Just Three Words...

HERE GOES NOTHING

So, Nick mentioned awhile back that we should cloth diaper our children.  I laughed at him.  I told him that when he started doing the laundry then I'd consider it.  The discussion was shelved.

Fast forward to last fall...During a visit to Kris' house, Andy, the garbage aficionado, saw me throwing away a soup can.  He stopped me dead in my tracks and told me that it went in the recycling and not in the garbage can (where I was putting it.)  I am out of practice with sorting trash because we don't at our house, there isn't any recycle service in Clarksville and I'm too lazy to drive our recyclables to a center on the other side of town.  Admittedly, I lied to Andy when he asked me what color our recycling receptacle is.  I told him green.  Since then, I have been really ashamed of myself for lying and for my substantial carbon footprint, of which I'm newly aware.

My personal contribution to the destruction of planet earth has been weighing on me, especially as I have been polluting it with even more disposable diapers since Hannah's birth.  During a chat with my girls' beloved pediatrician, Dr. Seawell, I mentioned that our contribution of diapers to the landfill is pretty staggering.  She asked me if I'd considered cloth diapering.  Long story short, she was in the same boat as I (except for the 4 year old recycling nark nephew part.)  She'd used disposable diapers for her older child and cloth diapers were no where near her radar as she prepared to give birth to her second child.  After a friend insisted that they really weren't as complicated as they seemed, Dr. Seawell gave them a go, and has never gone back.  Her argument was a compelling one.  I figured if my children's doctor was able to carve out time for it, cloth diapers really must be do-able.  I left the appointment with Hannah's clean bill of health and a mental checklist of all that I needed to learn about cloth diapers.

During naptime that day, I waded through the flood of information on the internet and decided on the Bumgenius All-In-One Freetime diapers.  If nothing else, the name gave me confidence that this new venture wouldn't be all-consuming.  The major selling point was that they are just like disposable diapers except they are washable (and way cuter!)  There aren't multiple pieces to keep track of as it's all sewn together, which, I've read, is appealing to cloth diapering skeptics.  Because of the super intuitive design, I can use the same 21 diapers for Hannah until she is potty trained.  Not to get too gross in my detail, but in the way of poop, because dealing with it was a leading concern of mine, breastmilk poop is water soluble and cleans easily in the wash.  Once Hannah starts solids, there are flushable liners that I can place inside the diaper so that I don't have to handle any more poop than I already do.  Prior to my research, I had awful visions of dunking diapers in the toilet.  YUCK!  Another major selling point was that I don't need to be laundering them everyday.  Obviously, once Hannah is using less diapers a day, my stash will go further, but for now it'll probably be about three times a week.  Not too bad!  

Additionally, the financial ramifications are incredible, especially if we cloth diaper multiple children.  I have read that, on average, a family will spend $1500 on disposable diapers per child.  With my calculations, I would say that's not too far off from our "investment" (If you could even call it that.)  To furnish my stash, along with 2 wet bags to keep the dirty diapers in, a travel wet bag, and the recommended laundry detergent, my initial buy-in was $425.  I'm pretty excited about this.  It's pretty much all I can think about.

We are now a week into the new diapering regime, and it's gone smoothly except for just one unanticipated issue....Emmy insists on wearing them, too.  I can't say that I blame her, they are so much cuter than her disposable duds.  The good news is that we have very few "new" diapers going to camp out in the landfill for the next 500 years, the bad news is that I am a cloth diaper laundering fool.  I am thinking that potty training our eldest is right around the corner....

Aren't they pretty??