Thursday, March 15, 2012

Adventures in Cloth Diapering

I am not sure why I decided that I needed to add more to our crazy lives by creating an extra chore for myself, but that is exactly what I did when I decided to cloth diaper G. Now I didn't just randomly come to this decision out of the blue, but rather through many, many, MANY horrible diaper rash episodes with each girl. Brian and I had discussed cloth diapering Mack when she was about 8 months old and started to have bleeding diaper rashes (a result of starting solids) but it was not financially feasible at the time. Starting out cloth diapering is EXPENSIVE, even though in the long run you save lots. Eventually though we were able to get her bum back to a nice, soft, rash-free zone through trial-and-error of many diapers and diaper creams. Well, quite sooner than we expected we found out we were expecting AGAIN. And of course if there was no way we could have bought a full set of cloth diapers for one baby, we certainly couldn't afford it for two! So, we never really talked about cloth diapering again (despite more rounds of diaper rashes, now from two children!) until I found out I was pregnant for a third time. This time around, I new that it was what I wanted to do because I did not want to deal with a third child having a painful, red bum bum. And so, I decided that since we really didn't need any new baby things, but knew my dad still wanted to get us some kind of present, I asked him for cloth diapers! Yes, he thought I was a bit crazy, but he more than happily supplied us with enough money to get us started on this endeavor.
To say I was excited is an understatement. Who knew that something that is made to hold baby poop would make me so ecstatic?! But I was super pumped to get started. Unfortunately, our life was more than a little nutso for the first 2 months of Gregory's life, so I wasn't actually able to get started until we had successfully moved across the country and gotten settled into my dad's house in Texas. 
Turns out, I actually enjoy cloth diapering! We still have issues with night time diapers, so I admit, we use disposables at night, but overall it is a life choice that I would recommend to others. Not to mention they make baby bums look freaking adorable!