Cloth Diapering

You might call us crazy, but we use cloth diapers. Happy Heinys in fact. Isn't that a cute name? And little Selah Grace's heiny is happy indeed.

Now why on earth would we EVER choose to use cloth diapers in this new millennium? Basically it came down to these three issues: 1)health 2) cost 3)earth consciousness

1) Health
Nate and I both have pretty sensitive skin. With our powers combined, we passed this hyper-sensitivity off to our daughter. (Sorry kiddo!) Selah was in disposable diapers the first two months of her life and she seemed to have a perma-rash. It was red and moist and bumpy down under. Not comfy. So, we wanted to give her a new option. In her cloth diapers only soft fleece touches her tushy and it feels quite dry even after she tinkles. We've only had about two very small bouts of diaper rash since the switch a year and a half ago. Hooray for healthy bottoms!

2) Cost
Disposable diapers are expensive! Studies reveal that it costs approximately $2,000 to diaper a kid for the first 2 years. Yikes! Multiply that by how many kids you're going to have and see all the opportunities for those thousands you just diaper genied away. We use one-size pocket diapers. They're awesome because you can adjust their size as your baby grows and they fit babies 7-35 lbs. It cost about $400 total for all the diapers and inserts, which seems like a lot up front, but is just a tiny fraction of the cost of disposables. Twice I've deviated from cloth diapers. Once when we were away on vacation and once when Selah was sick with some funky stomach bug. Both times we came to the realization that it is a good thing we don't have to use disposables because buying diapers does NOT fit into our family budget!

3) Earth Consciousness
No, we are not hippies and all the stereotypes that come with that label. Yes, we do love the earth we live on and want to do our small part. We try to be water conservationists within reason. We recycle even though it sometimes means having empty cans and bottles in the car until we reach home to put them in the big blue bin. We're planning on having a number of children, so we don't want to be solely responsible for filling up the San Diego landfill with chemically enhanced plastic (disposable diaper), sealed in plastic (diaper genie), and then encased in another layer of plastic for good measure (trash bag). I'm curious to know how long that takes to decompose.

Cloth diapering is what our family has chosen to do. It is the best option for us because of the above three reasons. But we aren't crazy fanatics who judge the rest of you disposable diaperers out there! Congratulations on having a kid without super sensitive skin and for having enough money to afford them. Cloth diapering is simply what is best for our family right now.

I've listened to a lot of new moms recently confess that they are scared to tell other moms about ways they parent. I am assuming they fear being met with judgement and incredulity. My response is always to tell them to have assurance in the choices they're making that are in the best interest of their family and forget about what other people think. "Other people" and other people's opinions are not the ones you're in charge of.

For all you people out there who think we're crazy: Yes, we are, but for many reasons not having to do with cloth diapering.

For all you people out there cloth diapering: Keep up what works for your little one and your family!

For all you people out there disposable diapering: Keep up what works for your little one and your family!

Selah Grace in a pile of clean diapers when she was Tiny Baby.