Cloth Diapers?
Are You Kidding?
by Susan Dodge-Doak

Those were my exact words when my husband first asked me if we were going to choose cloth or disposable diapers shortly after my daughter Madeline was born.

It went something like this:

"So why aren't we using cloth diapers?"

"Cloth diapers? Are you kidding? Do you really want to stick your hands in the toilet with a messy poopy diaper to start flushing away, all the while the baby is screaming in your arms or in her room on the changing table? Do you really want to stick the baby with pins and deal with all that extra hassle and expense of a diaper service when we already have to deal with breastfeeding, colic, and a five million other things that inevitably occur throughout the day of a newborn? Let someone else worry about the environment, I have to keep my sanity! Unless, of course, you will take over all the diapering duties..."

"Ok, I see your point."

          I have always been sensitive to unpleasant sights and smells. I don't like to take out the garbage, I don't like to clean the toilets. Don't even get me started on sticky car ash trays. I am quite lucky that my husband performs these unsavory duties most of the time, as they do not bother him. The thought of having to rinse a poopy diaper in the toilet, something I do not like to touch with anything but my ample derrier when nature calls, repulses me to no end. That alone convinced me early on, while expecting my daughter Madeline, that cloth diapering was not for me. Heck, I didn't see how it could be tolerated by anyone, in their right mind of course. Pins and diaper dunking? I simply couldn't imagine a worse fate.

          Enter the internet, or as my husband likes to call it, "the other man in our life". At around 10 months of age, when my daughter was now much easier to deal with as colic and other problems became a thing of the past, I decided to research cloth diapering a little. This was initiated when my curiosity was piqued after reading a little from some cloth diapering mothers on an Attachment Parenting bulletin board at a web site I frequented. How could so many people be so wrong, I wondered? They even had the nerve to mention AIO diapers or "All-In-Ones" that could be used exactly as disposables. Use it and lose it! Or more accurately, use it and wash it. What on Earth?

          I started browsing some of the more informative cloth diapering sites on the web, I quickly learned not only how much easier cloth diapers are to use and care for these days, but how attractive and diverse they are. There were not only all-in-ones, but contours, fitteds, prefolds and much more. They even came with no-pin options like velcro and plastic (never hot or cold) snaps. And to my surprise as I kept reading, my heart started pounding. While not all mothers (or women for that matter) love to shop, I must admit one of my greater weaknesses. This was definitely a perk. But the more I read about the chemicals in disposables, the mammoth environmental costs for the sake of supposed "convenience" (Have you ever changed a "Diaper Genie^®"? That alone was almost enough motivation to make me want to quit disposables), and the huge amount of my money that was unecessarily going to "waste" in landfills everywhere, and the superior comfort of cotton, the more convinced I was that disposables had absolutely no place in my home.

          The experimenting began. I had to try them all! I wonder what my daughter thought when she soon discovered that her bum had become my greatest past time (it still is). We finally settled on a "perfect system", only to completely change months later. The road has been a long and fun one, but the best part about it is that I now know more about cloth diapering than anyone I know (and probably more than any one person ever should). But certain things kept nagging away at me, perfectionist that I am. Why couldn't my terry diapers be trimmer? Why couldn't my favorite flannel diapers come with snaps? Why didn't anyone make a twill diaper that was fitted? Why isn't my favorite diaper cover made of a breathable fabric? Why couldn't these incredible products be just a little, well, better?