You’re having a baby! Congratulations! Time to start making a lot of pie in the sky statements about what kind of parent you will be and pick out all organic cotton clothes and the most modern looking baby toys you can find and start reading baby sign language books!
While we didn’t end up sticking to our guns on all of those things (we did eventually break down and buy an exersaucer, play pen and some polyblend pajamas and I couldn’t tell you how to even sign the word “hi”), one thing we have stuck to is using cloth diapers vs. disposable.
I know what you might be thinking. It’s so much work. It’s gross. It’s just as expensive in the long run.
Say what you will about cloth diapering—I know it isn’t for everyone—but if it is something that you are really interested in, I am here to tell you that YOU CAN DO IT! It’s really not that hard, it’s really not any grosser than using a disposable diaper, and you can do it quite affordably.
First a disclosure: With most subjects related to babies and parenting, lots of people will tell you that you are crazy for wanting to cloth diaper your child. Like they might want to hold an intervention for you. And they might buy you boxes of disposable diapers because they think you are too poor to afford the "luxury" of disposables. To those folks, just smile and say something like "bless your heart" and then brush that off your shoulder as you return those diapers for some store credit, because don't knock it until you've tried it, folks. I'm not that big of an evangelist for anything, but I do feel like if you want to do this, you shouldn't let anyone talk you out of it by scare tactics. So, the purpose of this post is to explain how we did it and maybe help make your decision a little easier!
And to those who have never wanted to use cloth, more power to ya! To each his own! God Bless America! and all that good stuff. I've never wanted to ride a horse and you won't catch me saddling up anytime soon!
And so we begin...