Cloth Diapering - two weeks

It has been two full weeks since we implemented our cloth diaper experiment. And you know what? I kind of like it.

I don't think I'll ever be evangelical about cloth. I like it, but I'm not passionate about it the way I am about healthy eating or the Middle East. A lot of the literature I've read on cloth vs. disposables tries to paint one method as the savior of mankind while the other is the root of all evil. If it's not, "disposable diapers will give your baby cancer and will render him infertile," it's "cloth diapers are so much hassle, I don't know why anyone in their right mind would use them by choice."

In my experience I have discovered that cloth diapering using all-in-ones is fairly comparable to using disposables. Throwing the diapers in the wash isn't that much more or less hassle than throwing them in the dumpster. I totally get why people who grew up with the old prefolds and covers totally hate cloth, however. But the ones I bought are most certainly not, as I said in a comment on my previous post on cloth diapering, your mama's diapers. They are nice and fitted with elastic and snaps. The inner fuzzy layer keeps poop from sticking to much.

But I decided to take the plunge and switch for real because of the trash factor. It kind of bothered me every time I had to take a bag of soiled disposables out to the dumpster, knowing they would never ever decompose. And we go through a lot of them. I got in the habit of placing dirty diapers on our back steps while they were awaiting a trip to the dumpster, to keep the smell out of our house. Sometimes they piled up, and it looked really ghetto. Cloth diapering has eliminated that problem. Dirty diapers in a smell-proof wetbag are much less icky than dirty diapers on the back steps.

When people watch my kid for me, I like to put him in disposables anyway to be nice to my friends. If you don't know how to handle a poopy cloth diaper it can really put you off.

I think a lot of new parents dismiss cloth diapering as something only we "reformed hippies" and "back-to-earthers" do. But I think cloth diapering can be for everyone.