On cloth diapering help:

Occasionally, I'm asked to help someone make the switch from disposable to cloth diapers. I love this. Cloth diapering is the right thing to do in every single way. In this age of landfill shortages, we can't afford more trash than absolutely necessary. In this age of scary chemicals, we must be more vigilant than ever of what we expose our children to. In these economic times, it's important to do anything we can to save money. Cloth diapering is the right answer for most families, so I'm thrilled whenever anyone wants to try it.

However, I find that some people seem to think I can work miracles, and make their transition seamless, so I think it's important to clarify what I can and cannot do.

I CAN:
-Tell you about every type of cloth diapers out there.
-Suggest brands I have found to be good quality.
-Loan you diapers from my personal stash to get you started.
-Help solve your laundry problems.
-Be an emergency source of cloth diaper safe detergent when the mailman runs late and you're out of dipes.
-Teach you how to fold a prefold.
-Give you about a thousand viable ways to cure diaper rash without killing your cloth diapers.
-Help get your husband on board with it. (OK, really, you want Thak for that. He's GOOD at convincing other dads that cloth is great.)

I CANNOT:
-Tell you what you are going to like. Everyone's preference is different.
-Make cheap cotton prefolds act like Huggies. They are different, and you and your baby will have to get used to it. I can't do anything about that.
-Make the learning curve instantaneous. Like anything else, you're going to have to experiment, learn, and fall on your face a few times just like the rest of us. I can help you learn faster, but I cannot eliminate the process entirely.
-Fit a chunky baby. I wish I could, but have you seen my beanpole son? All my experience is with tall skinny babies.
-Magically make a one-size diaper or cover fit a tiny newborn. Yes, they fit Orren from birth. Orren was over 9 pounds. The diapers are rated for 8-35 pounds. They won't fit a 4 pounder, and I really can't do anything about that.


I'm always really happy to help anyone who's wanting to cloth diaper. Don't get me wrong. I just get the feeling that people want me to make it this seamless transition for them, and to be able to make it something that it isn't, and magically solve problems that everyone has to face for themselves. It's not like that. It wasn't like that for me, and it will not be like that for anyone.

Some may not know this, but this is how I got into cloth diapering. There was a blog I read during Thak's 3rd deployment (I still read it, actually, just less frequently now) that's written by a wife whose husband was in the same brigade as Thak at that time (and same battalion as our friend Diaz). Well, she was cloth diapering her 7th baby at that point in time, and wrote a nice little tutorial, complete with photos, on how to use prefolds! Cool! She also gave a link to the Green Mountain Diapers website. That was the big one for me. I had tried to switch to cloth with Erin, but all I had was what I could get at Hinesville Wal Mart, which amounted to flats and the worst fitting plastic pants on the planet. They didn't even have any diaper pins, so I used the pins from ammo cans instead. It wasn't good. So basically, just to know where to get diaper service quality prefolds that actually work, was a big step in the right direction. Knowing how to fold one was even better!

After that, I knew it was feasible, and figured we'd go for it since frankly, I've always found disposables pretty disgusting on an ethical level. I knew Thak wouldn't be so easily swayed, so I researched a lot. I googled "high quality cloth diapers", and the first site that came up was Cottonbabies.com. There, I learned about Bum Genius. That looked like a good selling point for Thak. I also learned about other pocket diapers, but they were so expensive compared to the BG's. I thought the BG's were the way to go, so the next time Thak called me from south of Baghdad, I asked him what he thought of cloth diapering. He thought it was nuts. I asked him to look at the BG's, and emailed him a link. When he got back to his room after we got off the phone, he checked his email, liked what he saw, and messaged me that as long as he only ever had to change THOSE types of cloth diapers, he was 100% on board. Awesome.

I still had a little more research to do, so I searched for some online message boards about cloth diapering, and found a few. I wanted to know if BG's were the way to go, or if the more expensive brands were actually worth the money. There, I ran into this one Captain's wife I knew from a former unit, who happened to be cloth diapering her third baby (first in cloth) at that point, said that she loves BG's for her daughter, who's on the thin side, and that since me and Thak are the same height and weight as she and her husband, our baby will probably be similarly built to theirs (plus, she'd known Erin as a toddler, and knew that Erin wasn't very fat as a baby either) so by that, we'd probably have great success with BG's, so there was no need to buy the $32/ea diapers because the $17/ea ones would do us fine. With that, I took the plunge and ordered a dozen. That purchase, I have never once regretted. Future purchases included 5 dozen prefolds (various sizes), a few fitteds, and necessary covers. We've never bought a diaper that didn't work out for us, which leads me to believe that either Orren is very easy to fit, or that it's possible to make it work, no matter what, maybe both.

The bottom line is that I never expected anyone to make this a seamless transition for me. I liked being able to ask people who were familiar with the brands, what they thought of each brand I was considering, and if certain ones were worth the money or not, and stuff like that. I also liked seeing a photo tutorial of the holy grail of cloth diapering, the prefold. These things were enough to give me enough confidence to jump in and cloth diaper my son. I was not always great at it, and we have faced issues such as repelling, stinky inserts, awkward fit during growth spurts, bacterial rashes (easy to solve with a little bleach and sun, and prevent by not overloading the washing machine, I learned through trial and error), and probably some stuff I'm forgetting. We've just dealt with it, though. We're cloth diapering parents. We're not afraid of a little trial and error, and somehow, it's just always worked out. We're not geniuses or the holders of some great key to unconditional success. We're just parents who have made it work. We can surely give the benefit of our experience, but ultimately, people have to solve their own problems just as we have. It's really not so bad. I promise.