Lurking around every corner today is an opportunity to “go green”. Recycle. Eat organic produce. Buy a hybrid vehicle. Buy carbon credits. Seriously this list goes on forever. But what is my favorite green activity? Cloth diapering my baby. Now to the average mainstream Joe, or Jane as the case may be, this sounds silly. Of course disposable diapers must be cleaner, easier, and better for baby. Certainly the only reason one would cloth diaper would be to save money. Right? This could not be farther from the truth.
Let me take you back to 2005, to the birth of my now enthusiastic three-year-old son. Those three short years ago, I had no intention other than using disposable diapers. I was a pediatric nurse working at the local pediatric hospital. I’d disposably diapered many a baby. In fact I knew nothing else. Well, not five minutes after my bouncing baby boy was born, was he covered head to toe in white pustules. Newborn rash, was what the nurses told me. Though they had never seen a newborn react any sooner than 24 hours following birth. Never the less, my boy was covered in rash. Thus began my mothering journey of a super-sensitive child. Over the course of the next year I determined that he is allergic to every class of antibiotics (especially fun for ear infections), sodium laurel sulfate (check every soapy product you have), almost every detergent and fabric softener, ants, grass, hay (isn’t this just old grass?), and, case in point, disposable diapers.
I, like the average Jane, believed the only option I had after sposies (as we lovingly refer to disposable diapers) was your old-fashioned, run of the diaper mill, bleached white, flat cotton diaper. Fashioned with pins, and covered with plastic pants. However a quick search on the internet reveals that times, they are a-changin. Available at the click of a mouse are hundreds upon hundreds of different types of cloth diapers. You can still buy the old-fashion type known as a “flat”. These require relatively artistic folding and may be pinned or attached with a device known as a “snappi”. This is a stretchy, three-pronged, plastic apparatus that grabs the diaper fabric on each hip and in the crotch vicinity and holds the diaper in place. A newer option, similar to the flat is a “prefold”. This is essentially a flat that is pre-folded (clever naming) and stitched to require less of the artistic folding previously mentioned. Same game as far as attaching onto the child. Don’t like pinning or snappi-ing? Have no fear, there are many more choices. Let’s move onto my current favorite. The “fitted”. A fitted diaper is fundamentally a prefold sewed into the shape of a disposable diaper (baby-shaped fit), and elasticized to curve and conform in all the right places. Typically they close with either snaps of some version of heavy duty velcro. Fitteds range from flannel cotton basic to organic bamboo velour plush.
Although the aforementioned are lovely diapering options, absorbent and oh-so-green, they are not waterproof and will leave you with a squishy mess if not covered. The options for covering a cloth diaper vary almost as vastly as your diapering options. Let’s just say it’s not all plastic and vinyl. First and foremost you will find polyurethane laminate, or PUL, fabric. This is fabric treated with a polyurethane finish with the purpose of waterproofing it. This PUL is sewn into very effective, and often very cute, cloth diaper covers. Other popular cloth diaper covers are made of polyester fleece and wool. Both fleece and wool are hyrophobic materials, meaning they don’t absorb much liquid. They are not as waterPROOF as PUL, but allow for increased breathability, which is a plus with a sensitive child. Wool has it’s own special qualities. The natural lanolin in wool not only repels liquid, but is also antimicrobial, and self-cleaning. These are handy qualities in a diaper cover. Wool covers need only be washed every couple of weeks unless visibly dirty. They do not retain diaper smell. I told you they were handy qualities. Fleece covers, on the other hand, need regular washing.
So flats, prefolds, fitteds, covers; seem like too much to deal with? There are options for those requiring simpler alternatives. A popular choice, very close to a washable disposable, is the “all-in-one” (AIO). An AIO combines the absorbency with the waterproofness in one easy step. The PUL cover is sewn over a fitted to give you what the name implies. An all-in-one cloth diaper. No extra steps, no extra pieces. The only drawback to the AIO, is an increase in drying time. Enter the “pocket diaper”. This diaper is much like an AIO in the fact that the cover is sewn on. However there is a pocket to stuff in the desired amount of absorbent material. This allows you to customize the absorbency (more for nights, less for days), then pull it all out for washing and drying.
Washing and drying, another big topic. I’m not gonna lie. The thought of washing “pooped-in” diapers in the SAME washer and dyer that I wash my clothes in creeped me out a little. However after much research I have come up with a wash routine that seriously sanitizes (okay, almost) my kids’ diapers and leaves me feeling safe and sound. Here’s the scoop: Cold rinse first (rinses and spins out the yuckies), Hot wash with Country Save (very important choice in my sensitive house) detergent, cold rinse, extra rinse. This manages to get the diapers really clean, and does not leaving a filmy residue which impairs absorbency and causes my little guy to react. My guy can tolerate no bleach, not even non-chlorine bleach, and no fabric softeners (yes, this means no dryer sheets either).
So what, you ask, causes my baby to react to the disposable diapers? Aren’t they just paper versions of a cloth diaper? A resounding no. That fancy super-absorbent gel you may have noticed is known as sodium polyacrylate. This is the same junk that was linked to toxic shock syndrome, can cause allergic reactions, and is harmful and potentially lethal to pets (and people who eat a lot of it, yuck). Dioxin, a byproduct of bleaching paper, (giving you a clean, white sposie) is known to cause central nervous system, liver, and kidney damage, and is a known cancer-causing agent. Traces of this poison are in every sposie. It’s a wonder every child doesn’t react as violently as my little bundle.
And a fun little fact: Sposies take somewhere near 500 or more years to decompose. That means that if Christopher Columbus has used sposies during his stay here, we would probably still be able to find them. Now how sad is that? Annually, each disposably diapered baby generates enough diaper waste to fill a 2,000 square foot house. The average American child will use approximately 10,000 disposable diapers before being potty trained. That is a huge amount of diaper waste sitting in the landfills for a very long time.
For our family, cloth is simply the best. No more rashes, open sores, or supremely painful bottoms. We feel better about our environmental impact. The cloth diapering options are endless. There are a schmorgesbord of brands, factory-made, work-at-home-mom, I cannot even begin the list them all. You can spend as little or as much as your heart desires. Regardless of your choice, the greenness remains, and they are so much easier on baby’s tender skin.
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This Post was guest written by Julie of Snuggle Bug Wrap
