I didn’t consider using cloth because I had a strong conviction about all the diapers in the landfill, nor because I thought that the possible health consequences of disposables, but because my neighbor (we had just become friends) used them, and I wanted her to like me.  Truthfully, right around that time, I was starting to be interested in being environmentally conscious, but the deciding factor wasn’t that - it was that L and I would have just a little more in common.

My husband is a rather frugal guy.  He’s starting to wear off on me, and I’m starting to be able to admit that I will try anything for about two weeks… but I will usually quit after that amount of time.  So when I said that I wanted to try cloth diapering, he pretty much told me that it wasn’t going to happen.  He thought that we would spend a lot of money, and I would quit far before we got our money’s worth.  We had an agreement - L would lend me 6 Indian Cotton prefolds, and I would buy 2 covers and 6 fleece liners.  We spent as much on the covers and fleece (and shipping!  Oy vey!) as we would have spent on a box of diapers so we had to cloth diaper as long as that box would have lasted - one month.  And by we, I mean me, because lets face it - Rob is NOT a fan of prefolds.

So we started with my itty bitty stash.  It grew quite quickly, considering that was back in April.  Two months later, we have a considerable stash going on.  We still use the 6 prefolds (most of them have been embellished by me now), 4 covers, 5 pocket diapers, 1 AIO, 3 fitted diapers, and 1 fleece soaker.  I also have 3 more fitted diapers on the way to me, and we’re now branching out into cloth wipes!

My friendship with L has grown quite a bit as well.  It’s not all about the diapers for us, but being able to identify with each other with the highs and lows of cloth is definitely a plus.

Tags: covers, prefolds, starting out, stash