Cloth Diapers

I'm SO excited to announce that Brighton's new DSQ (diaper service quality) diapers arrived today. I was seriously glued to the online UPS tracking site, daring them to arrive a day late. FINALLY, the friendly man in brown came to my door--completely unaware of the priceless cargo in his arms. I snatched the box away, grabbed Brayla's child-sized scissors, and frantically opened the box to reveal two dozen beautiful unbleached new diapers (yes, I counted) and 4 packages of red Snappis (for those of you who haven't done cloth diapers in the last two decades, Snappis are a new gadget made to hold cloth diapers on).

A Little History:
I was never really that interested in using cloth diapers with my first two babies. I mean--WHY fix something that ain't broke? Well...I suppose to answer that question, you have to define "broke." So I'll just say that over the last few months of my pregnancy and in the early days of Brighton's life, I've done a complete 180 for SO many reasons. I refuse to let convenience keep me from cloth diapering any longer.

Start-up Costs:
Our biggest obstacle was the initial start-up costs. Everywhere I read about cloth diapering said that you invest about $250 for everything. Whew! In hindsight I totally get that that's still less than a family would normally pay for about 6 months of disposable diapers, yet it's a hefty amount to pay up front for a family living on one modest income. So I searched far and wide and was thrilled to find a cloth diaper site where they have "seconds" for purchase for roughly $1 per diaper. These seconds have some type of flaw that kept them from being on the new retail rack (slightly crooked or wrinkled or having loose threads or the dimensions could be a little off, etc.). But they still work perfectly for diapering a baby's bottom. Hey, for 50% off I'm game! So we purchased two dozen premium 4X8X4 diapers and set out to learn about diaper oragami. In all, our start-up costs were about $60.

Why?
I have many reasons for choosing cloth diapers, but here are a few practical reasons below.

Cloth Diapers are...

• Better for baby's health


• More comfortable against baby's skin


• Less expensive/save money


• Better for the environment


• Easier for practicing EC (elimination communication--more on this in another blog entry)


• Ultimately better for potty training

Hopefully you'll find me just as excited with cloth diapers after a few weeks of doing it. I'll try to post again later about all that I'm learning. In the meantime, here are a couple pictures of Brighton in his first cloth diaper.

I took the second picture just to show you what it looks like under his little outfit. I don't quite have the oragami down right, but I'm confident I'll get there. ;)