Cloth diapering – the art and science of turning a shitty situation (literally) into something beautiful.

Speaking about modern cloth diapers specifically. They are basically wonderful inventions that combine the safety of cloth with convenience of disposables.

Well, we have been exclusively cloth diapering for over a year now, and this series has been in my drafts forever. So I thought, why not just publish it now? 🙂

Lets just handle the why now. So if you are a parent-to-be or new parent or anyone on the fence about cloth diapers, this article is for you!

1. Good for your wallet
Let me start off with a confession, all that talk about Mother Earth and everything, but what bugged me when baby V was 3 months was the amount of money I was spending on disposable diapers every month, and I was using disposables only at night. So the work involved in changing langots wasnt sweet either.
Simple math – a disposable costs aprox 10 bucks (INR). I spent about 600 inr on dipes every month. I just started slow and started investing in one cloth diaper every month. With the money saved the next month, I bought another one. And right now, we have a CD stash of about 20 diapers. Need I say more?

2. Your baby is happy
Obviously nothing as comfortable and safe as good old cloth right?
I have read research papers claiming that chemicals in disposables cause cancer, infertility, UTI, etc and I have read papers claiming it isnt true. As a mom with decent olfactory ability, I did not like the artificial way our disposables smelt after a long night of use. Id take the natural smell of pee anyday, thankyou very much.
Plus we have had no episodes of diaper rash ever after switching to CDs.
Cloth also seems to be comfortable to my little, considering there have been lesser episodes of scratching.
Also, apart from those fluffy bums, do you know cloth diapered kids potty learn easier than others?

3 Nature

Disposables are made of 2 major components -polyethylene and polyacrylate gel that absorbs. Polyethylene is made from crude oil( a non remewable resource) and polyacrylate is non bio degradable. Obviously, disposables are extremely non-sustainable.

Also, at the risk of sounding gross, solid waste always ends up in the pot when on CDs as opposed to disposables. No garbage picker or for that matter, any human or animal would come in contact with it. Not to mention, that solid waste when seeped into soil, can cause a lot of pollution.

4. Multiple uses
What if I told you, you can use cloth diapers in multiple ways?
You can use them for your future babies, donate or sell them at a good price, use the outer PUL of pockets as a swim diaper or training pants, and really really worn out dipes? Use the outer material as a bib and the inner as wiping cloth 🙂

5. Convenience
A couple of days after I was discharged from the hospital post partum, I was still getting used to the myriad of emotions, laundry and smells a baby generates. We had 3 bins in my room at that time- one for langots, one for disposables and one for her clothes. I wish now, that I hadnt complicated our lives so much. Forget the smell, I could have done away with 2 bins if I had exclusively cloth diapered.
How many times have you been stumped in the middle of the night thanks to no diapers? That will never happen with CDs.
Coming to the most important point- maintenance. Are cloth diapers really easy to maintain? No and yes. There is a small learning curve. There is no remove and toss. There is a remove, rinse and toss. But then, that is about it. We run baby Vs diaper laundry along with all our other clothes. And everything is fresh and rosy after a sun dry.

6. Bonus
Unfortunately, the number of cloth diapering moms in India is still quite low owing to awareness issues. Cloth diapering connected us CDing moms and we formed a close and elite sisterhood of sorts. This mommy group has now grown to become my sounding board for just about everything. Who says no to friends like these right?