This post is part of the Cloth Diapering Bloggers and Dirty Diaper Laundry hosted Cloth Diaper Carnival that is held every month. Many bloggers get together and write about the same topic. This month is “Where did you first hear about/ see cloth diapers?”
July 20, 2008. I have an entry in my pregnancy journal titled “Cloth Diapers.” I was 21 Weeks pregnant, and I was already stoked about cloth diapering. Lame? Maybe…. I had already been researching for a few weeks at that point. I know that I first saw cloth diapers online. I don’t recall which, but it was on a pregnancy forum I was sort of stalking. I never participated, but I checked the different forums. There may have been a board dedicated to cloth diapers on it, or someone mentioned them. I was pregnant and had the memory of an ant.
When I saw them the idea immediately clicked in my head. While I never considered that there was an alternative, I never even thought about diapers. Looking back, I find that odd. I never considered the disposable ones, or diaper genies, or throwing trash bags of garbage away. The moment I saw that there were modern cloth diapers I began frantically researching.
I googled price comparisons, brands, types, how to wash, what to do with the poop. Everything. I also joined a cloth diapering forum on Justmommies.com and started picking the brains of women there. I later joined Diaperswappers to buy used diapers and save money, but that was much later in my pregnancy. I wanted ammo when I broached the subject with my husband. I knew this was going to be one hell of a conversation.
“Honey… I want to use cloth diapers. And wash them. But don’t worry, I am breastfeeding and the poop goes in the washer, so you don’t have to dump it out. And it will save us a lot of money.”
“You want to put what in the washer? Poop!?”
I know my husband never gave diapers much thought while I was pregnant either, and he had never changed one in his entire life. That was my leverage. He didn’t know the difference! I researched the many cloth diaper websites for the easiest, Daddy Friendly Brands. I decided velcro was it, and wanted Bum Genius 3.0’s for my stash, along with some prefolds and Thirsties XS for the newborn stage.
Convincing my husband was not easy. My ammo was the cost savings and the fact that I would be doing all of the laundry. After some convincing, he agreed. The rest is history.
I think, what if I never saw cloth diapers online? I would NEVER have known. I don’t see mothers changing cloth diapers at the changing station. I never see babies running around in cloth diapers. I don’t see billboards or commercials about them like I do for disposables. Cloth diapers have a huge online community but how people stumble upon cloth diapers is still predominately online. I have talked to moms in person and I try to bring them up in conversations. I have converted a few people, and that is great. I know there are a few people working on starting a Real Diaper Association Circle in my area, which would hopefully work on spreading the word locally.
For me, just like breastfeeding in public, I like to cloth diaper in public. I like to pull out my diapers from my bag before I change him. I just take a diaper, wet bag, and wipes to the room, and leave my bag at the table or whereever. Or, in the warmer climates I let him run around in a diaper and T shirt or put him in babylegs.
Hopefully my son in cloth diapers will trigger something in someone else, and they will be able to say that I was the first person they saw with cloth diapers.
If you are participating in the carnival, please leave a link to your post below. You also need to put that you are entering the carnival at the top of your post, like I did, with links back to CDB and DDL. Here is the code for your post. (I have had comments already that the code isn’t working. UGH. I am emailing you, so if it doesn’t work email me. kdrosas at gamil dot com.)
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