardless of what she chooses to do with her life.

"Never squander the miracle of another human being."