Diapers - Part 1

So now that I got our catch up post up I wanted to post about my latest obsession. You might have heard the rumors... I'm obsessed with Diapers! I know what you're thinking, how could one possibily be obsessed with diapers, they hold pee and poo and they just not that interesting, right? Wrong! :-) First I should clarify, I'm talking about cloth diapers. And throw away that preconcieved picture in your head of the cloth diapers that our parents used (that I use for burp cloths), the new cloth diapers look like disposables, use velcro, and come in cool colors and patterns! Yep, I'm obsessed; I probably need to join Cloth Diapers Anonyomous!

Background
I think the first time Russ and I started talking about using cloth diapers was early on in our pregnancy. Towards the end of my first trimester we visited our friends who had just had their first baby and we're happily using cloth diapers from a diaper service.

Diaper Service
Our cloth diaper friends raved about the diapers, showed us how you don't have to use pins anymore because of the snappi (a 3 point, stretchy thing with teeth to grip the diaper, see pic).

The cost of the diaper service was comparable to disposables (maybe even a little cheaper) and the service dropped off clean diapers and picked up the dirty ones every week. This was probably our first introduction into modern CD'ing - that's short for cloth diapering - see I told you I was obsessed :-)

Russ and I were intriqued! We loved the idea of not using disposables and not creating all that trash. But the more we thought about it the more we realized it might not work for us. Since I was going back to work and Megan was going into daycare, we would have to do a combo of cloth and disposables (the daycares we found won't use cloth). Since the cost of the diaper service is the same no matter how many diapers you use, we'd be spending more money to do cloth (because we'd have to buy disposables for daycare). We were still intriqued and really interested in CD'ing but we're unsure how to make it work for us.

Cloth Diapers with no service
Next we were visiting with some other friends of ours, who also CD. The difference was they bought their own diapers and wash them themselves! Wow, huh? I remember being totally impressed! And they also both work and their son was in daycare, using disposables there and cloth at home. At the time (I was probably about 6 months pregnant or so) we just weren't committed enough for that. We weren't really up for washing diapers ourselves.

gDiapers
I think I read about gdiapers for the first time on a message board, or maybe it was on cnn.com saying how Julie Roberts loves them (yeah I know I shouldn't do things just because hollywood stars do...). gDiapers are a cross betweeb disposables and cloth; they are a cloth outer with a snap in waterproof liner that you stuff a flushable insert into. Confused yet? Here's a pic that maybe helps.

The insert part (the part that absorbs the pee and poo) is flushable so after each diaper change you tear it down the sides (to let the absorbant middle out so it doesn't bunch up and clog your tiolet) and flush the whole thing down the tiolet. You only need to wash the cloth covers and the snap in liners when they get dirty.

Eureka! Russ and I were sold that gDiapers were the answer! Of course we have since changed our minds... but at the time we thought these were the perfect solution! Easier than cloth diapers we'd have to wash (no washing diapers) and good for the environment - no garbage created, the disposable part just flushes down the tiolet and is biodegradeable! We purchased a couple starter kits at Whole Foods and some extra flushable refills for when Baby Denny (now known as Megan!) arrived.

Stay tuned for more! Next post I'll talk about when we started gDiapers, how they worked and what we've moved onto since then...