...I chose cloth diapers. (Part 1: Why I made the switch.)

I had considered cloth diapering while I was still pregnant, but after hearing horror stories from family members I opted out of it. I did tell my sister that if anyone got me cloth diapers I'd use them, but I didn't put them on my registry and I didn't talk about them much so nobody did. I was pretty obsessive about what brands and products I was going to "allow" to touch my baby, so it might be a good thing that I didn't add CD's to the registry at that time. Between my specifics on breastfeeding equipment and supplies, colors, chemicals, ergo wraps, babyfood making machines, etc...we might not have gotten anything if I had been any more picky.

For diapers, we (I) decided on Pampers. The hospital provided a few packages of Swaddlers to take home anyways, so we stuck with the brand. It wasn't until my daughter was about 4 months old that I had an issue with disposables. One night I noticed a slight rash on her bottom. I slathered it with Desitin and decided to just keep an eye on it. By morning, despite having a healthy coat of Desitin after every changing, the rash was no longer just red skin but had started to get little bumps. I did some research and found two possible solutions: switch the diaper, or switch the cream.

I shopped around and tried samples of talc powders, beeswax, Vaseline, and A&D, but none of them kept my baby's little tush from breaking out. Then I tried Aquaphor, which helped with the healing better than any of the others, but it never really prevented the rash from coming back. So, I collected diapers from some friends who were willing to let me try their brands (so I didn't have to buy entire packs). I tried Huggies, Luvs, Kroger brand, Parent's Choice, Dollar General brand, Target brand, and Walgreen's brand. Some were better at containing the poo explosions than others, some held more liquid than others, but they all resulted in the same rash.

When I started looking more into  the cause behind diaper rash, I read that all disposables contain a chemical called polyacrylate (sodium polyacrylate). This is the same powder that hospitals and supermarkets use to sprinkle onto spills that quickly absorbs liquids and turns into a jelly. (That's why sposies give baby a "squishy butt".) There is also a new product out called "Squishy Baff" that comes in a little packet that you pour into your child's bathwater (a friend tried this stuff, it is actually pretty cool)....and the entire product is made of the same polyacrylate that is in disposable diapers. It's labelled as non-toxic, but obviously they don't want anyone to eat any of it. It wasn't enough for me just to know polyacrylate was there- I needed to see it. I came up with a pretty neat science experiment that I'll be keeping for when the babe is old enough to participate, and when that time comes we're going to be investigating how awesome that stuff is....just not on baby's butt.

When it comes to polyacrylate in diapers, most babies have little to no reaction, and when they do the diaper creams are generally pretty good at keeping a barrier between skin and chemical. That just wasn't the case with my girl. I needed to find a way to avoid polyacrylate. The only way to do that was to use cloth. I did a lot of research to find the most cost effective, convenient way to go about the transition (and I'll share all of that information in another post), and we've been in cloth ever since.

I won't lie, sometimes when I'm bagging up a particularly stinky diaper in the WalMart bathroom, I do wish I could just throw it away. But that's when I remember the fundamental benefits of cloth diapering:

• My baby has a cute fluffy butt
• My baby no longer suffers from open sores on her bum
• My budget doesn't have to include $100 worth of diapers every month
• I saved almost $700 in the last year by cloth diapering
• I'm going to resell them when we're done, and get my money back
• I don't have to contribute any more diapers to solid waste

...and then having a ziplock freezer bag of diaper in my purse for another 20 minutes doesn't seem like such a big deal.