Neil Diamond knows best, for the Monkees and for me.

I thought it was time for a cloth diaper update. You know, for all of our Internet stalkers. (Only kidding and by that I mean we WISH we had stalkers.) I'll put it in the words of Neil; "I'm in love, I'm a believer." I have seriously been converted into a cloth diaper obsessive compulsive freak. If you don't believe me just ask my husband (the Turtle).




We have not had any blowouts or leaks with these diapers and so far I've found they don't make #1 sleep any worse than putting a 12 hour Pampers Baby Dry diaper on her. She can absolutely make it 12 hours in a cloth diaper that I double the inserts in. The one thing I did do is beg the Turtle to get me a hybrid diaper as a Mother's Day gift. It doesn't really bother me to go out with the FuzziBunz pocket diapers. If there's a dirty diaper I just bag it up like I would a wet diaper and take it home and rinse it later. No big deal. But I do take #1 to the gym a good bit during the week and this child loves to do it up right in the car on the way over. Doesn't matter if she just had the biggest dirty diaper on the planet before we leave. So I got a GroVia Hybrid One Size diaper cover and some chlorine-free biodegradable inserts that you just stick inside. When the diaper needs to be changed you just unstick the insert, put another one in and throw it away. (I feel better knowing this insert will actually biodegrade by the end of this year....unlike a regular disposable diaper.) I just wash the diaper cover with all the other diapers when I do a load. Perfect. You can also get some snap in cotton inserts for these as well (which I plan on getting).

GroVia



I can absolutely tell a difference in the amount of trash our household produces. It is significantly less and that makes me happy. I do not mind the extra laundry load every other day for the diapers. (If you have more diapers then you don't have to do it as often but I only have 12.) Also, my wet bag has never smelled as bad as my diaper pail. Not even close. The Turtle has not had any trouble transitioning and he also prefers cloth to disposables as well. He even went with me to a hippie event. We participated in The Great Cloth Diaper Change around Earth Day. It was interesting to say the least. I'll save that story for another day.

I know Neil intended for the secret meaning of these lyrics to be: "Cloth rules and disposables drool Housewife. Be a believer."

PS- I seem to have a iMac handicap so humor me and click on the links until the Single Gal can tutor me in her wizard ways of making photo magic happen on this blog. I'm 50/50 in this department.

She's got them apple bottom jeans...

Or are they diapers? I have to shout out probably my favorite blogger MODG for being the cause of my recent revolution. Revolution you say? Yes, a revolution. I suppose it's only fitting that it's Earth Month due to Earth Day on April 22nd. I have decided to move from disposable diapers to cloth diapers for #1. I did not take this decision lightly. I read a post MODG wrote about using cloth diapers on her little man and I started my own research. By research I mean scouring the internet about cloth diapers until my eyes hurt........I even had dreams about cloth diapers. Once that was done the next task was convincing the Turtle. Cloth diapers are a bit of an investment up front because you really need at least 12 so you can get through an entire day and that's also probably washing the load everyday. The Turtle didn't give me any problems and immediately said, "Ok. Let's do it." I told him I still wasn't sure and anyone who knows me knows I really can't pull the trigger easily on large purchases. 


Soooooo I researched more and more until Turtle said just get them. There you have it. I ordered 12 FuzziBunz and could not contain myself until they arrived at my house late yesterday. Supposedly Tori Spelling used these too and that means they have to be fantastic, right? You do have to sit down and size the elastic in the legs because these diapers are "one size" which means that you can use them from 7 lbs-30 lbs (essentially until you potty train your child). 

Did you know around 18 billion diapers are dumped in a landfill every year? That's just one year. You don't want to know how long it takes one to biodegrade. No, I don't expect everyone to cloth diaper their kids. Since I'm a Housewife now I have time to devote to this and most daycares probably don't support cloth diapering in their facilities. So in an effort to reduce my trash (and smelly diapers sitting in the hot southern sun while I wait on my trash pick up each week) I have chosen to go green cloth. Today starts the trials and tribulations of the cloth diaper challenge. What do you do with the poop you might ask? It goes where yours goes, in the toilet, where it should be. You can pick up this handy dandy sprayer to assist you with this task. Then you just toss the insert and the diaper into a wet pail and just dump and wash.


Yes, they are a little bulkier than a disposable diaper but so far I have not had any trouble with a onsie fitting over it. I did order the "gender neutral" 12 pack of colors which was not my first choice. But let me tell you how this would play out should I have ordered the "girl" colors package.....when we have #2 it would be a boy for sure. Now that I've ordered the neutral colors #2 will most definitely be a girl. How's that for gender prediction? 

If you need me I'll be packing up my things so I can move to California or Colorado. Where all good hippies belong. But don't worry......I'm not starting a compost pile in the backyard.