Cloth Diapering, most of the time.

Well folks, here I am again. Boy, it has been a while, hasn't it? I have had several posts on issues of vital and timely interest in the works. But by the time that I get to them, they are neither timely nor relevant. Bah.

Babies. They take up a lot of time. Especially when they are sick and/or have been growth spurting.

Anyhow, one of the aspects of having Thomas as a baby that I have really enjoyed is cloth diapering. In several of my other posts, I have mentioned that I was going to use the Gro Baby system. I got a couple of the diapers and inserts, and then decided to just take the plunge and buy the whole system. Even though I hate doing laundry, and cloth diapers definitely increase the frequency of laundry, I like using them.

There are several reasons that we started cloth diapering Thomas, even though we didn't for Jonathan. The primary one was cost. When I ordered the Gro Baby system, both kids were in diapers, though Jonathan basically potty trained about a week later. But I had ordered disposables for both and spent nearly $120 at one time. So, I realized that the cloth would definitely be cheaper.

The second reason was that Thomas had a bit of a rash that was unresponsive to treatment. And it occurred to me that maybe he was having a reaction to the disposables. One more reason to try cloth.

And the third reason was that I wanted to say that I had tried it. You know, just to see if I could.

So, we have been cloth diapering since the middle/end of July and have been very happy.

I chose Gro Baby because they are a "one size" diaper, with snaps to increase or decrease the rise of the diaper as your baby grows, or to accommodate a booster pad. I also liked the "all in two" aspect of the Gro Baby system. And all in two system has an outer part, in this case the Gro Baby shell, and an inner part, the soaker pad. The Gro Baby system is unique in that the entire outer portion is mesh/PUL so that it is waterproof (mostly...it isn't plastic, so that it is a bit permeable) and dries VERY quickly. The entire soaker snaps out and can be tossed in the laundry. You don't have to wash the shell every time. I go through about eight soakers and three shells a day. You just rotate the shells and they dry out between changes. I thought this would be smelly, but it really isn't.

There ARE more leaks at night, or, more accurately, in the early morning hours, depending on how much he has nursed. The leaks are mitigated somewhat if I close the diaper differently. Still experimenting with this.

They diapers wash beautifully. I have had no problems with smells at all. There are a few stains, but those do come out better if you can put the wet diapers in the sun. The rash that he seemed to have is mostly cleared up, and he seems to react well to the cloth.

And they are pretty darn cute.




However, when we went away on vacation at the beginning of September, we just took disposables. Too much to deal with when away for a week. And disposable work well. But Thomas' rash came back. Phooey. Took a week for it to clear up when we got back to the cloth at home.

But now, NOW, Gro Baby has come up with new "disposable" inserts, called Bio Soakers. They are similar to the cloth soakers, though they have sticky tabs instead of snaps to insert the Bio Soakers into the shells. I would LOVE to try these.

Conveniently, Gro Baby is having a blog contest and will give away, FOR FREE, a set of the Bio Soakers to try for free. This is my attempt to win one of those packages. Hey Gro Baby, if you are listening, please send me a package to try!