Infant and Baby Needs

Before your baby arrives is a good time to decide whether you want to go with cloth or disposable diapers. I admit to being torn and to trying both. For those of you out there who are squeemish like me I’ll try and offer some tips for cloth diaper.

First of all why cloth diaper. I know honey. When there are so many good disposables out there why dip your hand in all the goo.

1. It’s good for your pocket book. This alone should be huge incentive enough to start considering cloth diapers. If you’re prone to want all the cutesy cloth diapers with the fabulous features even their higher cost will in no way dent your finances like 3 (to four to five) years of disposable diapers. I used to tell people I wanted disposable diapers for my birthday. I wasn’t joking.

2. It’s good for the environment. If you're concerned about the environment think cloth diapers. I mean think of all the poo laden disposable diapers filling up landfills and unable to break down. The thought of it is just gross.

3. You will get better cloth diapering. Time heals all wounds. My sister likes to tell me how when she was a young mother and she and her husband they found they could no longer afford disposable diapers she would cry as she dipped out my ,now college student, nephew's cloth diapers. This was in the beginning. She got to be an old hand at washing and caring for cloth diapers. You will too.  It will come.

4. They say that babies who grow up using cloth diapers are easier to potty train. Disposable diapers are created to pull the wetness away from your baby so they don't really feel that uncomfortable in a soiled diaper. Well strangely enough that uncomfortable feeling is what we want when potty training. They need to know that this is yucky and doesn’t feel good and it is so much nicer when going straight into the toilet. Well after going through a very rough time with potty training that is one incentive that is what pushed me over the edge to cloth potty training. I have the super strong willed child that has no motivation whatsoever to potty train. She could have cared less because she was wearing disposable pull ups. Well the cloth pull ups worked. She was ready for a change as soon as she went. It took some time because she is also a determined child but it was never ending with the disposable.

So what kind of cloth diapers do you get?

• Well know your likes and dislikes. I’m big on AIO diapers (All in Ones) I don’t like a lot of handling and messing around. I don’t care for folding as I did that as a baby sitter eons ago. And I'm deathly afraid of using pins. Those nice handy snaps are a life saver for me. But there are also prefolds, pocket diapers, fitted cloth diapers. Whew! It’s a baby I need it easy to go on. You can find all kinds of cloth diapers and supplies at Kelly's Closet.
• You’ll need about 24 cloth diapers to start with. Babies pee and poop a lot and this is amount is to help limit your washing to every other day as opposed to daily. It will be tempting to go with a six-pack intending to wash daily but really the more the merrier. Be prepared.
• Liners for heavy wetting and travel. These come in disposable and not disposable. I have both.
• Depending upon what type of cloth diaper you choose you may need waterproof diaper covers.
• If you want to be super diaper cloth woman you can also use cloth wipes. Personal choice.
• You could just cut to the quick and buy a diaper cloth kit. That’s my preference for shopping. What else I might need I can pick up later.

Now some quick tips on cleaning and caring for the cloth diapers. The most important part.

• Get a waterproof travel bag for outings.
• Although you can dry them in the dryer air drying is best so pick a spot and an apparatus for this.
• Set a time in your daily schedule when you'll be attending to or washing your cloth diapers

Make sure you have your cloth diaper cleaning tools.

• You will need a diaper pail. Make sure it has a lid.
• You need good detergent for cloth diapers. Products such as Charlie's Soap , Crunchy Clean, are best.
• Now to minimize you level of dunkingness there is this great innovation that you can attach to your toilet and use to hose off the mess without getting your hands dirty. Diaper sprayer is the name. It’s easy to attach and gives a big sigh of relief to mom’s (and dads) everywhere.
• With cloth diapers and front loading machines, since they use less water, you might want to do such things as a pre-soak with cold water, a final rinse. Two washes, one with cold water, one with hot water. It has also been recomended that you use a dry pail as opposed to a wet pail (diapers soaking in solution until ready to wash).