Making The Switch To Eco-Friendly Cloth Diapers

New moms have plenty to think about these days. There is the birth plan, what color to paint the nursery, breast feeding vs. bottle feeding and cloth diapers vs. disposable. I passed on the cloth mostly because I had memories of my mom swirling the cloth diaper around in the toilet to clean the fecal matter off. I have listened to my mother-n-law recount her experiences scrubbing the garments with bleach and how her awful her hands hurt. However, if I knew what I knew now I most likely would have chosen the more eco-friendly way. By now I am too set in my ways. That is not to say with time and a little coaxing one day I will switch over.

A friend of mine recently switched over to cloth diapers. Forget all images of safety pins and plastic covers. These things are amazing. Patty makes hers as the cost to buy them can be costly at first (about $15 plus per diaper). Happy Heiny’s and BumGenius have snaps allowing them grow with your baby from birth to toilet training. The gDiapers starter kit have disposable inserts but the refills are fairly expensive.

The all in one diapers are shaped like underware and made of a waterproof material on the outside with Velcro closures. Inside there is an insert that absorbs the urine; also making it convenient to reuse the diaper after adding a new insert. Another great modern invention is the flushable diaper liner making poopy diapers a cinch to clean. For night time use many moms use two liners or doublers inside the shell for extra absorbency. Hemp and bamboo being the preferred liner as they are more absorbent than cotton. At the end of the day they still have to be washed. Some moms leave them in a bucket of bleach water. Some throw them in the washer for the next day. The fall back is how many times they have to be washed. I suspect the amount of water used sort of defeats the point. On the other hand it is nice to think they are not filling up the land fill.