Adventures in Cloth Diapering

Seems like every five days or so, whether I wanted to or not, I found myself in the diaper aisle at Target to buy the only disposable earth-friendly, chlorine-free diaper that doesn't leak on my toddler. I plunk down roughly $10 a pop. So the math is:

Every 5 days at the store = 6 times a month.
6 x $10= $60 a month.
$60 a month for roughly 30 months= $1800

Not including any unforseen need for night time Pull-Ups or regression that is a huge chunk of change.

Common sense tells me that money could better be spent on other things. Plus, the earth would really love it if I stopped filling it's landfills. So I jumped on the cloth diaper bandwagon along with many of my friend and other crunchy mom aquaintances.

So today was my first experience with the cloth diaper. Noah didn't seem to mind it at all. I used a Thirsties cover along with a bleach free prefolds. I was really excited...until he pooped. Crap! (pun intended)

It happened to leak out of the cloth and onto the diaper cover so I removed the whole thing and put him back in a disposable until I could wash everything. I only bought one diaper cover to start, and within 15 minutes it was a goner.

So now came the messy part, removing the "solid" waste from the cloth. I shook it over the potty, only to leave myself a huge mess to clean up. "Okay, first time is always hardest. It will get easier," I tell my bystander husband who is watching me, waiting for the smallest indication that this change from disposables to cloth is a bad move. I carefully walk the soiled pile to the washer, throw in some handy dandy Soap Nuts and soak everything in cold for 15 minutes before washing.

When all was said and done I survived my first poopy cloth diaper experience and I don't have any urge to run back to Target and buy disposables. Yay!

Now where are my birkenstocks?