Reasons to Cloth!

Well, I am writing again to discuss reasons to cloth!!! For everyone it is different and there may be one reason that stands out or a combination of reasons. Now, there is no right or wrong reason to cloth diaper your baby, every reason is right for someone and you might have a reason that I don't list at all! For me, when Heidi got a terrible rash and I seen how instantly it went away when she was in cloth I found out how harsh the chemicals were in disposable diapers. But for my husband it was more about the bottom line- money. At first my husband was not on board with the idea at all. He wanted the simplicity of not having to deal with his own kids feces. But after I went ahead and bought some cloth and quit buying disposables it seemed like we went thru a frustrating couple of months with our finances. If it wasn't one thing it was another that kept setting us back. Thankfully, we didn't have to calculate diapers into our extremely tight budget and though our stash was small and I was washing every 1 1/2 days, it got us thru till our finances balanced out a bit more. After that my husband was on board and not only on board, he would help tell our friends about cloth diapering!

Now one reason to cloth diaper is because it is better for the environment. It takes like a million years for one diaper to decompose in a landfill. Not only that but there are so many harsh chemicals in disposable diapers that it probably isn't safe for the waters or habitats near the companies that make them. And after thinking about how humans were given a lot of things in life to survive and multiple items of the same thing the one thing that we truely only have ONE of is our precious Earth. I mean think about it... we have been given water that recycles itself, animals and fruits/vegetables that multiply so we don't go hungry, even our oxygen cycles itself around so that we can continue to breath and not go without, but we are only given ONE Earth. To think about destroying it is kinda scary.

So on to what my selling point was, which was that cloth is safe for your precious little baby. You know my story of how Heidi has super sensitive skin and cloth keeps her bum nice and rash free. I remember Heidi being in the NICU and the nurses put her in disposable diapers and how even the premie sized diapers swallowed her up. My daughter wasn't the tiniest baby in the NICU but she was the tiniest baby I had ever seen. Well I was a teenage mother, fresh out of high school and I had never even heard of cloth diapering. So when it was time to take her home I just kept her in disposables. In the first month of being home Heidi got her first diaper rash and let me tell you, it was HORRIBLE. She would scream and cry and I would feel like a crappy mom cuz I caused her to have this rash. I literally thought I was in over my head and that this little 4 lb. 10 oz. baby was better off with the nurses than her own mommy that loved her dearly. But I tried every cream and stayed on top of every diaper change and devoted my attention to finding out how to keep her rash under somewhat control and at bay. I would have to change creams up every so often or else after a while it wouldn't work, not only that but I would have to switch between cream and baby powder. For me, I couldn't wait till Heidi was out of diapers and potty trained. Well after finding out about cloth diapers, I found other moms switching to cloth because of their babies sensitive skin. It is very common for babies to not like the disposable diapers because the chemicals are just too strong for their skin to handle. It is a very frustrating road to keep a rash away from a baby with sensitive skin but from personal experience, cloth will do the trick! Heidi only gets a rash now if she gets sick or if she is teething, which is normal. Not only that but I can control the rash better too! All I have to do is put either a little baby powder on her or use a cloth diaper safe rash treatment and by the next diaper change her redness is GONE!

On to my husband's selling point, which like most men, is saving money! I am a pretty frugal person (you will learn how frugal I am when I talk about family cloth in a later blog) and so is my husband. We both love to save money and to be able to provide for our family no matter what kind of troubles our finances are going thru. I am more extreme than he is ( he refers to me as a hippie or "Ma" on little house on the prairie lol) but he is still all for saving money. Now our reasons for wanting to save money can sound pretty selfish but its true, we like to save money because we like to spend money. How does that make sense? Well, for instance, we don't have to buy diapers which right now with our two year old we are saving about $20-35 a week (the price will go up when Anna arrives). So once a week instead of having to stay home and not do anything we can go out and have a family date to a movie or bowling or some other activity we can all bond and have a good time. OR think about it this way... $20 X 4 weeks= $80 a month and that month we need both the cars to have an oil change... well we have it now cuz we don't spend it on diapers. AND depending on what type of diaper you use your start up cost can be about $200. When I was first introduced to cloth I experimented with all types and for a while I was a pocket mom cuz it closely related to a disposable so it wasn't too much of an adjustment but now I am all old school, I use flat diapers and one size covers. For my system I have enough covers and flat diapers to cloth diaper two children for about 3 days, do you want me to calculate the grand total? I spent about $72 in covers and then I was given about 4 or 5 covers for my baby shower, and my flat diapers cost me about $1 per diaper so about $60 (12 diapers a day for the newborn and 6 for the toddler plus 2 for just in case) and I was given A LOT of flats for the baby shower and then $10 for reusable wipes,  about $5 for 2 snappies and $20 for a wetbag (which in my opinion is a must have but I guess you don't HAVE to have it). $72+ $60+ $10+ $5+ $20= $167 to cloth diaper 2 children for 3 DAYS in the same system. Split that equally between both children and thats only $83.50 to diaper each child till they are potty trained. So yeah, that gets my husband VERY excited! LOL

There are MANY, MANY more reasons that are out there to cloth diaper that are just as good and are just as important. I just touched on the three major ones that I have found most people choose to cloth diaper. If anyone has a reason that they cloth diaper that I didn't write about feel free to write about it in the comments! I love getting more educated and learning other reasons!

Till next time!

Chelsea Potter