Blog to Inspire: Live and learn…and then some
This following post was an entry in our Blog to Inspire contest. The opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and not necessarily those of Eco Baby Steps or Parenting By Nature.
Blog to Inspire entrant A Natural Mama is Jenni Bush, a homeschooling mother of 7—6 girls and 1 boy.
Live and learn right? Like that commercial a few years ago for disposable diapers, a mama must live and learn. Only I learned about cloth diapers vs. disposable diapers. I learned a few lessons.
Live
I am a mama of 7. Yes…7. No multiples. There are 6 girls and 1 boy. Baby #7 is disabled and can not wear paper diapers for very long because of allergies. But my cloth diapering days began a few years ago. So I was ready to deal with that. I realized the other day that I have been doing diapers since 1998 non-stop. That’s 11 1/2 years of diapers! I’d rather not think about the money I spent or the mound of smelly diapers I threw in the trash from 1998-2006 when I began using cloth. Diapers are a way of life in our house. I don’t mind the extra washing. There were years that I had two and three in diapers (or pull-ups if potty training). It only creates one load every other day. That’s a good trade off for me vs paper diapers.
Learn
I have learned many things about diapering in my 11 1/2 years as a mama.
1. Disposable diapers are very expensive. Between $15-$20 per week! We used our tax return money to buy our cloth diapers 3 yrs in a row. I haven’t bought a paper diaper since early 2006.
2. Cloth diapers are wonderful! I used to think that cloth diapering was ‘from the old days’. Not something mama’s do in the 20th and 21st centuries. I was sooo wrong! Cloth is the best invention for babies. If a busy mama of 7 can make cloth work, I think anyone can.
3. You almost never use just one paper wipe.
4. Dads use twice as many wipes as mamas do.
5. Cloth wipes are wonderful! If I wasn’t throwing the diaper away, what was I going to do with the wipes? Gross! I had some fleece and some cotton from old projects and old t-shirts. I cut them into squares and sewed up the edges. No more paper wipes! Just throw the wipes in with the diapers and you’re good to go. An excellent way to recycle those old torn shirts.
6. Cloth diapers DO work on-the-go. Just takes a little more thought before leaving. Take along a plastic (don’t get me started on plastic grocery bags…but…) if you have one to save the dirty diapers in. I take along a small cloth bag for them.
7. Rash care. Rash cream can not be applied when wearing a cloth diaper. It will ruin the fabric. True. It does over time. To remedy that, I add either an extra insert liner or a prefold diaper between the baby and the diaper. Then I wash them in separate loads too.
8. Going from cloth diapers to potty training was easier. For us anyhow, it seemed to be easier. We just went right from cloth diapers to cloth underwear. I just left the inserts out of our bumgenius 3.0 diapers so it was just like wearing underwear. When they were ready, we put on underwear.
9. Cloth works at night even for bigger kids. Potty training at night is the last thing I worry about when potty training. I double the liners or add the extra layer like I do for rash cream. No leaks.
10. Saving the earth. I believe we are to be good stewards of what we have been given. That means taking care of the earth. For me, that means using cloth instead of paper. It takes many valuable resources to make paper diapers. And then they just sit there. Taking from the earth and not returning anything good to it.
I will never go back to paper diapers. Cloth diapering is not only cost effective, but earth, baby and mama friendly. Nothing like it was ‘in the old days’.
Read about the Blog to Inspire contest and read posts by the finalists and by the rest of the entrants. Forty-four bloggers reached out to inspire on the topics of cloth diapers, babywearing, breastfeeding, and natural parenting.
