Cloth Diapering- The beginning.

Here are some things that you must consider when deciding if cloth diapering is for you and where you want to go with it.

Why do you want to or NOT want to?
Are the other caregivers in your life willing to participate?
Do you want to save money?
Do you want to help out the landfills?
Do you want to experience the cuteness??
Can you handle the poop?
How easy does it really need to be for you to do it?
Are you a one kind of diaper person or a little of everything kind of person (can you guess which kind I am?)?
Does it really matter to you what they look like or is simple better??
Used or New?
All of these things will impact the "system" you choose and where you start. You are about to enter a whole new world you never knew existed...I warn you- you may start doing it for one reason and find that you continue for a completely different one.

I will do a series of informational posts on the different systems which will roughly be these:

1. Prefolds, pins and snappis
2. Fitteds
3. Covers- pul, fleece, and wool
4. Pockets and Inserts
5. All- in - Ones (or twos) (AIO;s and AI2's)

After we cover the systems we will move to:

1. Storing clean and dirty diapers
2. Washing
3. Sewing them!
4. Whatever other questions might arise in the process...

The rest of this post will be about myself. I started cloth diapering M when she was about 4-5 months old. I got increasingly more irritated about the trash I was creating with disposable diapers. I wasn't sure B would be into it, so I just got a few to see if it would even work for us. I am sure now that B sees that day as the beginning of a long obsession....woops. We started with the easiest way to cloth diaper and progressed to the hardest. Now we fall somewhere in the middle. We each prefer different diaper systems so we have a little of everything. I actually quit cd'ing M when she was a year old because she has "peanutbutter" poop that must be scraped from the diaper and her rashes were totally out of control. This would be ok would it be once a day, but 3-4 times a day is a little much. We have since gotten the rashes controlled and I have discovered flushable liners and we're now back on track! It's feeling good...

What I found after I started cding for the trash reason was that I could become absolutely obsessed and need to try out everything possible. It has become my hobby and I truly enjoy it and feel good about it. Have I saved money in the process...I think I can pretty much say no, but has it been worth it- to me, yes. To B, probably not...but I do feel it is good for the kids health (who on earth REALLY knows what's in a Huggies/Pampers) and good for the environment.

So we'll start whenever I get a chance... HA!