Our Cloth Diaper Journey: Our Experience(s)

We had the best of intentions.  That should count for something, right?  I know that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but this should be different... well perhaps not. 

We talked over cloth diapering everyday for months.  We discussed what kinds of diapers, what kinds of diaper pails, what we would do with Isabella as a newborn in diapers, etc.  We thought that we had all of our bases covered.  I was prepared with different websites with advice about leaking, smell, and broken diapers.  I logged countless nights on different sites researching the best places to go for troubleshooting our issues and local stores or support groups that might offer help.  I watched HOURS of YouTube videos on how to get the best fit around the legs, how to tell when the diaper was sized correctly, advice on wash routines, etc.  I was prepared.  Until I wasn't...

We decided before Isabella was born that based on what we read online about newborn poop that we were not going to use cloth diapers during the "newborn" phase.  Plus, when we got home from the hospital we tried one of our diapers on Isabella and it was obvious that they were too big for her.  She was 7lbs 6ozs when born and right at 7lbs when we left the hospital.  We re-tried the diapers again in about two weeks and they fit a bit better.  Be advised that one sized diapers are still going to look ENORMOUS on a newborn until they are about 10-11lbs. 

Day number one went fine, but we noticed a bit of a leaking issue around the legs.  Chalking it up to a fit issue, we decided to tighten the fit next time and moved on.  The next day it got worse and worse.  It seemed like every time that she peed she leaked out of her diaper and had to have a different change of clothes.  I knew something wasn't right.  I immediately logged on to a number of different websites.  I decided to strip our diapers, even though we had washed them like 3-4 times after we purchased them new.  We stripped them fully.  Same issue.  We did the "water droplet" test to check for repelling issues - that didn't appear to be the case.  We checked the fit around the legs - that didn't appear to be the case.  We did everything that we could think of.  Nothing seemed to work.  I was distraught.  I wanted this to work so bad.  I wanted to prove the naysayers wrong.  I was defeated.  My mother had started back to the disposable diapers during the days because she was exhausted with the different changes in clothes and constant wet spots. 

Every so often I would go back and try them again and it seemed like we never fully got rid of the leaking issues.  When we talked through it with some people they told us that it could just be that she pees too fast for the diapers to be able to absorb.  Now that she is a toddler, I know that it won't get any better because she holds it for so long. 

When Silas came along we wanted to give it another go.  This time we had a new plan.  We would get newborn cloth diapers and just start fresh.  We bought newborn BumGenius diapers and they worked awesome.  Even though he was almost 10lbs at birth they still fit snug and almost completely leak proof.  We used them until we could no longer squeeze his chunkiness into them.  We started using our cloth diapers that we used with Isabella and they worked with Silas, but no one was really committed to them.  We were already buying disposable diapers for Isabella so it didn't seem like that much trouble to be buying disposable diapers for Silas either. 

Until about 3 months ago ... Silas got this rash on his waist line.  It started looking like he just scratched himself with something.  I was thinking that perhaps he had something in the waistband of his pants that was scratchy.  So we washed it well and made sure to wash those clothes well that he had on.  I forgot about it because he didn't seem to be scratching it through his clothes.  Then about four days later I was dressing him after he had a warm bath and the rash looked AWFUL.  It looked huge and red and like enormous welts.  I immediately freaked out, but Corry talked me down off the ledge and told me that it was probably just the heat from the bath and that we should wait until it was a bit cooler before we did anything crazy. 

I checked him again before bed and it seemed better but it still looked like something.  I thought I would just have to take him into the doctor the next day.  About two hours after he went to bed he woke up screaming and when I went to get him he was burning up.  My kids don't regularly get fevers so I knew that something had to be wrong.  I took his temperature at 103.5 degrees.  Of course, by this point the only places open were emergency rooms because all of the minor medical places were closed.  We went and they said latex allergy for the rash and the fever was unrelated, but unalarming unless it continued for multiple days, got worse, or came with anymore symptoms but they felt that they two were unrelated. 

Latex allergy - less than cool.  However, lucky for us, we had the solution.  Cloth diapers.  We started using them that night and have been using them ever since.  The rash healed and hasn't returned.  We have had some small issues but we have learned a lot.  We have noticed that we have to be more diligent with checking his diaper than we ever did before in order to avoid leaks, but we haven't had near the leaks that we did with Isabella.  I can proudly say that we are cloth diapering parents. 

Our cloth diaper journey: Our Beginning

One interesting tidbit of information about our family: we cloth diaper...one of our children. 

In early 2010, we found out that we were pregnant with our daughter, Isabella.  Corry and I had spoken before we got pregnant about how we would be interested in cloth diapering our children.  He had been interested in it when his older kids were babies but had never convinced his previous wife to go along with it.  I was game so off we went into the black hole of the Internet.

Got a spare 19,000 hours? Try googling cloth diapers.  It is straight up the most overwhelming thing that I have ever researched online.  What is a Fuzzi Bunz?  Who or what makes a Snappi?  Do you still need plastic pants over the diapers?  Am I going to stab my daughter with one of those over sized safety pins?  Warning: brain overload approaching... 

Lucky for us and millions of other parents, these are not the diaper's from your grandmother's day.  Cloth diapering has changed a lot in the last 20 years and is now working it's way into mainstream culture.  Gone are the days of the only options being the folded Gerber diapers with HUGE safety pins.  Let me stop and say that those pins being called *safe*ty pins is comical because I have used them before and stabbed myself with one.  Unsafety pins is definitely more like it.   

Now you have SO many more options.  Snaps, Velcro, AIO, AI2, fitted, prefolds, microfiber, bamboo... I could look at sites for about an hour at a time before I felt like I had just taken the SATs -my brain hurt so bad!  Every time I would google I would see different sites and different information.  Some people use different terminology for what I felt was the same item... and there was seriously an entire new language to learn.  What about wool?  What is an insert?  Do I need doublers?  How will I know if my child will be a heavy wetter?  I have never had so many questions in my entire life about anything...

This is when I started really watching 'mom vlogs' online.  I searched on YouTube for cloth diapers and was taken instantly to videos of women explaining the differences and similarities of different brands, types and styles.  They talked endlessly about the colors that they liked, brands that they hated, wash routines, and general information about diapers.  It was like getting information from your friends but about something useful and not what the neighbor was wearing yesterday while mowing his lawn.  Eureka!  This was perfect! We were finally starting to make some headway in our research of what we liked and what we felt would work best for our family.  Until we started talking to people about it...

My mom was skittishly on board.  My father actually asked if we were the only people in the world that were going to be using cloth diapers.  The rest of my family rolled their eyes and probably talked negatively about it behind our backs I'm sure, but seemed supportive to our faces.  My friends were less than helpful and some were downright disgusted.   I was sad because this was something that I actually was excited about.  I hate when people can't just be fake excited for you.  We didn't let it get us down though and we stayed the course...

Next: researching different types of diapers