I would probably hesitate to say that cloth diapers are ENTIRELY leak-proof.  I mean, I doubt anything is leak-proof, if you want to get right down to it.  Plus, if you leave a diaper on long enough, it doesn’t matter what the heck it is made of or how many gussets it has.  It will leak.  That’s just physics, yo.

But in the couple months (has it only been that long) that I’ve been using cloth diapers, I’ve noticed one giant benefit:  There have been virtually NO LEAKS.

There’s been the odd leak here and there.  Mostly urine and mostly when she’s wearing a prefold trifolded into a prorap cover.  And most of those leaks have been fairly recently, as she’s been outgrowing her prefolds and covers at an alarming rate (hello, chunky baby!).  She pretty much NEVER has a leak while wearing her pocket diapers (right now: BumGenius and Rumparooz).

But I’m leaving out the most important aspect of all of this: NO POOP EXPLOSIONS!  Now, Evie only wore disposables for the first six weeks or so of her life.  But in that time, we learned that with her rather infrequent pooping schedule, poop explosions were pretty much unavoidable.  She would output a day’s worth of… poop and well, no disposable known to man could possibly contain it all.  Truthfully, I wondered at the time if any cloth diaper could contain it as well.

The prefolds in the cover are pretty good, to be honest.  We might get a little seepage around the legs, but nothing shooting up the back our out the front or sides so far.  The BumGenius just laugh at the audacity of this poop that would like to explode out.  “Not so fast,” they say.  And the Rumparooz double leg gussets have never failed to contain whatever is tossed their way.  Ever.

Now, there are some extenuating circumstances here.  I am pretty quick on the diaper changes, something that I’ve gotten even better at since she’s been in cloth.  I find I’m a lot more attuned to such things now.  Also, her poop has not met the worthy adversary that is the exersaucer.  If anything can compress a diaper, it’s an exersaucer.

But in the meantime, I’m pretty impressed.  This is something I wasn’t expecting from cloth diapers.  Not that I’m complaining, mind you.  But definitely a fantastic side benefit to cloth diapering.

Is my experience a common one?  Or am I just lucky?

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.

Kait is elbow deep in the great HD situation of 2008 and frankly I feel for her.  There is nothing like diarrhea, or diaper rash or both to make you re assess the cloth diapering decision.  Both my boys have extremely sensitive skin and apparently extremely acidic poop.   If left unchanged (yes this has happened *sigh* remember to carefully screen your babysitters and not base them on recommendations of friends without children…cats are not the same as babies) in a poopy diaper, they can break out in a red angry rash that cracks and bleeds (they also have eczema) it’s awesome.  During these crisis’s I often turn to disposable diapers and their wicking powers.

In cloth diapering like other areas of my life I have learned to go with what works, and that beating my head against the wall often results in headaches. If my children are uncomfortable or in pain I will do what it takes to make that pain go away even if it means using disposable diapers until the problem is resolved.

I think we too often get caught up in comparing ourselves to others, some pride themselves on being different then everybody else, some pride themselves on being the same.  Either way it sometimes feel like a competition.

No other arena is quite as competitive as the ‘good mother game’. I use cloth diapers, I make all my own baby food, I make my own bread, I doing laundry in the creek with handmade soap and rocks I’ve carried there myself.   You get the point.

When I start to feel myself caught up in am I as good as you, or is my kid as advanced/verbal/coordinated as our kid. I take a step back. And spend a day playing and try to re focus.  It can be hard to do. Much like letting go of things.

I like to make my own bread. But my four year old doesn’t like to eat it.  He won’t eat it.  And I can try and try to make a ‘peanut nutter sanwich’ with homemade bread, but really why keep forcing the issue when his will is as strong as mine? Apparently.

Which brings us to the point (thanks for hanging in there with me).  I recently gave up on prefolds. I love the idea of prefolds. Both Kait and Leah have show me fabulous ways to use receiving blankets as prefolds. How thrifty! I love it! I want to do it.

Leah lent me some covers and I spent three weeks trying to use prefolds. And my two year old spent three weeks ticked off.  I used pins, I used snappys. He cried “Take off!!” He yelled.  I used prefolds in covers, I used prefolds in the fuzzi buns covers. He cried. He raged. He walked like he had been riding trail for two weeks.  Seriously.

Leah was called in to consult. She diapered him. He cried, he raged, he walked bowlegged around the house…”Help me” he cried piteously.  It was pathetic.

Leah and I looked at each other and shrugged.  She had had problems with prefolds with her son as well. Her daughter was a breeze, we briefly wondered if boy parts were irritated or aggravated by the snappy’s (she ultimately ended up pinning with him).

Long ago when I worked I led groups and I said things like “the definition of crazy is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results”.  I finally took my own advice this weekend and gave leah back her prefolds and covers. I returned my receiving blankets to may stash of flannel ready to be made into quilts, dolls, pants…

My son’s cloth diapered bottom will be covered in fuzzibuns from now on,  and his mama’s hair will probably grow back.

One of my latest CD purchases arrived in the mail this week. May I present our Swaddlebees diaper cover in all it’s glory:

So far I like it. It’s a little big, but that’s great because Nicky’s bumGenius diapers are almost too small. I’ve been using a Snappi to hold the pre-folds in place under the cover. I know this isn’t necessary, but I prefer to secure the diaper because they start sagging really bad when ‘accidents’ happen. My only complaint with Swaddlebees so far is that they don’t have gussets. There’s a lot more potential for poo to escape, but so far, we’ve been solid and A-OK. Also, it was pretty expensive so probably won’t buy more covers from this manufacturer.

I have a really hard time using prefolds on Nicky because I can’t keep him on his back long enough to fold the diaper, secure it, and put the cover on. A lot of extra effort goes into using prefolds at my house. I wish I could use them more because I like being able to only replace the prefold and re-use the cover. It makes me feel like I’m not wasting a clean diaper.

This morning, while trying to get the diaper on Nicky, I suffered a Snappi injury. Man, the teeth on those things are vicious. They went right into my thumb and literally removed a chunk of flesh. I almost took a picture for you, but it was pretty gross. You may thank me for sparing you.