Why cloth?

I started using cloth diapers on my son when he was roughly 3-4 months old. Since then, I've had several friends and family members (as well as strangers!) who have asked me: Why cloth?

Starting from about 4-5 days old, up until I switched over to cloth - James had a diaper rash. I don't mean just irritation from his being in a disposable for too long (in fact, we were changing CONSTANTLY in hopes to get it to go away). I tried Huggies, Luvs and Pampers. Pampers were the worst that we tried, they literally put hole like sores on his bum. We went to the pediatrician and got special creams for it. We tried almost every single over the counter remedy, as well as a few 'home made' remedies. It never really went away. Finally, at my wits end.. I suggested switching to cloth diapers. Bill wasn't very open to the idea, but went ahead with it anyways.

We ordered a few to get us started and after about a week - the diaper 'rash' was completely gone. I've since learned that it was probably not a diaper rash, but rather a reaction to the chemicals that are in disposable diapers (oh yeah - try to google ingredients in a disposable diaper. good luck trying to weed out whatever your child is sensitive to). For a more 'realistic' idea of what his diaper rash looked like - google pampers and chemical burn. It was awful.

So, we have been using cloth for about 6 months now. I've had to use disposables a few times (ie: our washer broke down. we went on vacation.) but for the most part, he's in cloth only. I haven't had a disposable diaper in our home for almost two months, I'd say.

So what do we use? Well, we use pocket diapers. I have Fuzzibunz, Bum Genius, Alva Baby (although they are not my favorite but they work during the day), Dilly Dally (this is not a pocket diaper. I just love the diaper), Flip, Econobum, and a few generics that I bought off of Ebay. When we first started, we used kissaluvs fitted & a few generic covers.

I thought cloth would be a lot harder than what it is. I can tell you, I wish we'd done it from the beginning. If we have another baby, we will use only cloth from the start.

So if you're pregnant and thinking about using cloth? Don't be scared or intimidated. Ask questions about it - really, it's NOT hard. I do diaper laundry about twice a week. I use Rockin' Green for our detergent, it's fairly priced and it works. I never had to rinse diapers until we started giving James solid foods, and even the 'rinsing' part isn't that disgusting (although.. I did work as an STNA for a few years so maybe my level of 'disgust' is different).

Besides, who doesn't love that little fluffy yellow butt?