Fancy Poop Catchers

Cloth Diapers

As soon as we were expecting our oldest, I started obsessively looking into everything baby. Of all the things I researched, cloth diapers were one of the few things I was most passionate about. And as soon as I started to tell people my intentions to wash and re-use my child's poop collector, I discovered that everybody had an opinion!

"Eww."

"You'll change your mind."

"I'm going to buy you some regular diapers anyway."

"Oh no, she's not going to use cloth diapers!"

"Let me tell you about my experience..."

"Good for you!" 

"Us, too! What kind do you use? Aren't they great?"

Now let me start by saying that I wasn't always on board with cloth diapers. My first thought was like so many others, I cringed and then thanked God for Pampers. Then one night I Googled cloth diapers, really I was looking for a train wreck. I was fully expecting that my search would only re-enforce my loyalty to modern convenience and further alienate me from the "cloth diapering freaks" of the world. I thought I was going to see children crying from being poked with dull safety pins.

Wow, cloth diapers were not what I expected! For starters, where were the safety pins? The plastic pants? What about the huge flat white pieces of cloth? Today's cloth diapers are almost as easy as disposables, you can snap them, velcro them, if you really want to you can pin them. You can get all different sizes, or one-size diapers and adjust them to fit your baby as they grow. And can we talk about the adorable patterns?! MIND. BLOWN.

I obsessed over cloth diapers. I lived on YouTube and learned everything I could. By the time we ordered our baby's fancy poop catchers, I felt like an expert. Cloth diapering felt very doable.

Our diapering journey officially began because we were some broke, young, soon-to-be parents and the cost of disposables adds up and never ends. I had read somewhere that, on average, it costs in the neighborhood of $2,000+ to diaper a child for the first 2-1/2 years. Or something crazy like that. And did I mention that we were young and broke? We ordered 25 diapers and spent a grand total of $217. We spent $15 on a kitchen-sized trash can to use as a diaper pail, and we were off and running! Well under $300 and we had diapered our daughter. Suddenly, poopy diapers weren't so scary to wash!

There are, of course, other very good reasons to consider cloth. Maybe you love the environment. It is guessed that it can take a disposable diaper anywhere from 250-500 years to decompose in a landfill. Really think about that. The very first disposable diaper ever used, and oh so many more after that, are still stinkin' up the place. I got that fun fact here, thanks Google search.

 Assuredly as life happens, so do really massive poopies. I'd be amiss if I didn't add that we don't face anywhere near the amount of blowouts (aka - explosive poop! aka - poop up the baby's back! aka - time for a bath!) as we do with disposables.

Now every so often we use disposables. Life happens and, as much as I adore the cloth diapers, I'll be the first to remind myself that they're just really fancy poop catchers. It's all good. I'm a firm believer in doing what works for your situation and your family!

If you have any questions, comments, or would like to know about our diapering/wash routine, let me know!