August 2011 Moms
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August mommas who are CD?
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Any August moms out there who plan to CD?
I just decided to look up the advantages to cloth diapers and when looking at the cost it could potentially save I was intrigued. My problem with it honestly is what others will think when I say I cloth diaper my child? I mean the diapers are super cute. I am an environmentally friendly person. And my husband loves to do laundry (lol I haven't told him my thoughts yet). Why wouldn't I do this?
I want to here why you chose to do CD or why you are definitely not going near CDs? Help me decide!
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Re: August mommas who are CD?
i cd'd ds from 6 mo+. this time we'll be cding as soon as we get home from the hospital.
we use prefolds during the day (the cheapest option btw) i ordered them from cottonbabies.com and use thirsties covers.
for ds since he sttn, we use pocket diapers w/a wool cover.
i have sewn some very basic fitted diapers as well (some from prefolds, others from just flannel) and will use those during night changes when i'm half asleep lol.
washing them isn't hard and it doesn't make your washer all gross either.
as for your concern over what others will think, don't worry about other people!! if they're not changing your child, then don't worry about it! everyone is going to have an opinion and it's not always going to be the one you want to hear.
what matters is your decision to stick with it or not. it's not hard at all to cd your baby and it can save you a ton of $ if you don't get sucked into the 'must have' rare prints and stuff that some people get sucked into. you can have a basic and functional stash for well under $200 that could last you the entire time your child is diapered. it doesn't have to be expensive if you don't want to invest a lot of $ into it.
i had several people who were very surprised at my decision to CD and they were not exactly supportive of it. but you know what? i stuck with it, and showed them how awesome it is for our family. and they no longer say anything negative about it. and are actually impressed by it. it's not all 'plastic pants' anymore like it used to be!
i would check out the FAQ on the cd board and see if it answers any other questions you may have.
The financial savings are a big bonus for me. The cost of disposables is incredible! My friend has two kids in diapers and spends close to $400 a month on disposables! I have a washer and dryer and I'm going to be a SAHM so I thought why not?
Also the fact that it takes 500 years for one disposable diaper to biodegrade really got me thinking about what kind of impact disposables have on our world.
As for what others think - my MiL has scoffed that I won't be able to do it. Let her scoff, she doesn't think I'll be able to give birth without screaming for an epidural either, just because she wasn't able to do either doesn't mean I can't. Honestly I don't give a rats ass what other people think. If they feel my choices are a bad reflection on their choices, then that's their deal not mine.
My biggest concern is my mother thinking I'm crazy, other people not so much. We have a great relationship and I run a lot of things through her and I feel she has quite a lot of experience so I trust her thoughts. As silly as it sounds, it bothers me that she wouldn't be on board with me about it. I have no clue if DH would even consider it, I clearly need to look into it more before I approach him about it.
We plan to CD.
At first, I was only partially "married" to the idea, figured we'd kind of be part-time CD-ers. But honestly, for me, the more negative feedback I get (and I'm getting a TON), to more stubborn I become. ha DH and I had a big talk the other day about how now we feel like we have to follow through just to stick it to the haters. I guess when it all comes down, I'm pretty much a stubborn b!tch. At least on this one.
I will say, it helps that my mom CD'ed me and my two brothers, although that was in the 70's and 80's and CDing is a whole different thing now. My mom is going to be our primary childcare when I return to work, and she is on board, although she likes good old flats and covers, whereas I'm leaning towards pockets.
Either way, we're freaking going to CD. People can suck it.
I completely understand wanting your mother's opinion, but remember, CDs have changed SO much over the last few years. There are so many different options now, and they can be better for your baby in terms of diaper rashes an potty training. They also tend to keep blowouts to a minimum, and so with a CD that fits well you will actually be doing less laundry.
I am starting with a newborn stash of Kissaluvs fitteds and Thirsties covers. One of my friends who CDs uses disposables for the newborn stage because she thinks its easier to handle the umbilical cord, etc.
I am planning on doing one of the diaper trials from Jillian's Drawers or another retailer when she starts to grow out of her newborn dipes to see what works the best for our family. Then I'll order my stash. The trials allow you to really work with the different CDs for about $10 for 30 days. They are a great way of getting your feet wet without investing a ton of money.
I do not plan on CDing. My cousin is all for it, and will be doing it when she has a baby. She's told me all the advantages of it and even though they do seem nice, I just don't feel it's for me or my H. I would rather just change the dirty diaper and be done with it. My mom will be taking the baby a few nights a month and I do not want her to have to go though the hassle of them. Also, I can't image middle of the night changes to be easy.
Although it's for some it's just not for me!
- Overall, I think disposables are disgusting, tacky, and environmentally hazardous. (To be clear, I'm hating on disposables, not people who use them. I understand that they can be a necessary evil or even liberating.)
- I'm willing and able to do so. (SAHM with an HE W&D in my house.)
- Since my husband has skin allergies, we have to use cloth diaper-friendly hypoallergenic detergent and dryer balls anyway, so our laundry routine is the same +1.
- We do not feel comfortable generating so much garbage. (We only do about 3 bags per month in our house of 2 right now and I would like to keep it to a minimum.)
- Cloth diapers are very cute and easy to put on, here is a pair I just purchased from a work at home mom:
- With a proper diaper bag and wet bag, being out and about is not really a big deal at all. (According to the CDers in my mommy group & my observations of them.)
Good luck with your decision! Just remember to shrug other people off and do what's best for your family. You'll figure out a system that works and sometimes that involves compromise. For example, lots of people CD during the day and use disposables at night and when they leave the house to make things easier. Be realistic about what you want and what you can handle, that's totally different for everyone.
Why would you care what other people think? I know SO many people who CD... it is becoming a lot more mainstream than it was even a few years ago.
We are going to do disposables for the first month and then transition to CD. For myself, I just can't stand putting all those disposable diapers into the landfill. I have lots of friends who CD, so I've gotten great tips and I've seen for myself that it's not really that hard at all.
I don't think you should base your decision on what others think about cloth diapering. It should be what you feel is best for you and your baby.
I am cloth diapering mostly because the disposables out there have chemicals in them that may be harmful to baby's skin. In order for them to be super thin yet very absorbent requires them to be chemically treated. Reading about these horrible "rashes" babies were getting made me nervous, and made me realize in hindsight that I suddenly couldn't use certain types of sanitary pads because they also were the super thin yet super absorbent type! So if it was irritating my skin...what would it do to a baby??
A bonus for me was that the long term cost savings, that its contributing less waste, and they are awfully cute!!!
Both DH and I have very sensitive skin, and we would like to keep our baby from going through the same things we did as a kid. I was miserable for a while, with constant rashes, until my parents figured it out. Both of us were CD babies. I live in a sort of granola city, so CDing is not unheard of here.In fact, both daycares we have visited are totally fine with it. Most of my friends currently pregnant are trying it.
We do live in a drought area, so the water use is a concern of mine, but I like the idea of reusing instead of disposing something non-biodegradable in a landfill.
My family is fully supportive, but some friends and other relatives think we are nuts. Oh well, its not their money or their kid.
I've gotten almost all positive feedback from CDing DD. Everything thinks it's great and give me kudos for being able to do it. I've even gotten 3 of my friends CDing.
I love it! It saves us about 20 to 30 in diapers every weeks to 2 weeks. Washing is simple I have to do laundry and CD are the easiest to wash you just throw them in and then I line dry. For us I wanted to do something more green and we wanted to save money. So the choice to CD was easy especially once we tried it with a couple from baby deal sites we found we loved it. DD likes it too she gets less rashes and they are cute.
I want to cloth diaper! When I told everyone, they kept saying not to do it blah blah blah and I told them if they have issues with it, than they can buy their own disposable diapers to use while baby is visiting them.
I had DH on board until he asked what he's supposed to do with the poopy diapers, then he was out!
Alas, no cloth diapering for us
We do for LO#1 and plan to for LO#2. I feel better about not filling up landfillls with disposable diapers. It takes a long time for them to degrade. I can't speak from experience, but they say that babies who are CD'd are potty trained faster. We use a diaper service, but we are thinking about buying our own prefolds.
We did use disposables for about the 1st month for LO#1, but I got freaked out about finding little clear balls on baby's skin which came from the diaper. I am sure that it was to soak up the liquid, but I didn't like that it was touching my baby's skin.
We're going to CD and I'm excited about it:) I'm a dork I know lol
Not only is it cheaper for your pocket book but it's better for the environment, and yes it decreases diaper rash! I have also heard that children who are CD become potty trained faster.
I won't be using a diaper service. I'll be a SAHM for 12 months so I really don't mind doing the extra laundry.
CDing can be a little overwhelming at first but I did my research and feel really great about the decision we have made to use them. Several of my GFs use them also and are well versed in how to wash and treat stains etc.
I'm sorry, this makes me LOL. We've CDed DS since he was born - he is now 27 months old and *this* close to potty training! Why would middle of the night changes be difficult? They work just the same as disposable middle of the night changes - take the dirty one off, clean baby's butt, put the clean one on, put dirty diaper in pail. DONE! The only reason it could be *slightly* more difficult is if you aren't breast feeding, in which case you would need to do a little rinsing of the diaper first before putting it in the pail (breast fed poop is completely water soluble and washes away with a pre-rinse in the washing machine). I breast fed DS, so that wasn't an issue for us. But seriously, even when baby starts solids and you have to rinse the poop the rinsing takes about 15 seconds with the use of a handy diaper sprayer that you attach to your toilet's water line (see! You don't even have to dunk the diaper in the toilet. No swirlies for diapers!). And once your kid is sleeping through the night, they will rarely poop at night and it works just like disposables: change them when they wake up in the morning!
I'm not saying you need to CD your baby. But I am saying that there are a lot of misconceptions about what it is to cloth diaper a child, and I think you're buying into some of them.
But I digress! To the OP, I get it that you want your mom to be on board. It was the same when I was pregnant with my first. DH and I knew from the get-go we wanted to do cloth diapering. My mom kept saying, "I tried that with Jill (my oldest sister) and she got such awful diaper rash from the CDs from having to sit in her pee, etc. that I had to switch to disposables." Well, great mom, maybe you shouldn't have let your kid sit in a wet diaper for any length of time whether it was cloth or not?! But yeah, she didn't seem on board with the idea either. But it didn't matter to me, I was still going to CD my child. And I did. And it was one of the best decisions I made for DS. He never gets diaper rash. He doesn't have harsh chemicals sitting next to his skin. We've saved boatloads of money - both from not having to buy disposables AND from purchasing the majority of our stash from clearances and sales.
When people get a shocked look on their faces at hearing I use cloth diapers, I take that opportunity to educate them. The cloth diapers of today are NOT your grandmother's cloth diapers. They are high tech, new fangled inventions! Many of them use fabrics that wick the moisture away from baby's skin so they act very similarly to disposables. And they are sanitary and safe for baby as well - no harsh chemicals near baby's skin. Plus they hold in poop WAY better than disposables. We never have blow outs. Ever. Pretty sure I can count on one hand the number of blowouts DS has had using a cloth diaper.
As for making other people deal with using CDs when they babysit your child. Don't feel bad. Every babysitter we use has to use the cloth diapers on DS. I simply tell them to change it just the way they would a disposable and to put the entire diaper in the pail and I'll deal with the poop rinsing (if necessary, DS doesn't poop every time we go out on a date) when I get home. No biggie. And no babysitter has complained yet. In fact, most of them are surprised at how easy it is!
Oh, and last but not least - the FASHION! Holy cow, aren't CDs adorable with all their colors and prints? Pampers just has nothing on them when it comes to the cuteness. I once put DS in a disposable on a Sunday because I simply hadn't gotten to the laundry yet and the ladies that watch him at church nursery were very upset about it! Apparently, they so loved all the colors and prints he sported when in his cloth diapers that they told me never to bring him in a disposable again
This!
I've wanted to CD since right after DD was fully potty trained, lol. I got addicted to the blog of a woman who CDs her children and it made me wish I'd gotten onto the bandwagon for DD. My favorite reason is the cost effectiveness, which I'm experiencing firsthand since I'm already amazed that I don't have to buy another diaper for this baby - ever! - if I don't want to. I'm also pretty happy to know that this baby's tush will be against soft cotton or fleece rather than scratchy paper with irritating gel underneath. I always hated finding those stupid gel bits all over DD's hiney whenever she soaked her diaper, usually after a full night's sleep, and she ALWAYS had a rash when this happened. Yuck! And, of course, cloth diapers and their covers are just so darn cute!
As for support from others, I started out with very little - FI was my only advocate! Mom flat-out told me she wouldn't be changing any diapers, stepdad informed me that I'd be throwing away money on laundry costs. Dad was concerned about his couch, and stepmom just looked off to the side with eyebrows raised. MIL simply informed us that she'd be buying us disposables anyway because we'd need them when we left the house. The thing is, all of their reactions were based on their antiquated ideas about what cloth diapering entails and popular opinion touted by disposable diaper companies, and I knew that. So, I stayed the course, and made sure to inform anyone who told us they'd be buying sposies for us that we'd be returning them. Now, mom, stepdad, and MIL are on board. Dad and stepmom are still concerned about their couch, but their couch can suck it - my kid's butt is going to be swathed in cloth whether they like it or not!
// I love you too. //
I'm excited to cloth diaper! Our reasons are: better for baby (no chemicals on their skin, less chance of diaper rash), better for environment, cheaper, cute, can reuse diapers if we have more babies. I know there are more, but off the top of my head this is what I an come up with currently.
GL and don't worry what others think!!
Love & luck to my 3TC girls. Congrats to Omega-The boys are here!
If there's one thing I've learned while waiting my turn,
it's that in each life some rain falls but you also get some sun.
After 2 years & 2 losses, our little man arrived 8-2011.
I thought that you would have to wash it off immediately after changing. And getting up to change the diaper, THEN do all the cleaning off, would just be more to do, than I want at 3 am
I didn't know people had pails for them! haha
Thanks for letting me know!
We are going to try CDing. DH's mother CD'd all 6 of her children and DH actually wanted to CD more than I did! I recently bought 24 small Green Mountain Diapers "Clotheez Prefolds" and 3 covers to start me up. (If baby is under 8lbs at birth we will use sposies for a few weeks until the small prefolds fit).
I also picked up a Fuzzibunz and Bum Genius AIO. Its a super small stash...but I think it will be nice to try it out without sinking hundreds of dollars into it. I'm a FTM and have obviously never CD'd...so I'm taking baby steps!
We decided to CD mainly to save money. Not only will we save money this go around, but we will be able to use the diapers for our next child too. It is a total benefit that they are better for the environment too! I'll be SAHM for the first 4 months, but a LOT of working moms CD too. Check out the CD board for more info. And don't let other people's opinions be your deciding factor. I have gotten a lot of negative feedback, but I've alson enlightened some of my friends and have gotten positive feedback as well.