diaper change

It is something that was past due. But I just dreaded investing any more money on diapers...especially for #3, most likely that last child we will have in diapers.

Reggie's dry skin is a constant battle and we just can't seem to get things under control. In particular, he always has dry patches where the outside of the diaper rubs on the insides of his thighs. I am constantly moisturizing the area, but a couple weeks ago it was cracking and red and I could tell it was irritating him. So, I surrendered to the possibility that it could be the cloth diapers I use, put him in disposables, and got to researching other options.

By Day 3, Reggie's skin was healing nicely and I had come up another cloth diapering option - fitted diapers or prefolds with wool covers. I think he is reacting to the synthetic fibers in the diapers I've been using, so my next attempt is use diapers constructed of all natural fibers. I purchased enough diapers to give it a try to see what happens, and after 3-4 days, his skin is still looking pretty good. But it's a lot of work adjusting to a new diapering system, and the diapers are bulkier under his clothing.

If the all natural fibers makes a difference in the skin around his diaper, I'm going to start being more aware of the fibers in his clothing and how that could be related to his overall dry skin issues...

In other news, I was able to renew my school counselor license last week - that's a huge weight off my shoulders!

This will be another busy week - leaving for Green Bay on Thursday! After last year's eventful trip (got the call about Reggie), our vacation will never be the same - literally.

earth-friendly friday - live green, save green

I saved the best for last - cloth diapering.

I could take this post from the angle that manufacturing a single disposable diaper requires 1 cup of crude oil and plenty of energy and water. And that disposable diapers are one of the top three contributors to the landfill. (read more about environmental impact here)

Or I could take this post from the angle that once our initial investment was recovered, we are saving over $300 per child per year, even after factoring in the cost of laundering. Yes, that is nearly $1,000 this year alone! (The amount of savings depends on several factors and is based on our specific diaper usage).

But I think I'd rather take this post from this angle...

renewed commitment

After spending $130 on disposable diapers during the month of September (about a 6 week supply for 3 kids, if I use no cloth diapers), I have renewed my commitment to cloth diapering. And truly, the bags and bags of diapers that go into the dumpster really do bug me.

Before Reggie came along, I was using cloth diapers on Lydia probably 80% of daytime hours (I always use disposable at night). Brett grew out of my favorite "one-size through potty training" variety about 6 months ago. I have a few lesser-liked options for him, but was probably consistently only using an average of 1-2 cloth diapers a day with him.

With Lydia being so small, I didn't feel it was worth the investment of purchasing larger-size cloth diapers for Brett. Good ones that I like run about $16-18 each. Multiply that by maybe 12 and you're investing over $200 on diapers that potentially only one child will wear for hopefully only for a year or so. In hindsight, I wish I had made the investment a while back, because at the rate Reggie is growing, I will need larger diapers for him as well.

What I did not anticipate when I made the decision to primarily cloth diaper my children was that I would have three children in diapers at once. I figured I would invest the money in a stash of diapers suited for one child (12-16 to wash every 2-3 days) and basically that would diaper all my children.

So, do I scrap the idea? Do I just cloth diaper one of three children? Or do I bite the bullet and invest in a huge stash of diapers - enough to "cover" all three. While I don't think I will ever have a nice supply of 45ish of my favorite diapers, I'm going to try to work my way up to 10 suitable diapers per child. I purchased 2 brand new of my favorites for Reggie, 3 gentle used diapers that would work for Brett, and a couple gently used "one-size"types for Lydia.

Yesterday was my trial run. I cloth diapered all three kids all day with the exception of Brett during his nap, and at the end of the day, I had one diaper per child left.

So I already average 2 loads of laundry a day. Do I really want to wash a load of diapers every day? I'm hoping to find some more bargains.

more about cloth diapering

(per Amber's request)

Question: Do you use a service or do you clean them all yourself? I wash the diapers myself. I haven't looked into diaper services. Washing is pretty easy once you figure it out. Start with a cold rinse with a squirt of blue Dawn (someone told me to use the blue stuff - don't know why). Then wash a regular cycle on the highest temp setting the diapers you choose will allow. I read that "Free and Clear" detergents actually have more additives than other detergents, and that can cause build-up on the diapers, and more expensive detergents like Tide are too harsh, so I use 1/2 the amount of a cheap detergent or more Dawn. I usually air dry the diapers to save on energy costs and also wear on the diapers. I wash one load of diapers about every 3 days.

Question: How are they as far as holding in the moisture? This, too, has improved with practice. I change Brett more often in cloth than when he is wearing a disposable. With the pocket diapers, you can adjust how much "stuff" you put in the pocket based on what your child needs. Brett needs either one really good insert or 2 average ones.

Question: And the poo? The poo is not a lot of fun. But, you have to clean it off one surface, so it might as well be two! I've been using biodegradable liners about half the time (I cut the large one in half to save $) and they make the job a lot easier!

Question: Do you use them for naps as well?? Yes. He can easily go 3 hours in a cloth diaper with no problems. And sometimes he leaks, but then I just change his outfit.

Question: What are the negative aspects? Other than that it is more work (laundry, dealing with the poo, a few more leaks), clothes are made to fit a kid in disposables, but cloth is a bit more bulky, so he seems to wear the next size up. What else? The diapers take up more room in your diaper bag. That's about it! Overall, I've been very happy with them! Oh, one more negative aspect I guess would be, most people don't have much experience with them, so we end up using disposable ones when he is in other people's care. And I've heard most childcare facilities won't accommodate.

earth day

To celebrate earth day, thought I'd post about my favorite earth-friendly activity- cloth diapering! In the 1940's the first disposable diaper was created and continued to evolve until it became the common diaper we all know today. While many mothers praised the disposable diaper for its absorbency and freedom, many feel that there is a hidden price to pay for this convenience. 10,000 tons of disposable diapers are tossed into the landfill each day. They can take up to 500 years to decompose. (Not sure how they know this since disposable diapers have only been around 60 years?)

The average baby will use nearly 6000 disposable diapers which requires about four to five trees to make. Then there is the plastic for the liner and the chemicals used to both bleach the wood pulp and to create the super absorbent inside. After manufacturing the diapers we next have the cost of disposing of the diapers. A baby diapered for 2.5 years will generate two tons of waste in just diapers alone.

And then we have the cost to my pocketbook. Take the figure of 6000 diapers times a conservative $.20 each. That equals $1200 to diaper one child. Multiply that by 2 or 3, or my brother's 5 kids ($2400, $3600, $6000) and that's a lot of money!

I've spent about $100 on our stash of cloth diapers. There is the continued cost of laundering and replacing/repairing diapers that fall apart, but that is minimal. So far, my favorite diapers are pocket diapers like the bum genius and happy heinys, but they retail at about $18 each, so I only have a few that were gifts or bought on clearance. Other than they are super convenient, they have snaps in the front so they grow with your baby.


My second favorite, and much cheaper option is using proraps with homemade inserts. The covers are about $8.50 each and you only need about 2 a day. The inserts cost me less than $1 to make.

I do still use a disposable at night, and when we travel. Bryan uses them a little more liberally than I do. I think he does it so that I will always change Brett's diaper, so he won't put a disposable one on him!

showers, shots, and shops

This past week has been a busy one. It started out on Friday night, when my friends gave Brett and I a shower. We had so much fun! Brett was completely over-stimulated by all the fun things to look at and excited ladies eager to make over him! My friends really went the extra mile to make everything so special, and it was wonderful to catch-up with some of the ladies I had not seen in a while.


Brett was so stimulated, it took him a long time to unwind! I guess he is like his momma that way, but he outdid me. I finally put him down in his crib around 1 am and fell asleep to the sounds of him playing happily. (We're so lucky he's not a crier!)


Then, we had a brunch shower on Saturday. A family from Bryan's work put it on, so it was not your traditional kind of shower. We had a delicious brunch. Brett was recovering from the late night-he was so sound asleep it was nearly impossible to wake him up! The best part of this shower was the family has a thirteen-year-old daughter who has a really boisterous personality and is also deaf. She was just going crazy over Brett, holding him, playing games with him, and feeding him. After she was done feeding him, she told Bryan he should pay her for her services. Bryan gave her a dollar, but she doted back that his bill was $5! I don't think we could afford to hire her as a baby-sitter!

Here's a pic of Brett with only SOME of his loot! He doesn't realize how spoiled he is...

Tuesday was Brett's two month doctor's appointment. He weighs 10 pounds 3 ounces and is 23 inches long. We actually expected that he weighed more than that. He had to get 3 shots. And it was very traumatic for me.


Brett didn't like it either.


On to shops. Really I was just trying to come up with another word that started with "sh" to make for a catchy title to this post. I have to share my excitement about cloth diapering, and I have been cruising many shops-mostly online-to make my purchases. So far I received one Happy Heiny one-size as a gift. Then I found that I could order "repairable" bum genius one size 2.0 for $6 each (regular $15-$18), so I ordered three. I also ordered a package of five Kushies Ultra all-in-ones. They are about $8.50 each, but they don't adjust in size. I couldn't resist also ordering Brett a swim diaper! Then, yesterday, Brett and I went to Peapods, an interesting little natural parenting shop in St. Paul, and splurged on a bum genius one size 3.0 ($18), and also bought biodegradable liners. So, I have spent $87 (according to my calcs, about equivalent to 2 months of disposables) and will have 10 diapers to give it a trial run -hopefully next week. We will see if I am still excited about cloth diapering then!

call me crazy...

...but I'm thinking about going cloth...

...as in cloth diapers.

I know what you're thinking... Joy doesn't like doing the laundry...what do you do with the poo...leaks...messy...the house will smell...how uncomfortable for the baby...disposables are so convenient...how in the world do you use a safety pin with a squirmy baby...the list goes on.

But look at how far cloth diapers have come...

It's becoming so much easier to make the environmentally and pocketbook friendly choice.

I've done the math. We'd save about $1,000. (Cloth diaper sites say $2500, but I calculated my own bargain-hunting figures.) If you want to see my spreadsheet, I can email it to you! For that kind of savings, I might decide I like doing laundry.

And what do you do with the poo? Well, there's a solution for that, too:

Ignore the diaper in this picture. I'm not interest in that kind. But the top layer-the liner-can be used in the all-in-one diapers pictured above. So, if there's poo, the liner gets flushed-it's biodegradable. If there isn't poo, an experienced cloth diaper user tells me you can wash and use the liners about 3 times.

The downside is the initial investment. The diapers I've pictured are $15-$20 each. So, we'd have to be pretty commited to try it. But, I read cloth diaper wearers are easier to potty train. And, if we have another infant, we'd only have some replacement costs.

Ann, I know you're with me on this!

(I still have to convince Bryan. He is completely disgusted by any mention of diapers.)