A Dad Who Cloth Diapers

What was my mindset when it came to cloth diapering before our daughter was born?  That it was an outdated form of child care.  I felt that with all the advances in diapers  made by Pampers and Huggies and all the rest, why would you cloth diaper?  What is this, 1947?  Why would you do that?

Before the baby was born, I had absolutely zero experience putting a diaper on a baby.  I had never done it.  In fact, I had to have the nurse at the hospital show me how to do it.  I had no idea.  So when my wife said we were going to use cloth diapers, I was pretty hesitant.  I can't even put this disposable on her, how can I put a flippin' cloth diaper on her, with all it's folding, and pinning and all of that?  Why did we have to make it so difficult?

Let's take a look at an image form Hollywood for a minute.  In the movie Back to the Future 3, Marty McFly goes back in time to 1885.  Shortly after arriving there, he coincidentally runs into his distant relative, Seamus McFly.  After sleeping off getting his head hit on a fence and being knocked out, he awakens to meet William McFly, his Great-Grandfather as an infant.  When Marty meets him, he holds him up and says "So you're my Great-Grandfather.  The first McFly born in America...and you peed on me."

You see, baby William McFly was wearing a cloth diaper and it only took about 10 seconds to get peed on with that cloth diaper.  This is the only visual of cloth diapers I had ever had.  But after learning about it, I learned that that scene in this modern day is a total misconception.  I mentioned above how I was aware of the advances in diapers that the major corporations had come up with for disposable diapers, but what I didn't know (because there were no TV commercials telling me so) was that the advances in cloth diapering were just as impressive.

I spend the majority of the time home with baby, because my lovely wife, who has the college degree, goes off and makes the real money.  I work part time on the weekends to help make ends meet.  What this means is that I'm the one who's home with baby most of the time.  I have gotten a whole lot of practice in it over the past 7 months.  But that doesn't mean that I'm a master of cloth diapering.  Without the guidance of my wife, I would be lost.  She did all the research and decided that cloth diapering is the way to go.  So as far as me being the one trying to convince someone that you should cloth diaper your kid, I'm not going to be all that effective.  I can't "own" someone in the cloth v.s. disposable debate.  I really don't know enough about disposables to have that debate.  What I can say is I know how it has been beneficial to us and our particular situation.

First off, if you don't own a washer and dryer, you probably won't want to do this.  You will be doing diaper laundry often.  With our stock, we do diapers about every other day.  We have a stack of prefolds (a type of cloth diaper) that we use, and I don't even know exactly how many.  But if you don't own a washer and dryer or have one withing a short walking distance, you will find cloth diapering very difficult, I believe.    There are several different kinds of diapers, all with their own names.  There are flats, prefolds, pockets, all-in-ones, all-in-twos, and probably even more that I've never heard of.  We have all of these types listed above except flats, but our good friends in Lansing swear by them.  Anyway, most of the time she gets a prefold, which is basically just a sheet of cotton with a thick part in the middle.  Once you learn how to put it on, it's pretty simple, really.  They stay attached with a thing called a snappy, which is like a elastic band with three ends and plastic teeth that hold into the cotton.  You cover the actual diaper with a waterproof cover that snaps or Velcros together.  The cover is formed into the shape of a diaper, and as long as you have the cover on right, there should be no leaks.  No pins, nothing like that.  Super easy.  It's just like putting on a disposable, only you have to attach the snappy, and you have to do a bit of folding under the butt to make it form into a diaper shape.  What is to be afraid of there?  I don't really want to get into the different types of cloth diapers here, because this is running long, and you can find that information very easily across the world wide web.

Weather you use cloth diapers or disposable diapers, you will eventually get poo on you.  That's one thing I've learned from all moms and dads.  Before our daughter was born, I was pretty grossed out by the thought of getting poo on me, but I think that because little baby poo is such a different consistency than adult poo, it makes it not so bad.  Just don't go eat any hummus after changing a poop diaper.  Some people have an issue with having a bag or bucket of cotton covered with human poop sitting around the house.  Yeah, I can't blame you there, but it's better than filling landfills with disposable diapers.  Those never go away, I mean in the grand scheme of the Earth.  But poo diapers are really easy when they're little.  It just washes out.  You don't have to deal with it until they start eating solids, because when you eat solid, you poo solid.  So you just swish it around in the toilet, big deal. (actually, the swishing is my least favorite part, but when you take a step back and think about it, it's not that big of a deal, really.  Get over it.)  Sure, you have to use a special laundry detergent when washing cloth diapers, but you use such a small amount, it's really not that bad of an expense.  I figured our water bill and electric bill would go up when we started doing laundry every other day, but to be honest, I havent' noticed.  Now, I don't manage the bills, because if I did, we wouldn't have lights or internet due to lack of payment, but from what I've gathered, there really hasn't been much of a difference.  Our shopping bill hasn't risen due to buying packs of diapers all the time, that's for sure.  One less thing to worry about at the store.

All in all, putting on a cloth diaper is absolutely not more difficult to master than putting on a disposable.  There is a price to pay up front to get all the supplies you'll need to get started, but it eventually evens out, and while I don't have the numbers, it has got to be cheaper than buying diapers all the time.  Another thing to consider, have you ever experienced a baby with diaper rash?  I have, once.  Once.  She has only gotten diaper rash one time, and it was horrible.  From what I've learned, babies who are in disposable diapers get diaper rash all the time, and they hate it.  As a parent, the last thing you want is a screaming, unhappy baby on you hands.  That's what you get when you have a diaper rash baby.  Cloth diapered baby = no diaper rash = happy baby.  That's a big deal, in my opinion.  I highly recommend you give this a serious thought, because it's probably not what you think it is.  I hope I could clear some misconceptions about the whole thing here.  I'm not an expert, I'm just a dad.  I can only say that my experience with cloth diapering has been very positive.  If you're a dad, or expecting to be a dad and you're wife of girlfriend wants to do this, give it a shot.  It's just a better way of taking care of your kid.  Isn't that what we all want?