Cloth Diapering

Long before the Little Man was born, my husband and I decided that we wanted to use cloth diapers. For us it was mostly an economical concern, but the idea of keeping diapers out of the landfills was pretty attractive, too.

We did decide, though, that in the very beginning and for trips outside the house we would use disposables.

That is pretty much where the agreement ended, though.

I spent hours days weeks poring over informational websites. I talked to my sister, who had used cloth diapers with her younger child. I compared prices, looked on Craigslist, read reviews, and agonized. All-In-Ones? Fitteds? Pockets? Pre-folds? If I do pre-folds should I use Chinese or Indian? If I choose to do covers and pre-folds, do I get safety pins or Snappis? Should we have something different for overnight?

Finally, my husband asked me what I was obsessing about.

"I'm trying to figure out what to do for diapers."

"What do you mean? We're doing cloth."

"Yeah, I'm trying to figure out what system we should invest in. I keep reading that we should have a variety of diaper systems in our stash so that we can find out what works best for us, but that's a lot of mon..."

He cut me off.

"What do you mean? You get the diaper cloths and then there's the plastic pant things that cover them."

"Plastic...pants?"

Now let me explain. My husband is quite a bit older than I am. He has three older children, the youngest of whom was cloth diapered. This child is now a sophomore in high school. Clearly he didn't realize how far diapering technology had come in the last 16 years.

I showed him a few product pages and the first thing he pointed to was the price.

"$12.50 for a cover? That's ridiculous. And what's an 'All In One' and why do they want $16 for it?"

"Well, if you really insist, we can get the plain plastic pants. I think there's a sale here for $4 each."

"FOUR DOLLARS?!? That's insane. They're plastic pants. Can't you find any cheaper than that?"

*sigh*

I gave in, ordered the plastic (actually, nylon) pants, and a week later they arrived on our doorstep. Eager to get started on our cloth diapering adventure, I tore open the packaging to find...gigantic plastic pants.

I re-read the packaging, re-read the website information, and saw a discrepancy. The website said these were for babies 7-10 lbs. The packaging said 15-20 lbs. I contacted customer service. They assured me that the packaging was labeled wrong and that this was a known issue.

They were still huge. They would not do.

So I bought a Thirsties Duo Wrap. It was wonderful. It is wonderful. My grandmother bought us two more.

And my husband? Totally converted. After one diaper change using the updated cover style he was ready to ditch the plastic pants he so insisted on buying.

I so win.