Wilcox Writings: Cloth Diapering

If you would have asked me if I would ever use cloth diapers, I would have said NEVER!

And then I had to buy swim diapers.

Since we swim a lot around here, I bought some and was so sad at the price. Eleven bucks for 20 diapers! That's ridiculous! Thankfully, Target put washable swim diapers right next to the disposables. I thought, "That wouldn't be too bad. Ashton never even goes to the bathroom in the stupid swim diapers." So for ten dollars, I left with a washable swim diaper. We used it a couple of times and I didn't mind washing it. I felt a lot better because I wasn't throwing away a diaper that wasn't peed in.

Then, Ashton started getting a persistent diaper rash. No matter how often I changed her and how much diaper rash cream I put on her, it never completely went away. So I did some digging and started using coconut oil, which helped immensely. After three weeks, we finally figured out it was a yeast infection from taking antibiotics for her strep throat. But I just couldn't help but think that the paper-y diaper rubbing against her as she crawls and walks around must not be comfortable. She kept getting red marks on her inner thighs too. So I thought about cloth diapers. Then I remembered a family in town who uses them. I went over to see their collection and was amazed at what cloth diapers look like nowadays. They're much different then I thought.

So I found some new/slightly used ones on eBay to keep costs even lower and I won some auctions. We bought Gro-Via hybrid diapers and we are now the proud parents of a cloth diapered baby. I made a wet bag to use since I couldn't bring myself to spend 30 dollars for one from Amazon. Total, it cost about 10 dollars to make and a trip to Hobby Lobby. Looking back, I'm not sure it was worth the savings because the waterproof material is tricky to sew with. It only took an hour, which isn't much. Thank goodness I'm not a perfectionist. Also, the type of diapers we got sell a flushable liner that costs about two cents each. This allows us to literally flush away messes. No scraping or spraying poop off!

So far, the only two things I don't like about cloth diapering are laundry and trying to change the cloth diaper on an active baby. Changing Ashton with disposables was already a challenge and then you add in the extra steps/time with cloth. But, I guess it teaches both of us patience, which we could use a lot more of. Laundry gets old but then again, I was doing laundry once or twice a week anyways. I like the fact that our garbage output as a family has decreased since we're not filling it up with diapers. That makes me happy. I also like not feeling guilty when I change her often because I am not throwing away money in diapers. Overall, we're pretty happy. Here are some pictures of Ashton showing off her diapers.