Oh, The Things You’ll Do To Get Dad On Board

Talking my better half Tim into cloth diapers, proved to be equal parts difficult and easy. He is the first one to stand up and save money but I think the up front cost scared him a little bit; maybe in the end he was just stringing me along to make sure it was something I really wanted and not just because my friends were doing it.

Before Stella was born I had already had toyed with the notion of cloth diapers but the deal was sealed for me when I watched my good friend and sister-in-law slip into it with grace, promised savings, and had only good things to say. Now it was time to get to work on Tim and I didn’t waste anytime.

My approach was tons and tons of research, comparison, and pricing and it seemed to do the trick; I almost became obsessive there for a second, honestly there is so much information out there it sends you for a little whirlwind at first. Thankfully with cloth diapering being such a rising trend the information and tips are becoming a lot more organized and clear.

Once I had my list of what I wanted and what our up front cost would be Tim and I started negotiating. I even came prepared with a spread sheet of savings when it came to cloth vs. disposables, I had found via googling ‘cloth diapering blogs’. 

I knew this is what I wanted for our family and I planned on being persistent to get what I wanted; I even followed Tim into the bathroom while he was showering once to shout savings figures at him, ‘can you believe that the average baby costs almost $2,000 to diaper and we could be doing it for only $400 or less?’ He was less that thrilled at this maneuver but it was later that night that we made our first purchase from Kelly’s Closet and our first set of bum genius and Flip diapers were on it’s way. We compromised to stay minimal at first, to make sure it was something we could commit to, can you believe that we didn’t even buy a diaper sprayer till Stella was almost one year old? I was just happy to be cloth diapering that I could overlook having to scrap and slush diapers in the toilet for the time being. We also skipped any sort of special pail and use a five gallon home depot bucket coupled with a hand-me-down pail liner form another cd’ing friend; you would be amazed at how well it contains any odor.

Today we are almost exclusively FuzziBunz as we have had to adapt to our changing little lady and these have worked best for us; Tim doesn’t even question me anymore and has never put up a fight to changing a cloth diaper. When money is tight I look to Craigslist.org or diaper swappers to add to our stash since the $19 price tag can be overwhelming at times.

Since we became a all cloth house many friends of our have followed suit in most part due to my convincing. I think so many people are still wrapped up in flats, pins, and plastic pants they can’t see the benefits of what cloth diapering has to offer. Having done so many late nights of cloth diaper info surfing I come ready to answer any of their questions!

Written by Melissa D.:
Melissa is a young mother of three girls zoe(7), rowan(3), and stella(1), cloth diapering for the first time and am head over heels for the money we are saving! I write a mommy blog at hibabyblog.com, am going to school to be a radiology tech, and photograph my way through the day till bedtime just to do it all again tomorrow.