Thursday, January 9, 2014

If you are curious about cloth diapers...



I have been (mostly) using cloth diapers with my little one since before she was three months old. You would think it wouldn't be so weird for me to admit it, but it still kinda is.  

I grew up as the oldest hearing Mom talk about how wonderful it was that disposable diapers were available by the time she started having children. I thought the cloth diaper was as dead as the slide projector. Then, as an adult, I started hearing about the liberal hippies who were going to cloth diaper to save the planet from the disposable diapers that were overwhelming landfills from coast to coast.  It seemed bizarre that anyone would choose not to take advantage of the many benefits of disposable diapers, but it really didn't affect me and I didn't really care what anyone else used on their children's bums (some things never change).  Then I remember reading about how the liberal hippies who were going to save the world with cloth diapers were in a bit of a pickle because they determined they had to use so much water to wash the diapers that it was negating the environmental benefits, but I digress...

So anyway, whenever anyone finds out that I cloth diaper I feel obligated to first explain that I am not, in fact, trying to save the planet (just to be clear, I am all for being responsible occupants of this planet- I just don't consider myself a martyr for cloth diapering).  I actually cloth diaper for one main reason- I have found a way to do it that makes too much financial sense for my family that I would be foolish not to do it. 

That said, it personally bothers me to hear so many people talk about cloth diapering as if it was automatically or always the cheapest option, because there are obscenely expensive ways to do it, and there are extreme couponers who get their disposables practically for free, but again, I digress...

This page is for my favorite cloth diapering introductory resources. When I first started looking into cloth diapers I was so confused. As embarrassing as this is, I could not even begin to understand the first few articles I read that were supposed to be introductions to cloth diapering! That is because it is confusing- especially when you can't really see what people are talking about. Also because there is such an overwhelmingly large variety of types of cloth diapers. That is why if you are just curious about the basics of how they (can) work I recommend you start with the videos below- so you can actually see what she is talking about.  I like the explanations in the videos, but she is somewhat long-winded so the videos are all kinda long, sorry.


 

 

 

This video addresses the "snaps vs velcro" question
 

 Not exactly on topic, but it was very informative
 




I guess that is enough for an introduction.  If you find yourself genuinely considering the cloth option I would be happy to answer any questions you have through private message or if there is a specific topic you would like me to cover I would be happy to write a post by request on the topic- just leave me a comment below!

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