Cloth Diapering... The first of many installments

One of the things I have been wanting to talk about on the blog for a long time is cloth diapering. This is definitely geared toward women who are mommies or those about to become mommies, but to be truthful I learned how to cloth diaper way before kids were even on my radar. In fact, knowing about (and having experience with) cloth diapers before I was a mom is where my enthusiasm for cloth diapering came from!

Before I get too deep into the cloth diapering topic though, I'd love to know... Where do you stand with cloth diapers? Have you used them? Do you love them? Do you hate them? Are you the type of person that thinks, I could never do that! ?

No matter what type of person you are, I would love to share my personal experience with cloth diapers. I hope that I can answer questions you have and just introduce you to these concepts (if you don't already use them or have decided against them)... and maybe at the very least when asked by a friend, "How do I find out about cloth diapers?" You can direct them here.

So let me share my very first experience with cloth diapers. I have been baby-sitting for a family I know (first in their home, now in mine) for three years now and when I first started with them they used disposable diapers for the first month or two. I loved taking care of this nine month old baby! (I still love taking care of her now as a toddler:) ) Then one morning I came to work and the mom tells me they are trying out cloth diapers to see how they like them since it could save them so much money. She demonstrated how to do one (it didn't look too difficult to me) but assured me that if it proved to be too complicated I was welcome to continue using disposables.

Enter the first wet diaper and my need to change little girl's diaper... I quickly realized that this was more complicated than it looks! I had NO idea what I was doing. There sat a stack of disposable diapers next to me and I remember thinking to myself, "I can't use all of these disposable diapers, they're doing this to save money! I can't be the babysitter that causes them to have to buy tons of diapers all the time. I'm going to figure this out."

In spite of the fact that the parents are very laid back- they would never be upset with me if I thought this was too difficult- I was determined.

I don't remember if I used a disposable or managed to get the cloth on somehow, but during the baby's nap I got on the family's laptop and Googled "how to use cloth diapers" and found this website. I watched every video there and read every piece of information I could find on how to use cloth diapers. There were diagrams of how to fold cloth diapers and even videos on how to use snappi's. (These are what you use now instead of diaper pins- unless you want to use diaper pins!)

When baby girl woke up from her nap she laid patiently on the changing table while I tried all the different methods of folding pre-fold diapers (I will explain all the different types of diapers in another post) until I found a method that worked. It was nice that she was an accommodating baby who laid still for ever diaper change practically her whole diapered life. (I know that is rare.)

And even though I didn't do it exactly the same way the mom had shown me that morning, when the parents came home I was proudly able to tell them I had done fine with the whole cloth diaper thing. Their baby-sitter was not a reason that cloth diapers wouldn't work. I had accomplished my mission. :)

And that is my first experience with cloth diapers. It was a good experience (I felt a little like a Super Nanny), but it also wasn't necessarily a personal choice. My first experience with cloth was a service to someone else, so I'm sure that made a big difference in my attitude about them (in a good way).

So tell me, do you have a first or funny experience with cloth diapers? And don't forget to give me your opinion on cloth diapering!

*Green Mountain diapers has in no way given me compensation for bragging about them in this post. In fact, I have paid outright for ALL my baby's diapers from there since before she was born. :)