Warning: this post may contain some graphic language and boring details. (You're welcome to skip this blog post and move on to the cute pictures of Heidi and escape descriptions of her bathroom habits. However, I was asked by several people to "Let them know how it goes." So, here goes.
We have entered the world of cloth diapers... nah, more like, dipping our toes into the shallow end of cloth diapers. I didn't make a huge investment in one of those sweet systems. My mom gave me her stash. That's right folks. Can you get any more environmentally friendly? Homemade, reused.
Some of you are saying to yourself, "Holly, that's not environmentally friendly. That's just nasty."
Much about this business is nasty.
Here has been my experience. I inherited the diapers before Heidi was born and tucked them away on a shelf, like Brigham Young, until I could handle them. What made me pull them out again was an old talk from Spencer W. Kimball where he said to avoid waste. I thought that maybe this could be my contribution.
Now, many of you are thinking, "Holly, what a saint you are."
Yeah. Just go right ahead and keep thinking that.
I researched different cloth diaper covers and settled on a One-Size model by Kissaluv. It has a wipe-able interior and a myriad of snaps that you snap in different combinations to get a different size. Even though there is extra fabric there, it's not too bulky. (I use one diaper at a time during the day, and two at night. Two is pretty bulky, but it's at night, when she's not moving. And that's not the cover's fault.)
When the diaper cover arrived, I promptly put her in her new panties. It took several changes throughout the day to figure out how to arrange the diapers under the cover. The first few changes were a wrestling match, but I have a good system now. I still spend longer changing, and longer scrubbing at the sink. But it's either my time or my husband's time at work. Owing to the fact that no one is paying me, I have a lower opportunity cost than Bryan does. I'm not sure I used that term correctly, but you can follow that link to his blog and check it out.
Things went okay that day. I found a bucket for the cloth diapers, and I just stuffed the wet ones in there. Things were okay... until Heidi made a BM. A Big Mistake.
I wasn't sure what laundering process to use, so I started with using the least effort possible, and only adding steps as necessary. As it turns out, you've got to wash out the poop before you leave it in the diaper in a bucket for two days. So I have one stained diaper.
The next day Heidi made another Big Mistake. This one got on her nice white cover. Perhaps I should have gotten this one. So I decided to scrub the cover and do some laundry. I didn't scrub the second diaper, but I should have. Two stained diapers.
My mother is now thinking, "I told you so! Ivory soap."
She did indeed tell me.
So I put Heidi in a disposable diaper and in the backpack and trotted over to the laundry with my bucket. I also proceeded to lose my ID card during this laundry trip. Why does that always happen to me?
Don't answer that.
So that's where we are.
Gross things:
1. Psychological: These pieces of cloth have absorbed countless Big Mistakes.
2. Real: I scrub diapers in the sink. (I think I'm going to add "Lysol the Sink" to my list of daily chores.)
3. Real, yet temporary: I scrub poop. There's no way around that. It's pretty nasty. (Mom, I know you also said to use diaper liners. But our little princess didn't like the feel of them on her little bottom. She cried. Perhaps I'll try them again soon.)
4. Real: More diaper changes. There's a chemical in disposables that absorbs something like 300 times it's weight. Flannel just doesn't do that. Sorry. However, this might mean less blowouts (where I have to clean the crib, the outfit and the baby). Blowouts for us happen when she does a #2 on a diaper that has absorbed 300 times it's weight in #1. So, if I change the diapers more often, those kinds of blowouts don't happen.
Economical things:
1. Up front cost will be $40, for two covers. This is about the cost of one box of diapers at Walmart, which would last a few weeks.
2. Today, while Heidi was wearing a disposable diaper, she made a Big Mistake and I had to scrub the onesie and changing table anyway. So there is scrubbing involved with disposables, too.
3. More laundry. $.80 per load, $1. 60 more per week. But each diaper costs about $.20 each, and I use, I don't know, eight diapers a day? 8 x .2=... $1.60? Per day. I've heard that the environmental impact of the disposable diapers in the landfill is about the same impact as the energy and water used to wash cloth diapers. So it's the same cost for the environment but a lower cost for me.
Not Economical things
1. Time. I'm at the changing table longer, I'm scrubbing at the sink longer, and I have two more loads of laundry per week. But my family is not losing money that way. My time is valuable, but it's not money. For many of you out there, your time is money, and your children demand more of your time. Right now, I have the luxury to be able to spend more time to save more money. You may not, and I won't either, in the future. And then, in the future, you can bet I'll be giving up this poop-scrubbing business.
