Adventures of a Newbie

I am a SAHM of 4 dirty little boys! They are my world, but some days "WOW" is the only description of the day! There are days that a shower isnt happening let alone doing a load of wash, but as I sit and listen to the dirty little buggers while I write this, it makes me laugh.

Live, Love, and Laugh- a great motto for parenting. I teach my boys to live, I teach them to love, and I teach my boys to laugh. In order to teach them to live we, as parents, need to experience life. Sometimes as trivial as trying a new recipe to as important as buying a house. To teach them to love, we need to love them as much as they deserve. To teach them to laugh we need to bond with them.

We teach our children with everything we do. Lead by example. That example could be helping a friend or helping future generations. We are destroying our world with all of our waste. That is not a lesson I want to teach my boys. I never really gave it much thought until I started researching Cloth diapering. That was when the statistics became a little more real. It was appalling, but I thought I could not afford to cloth diaper. But low and behold......

I was able to jump into the world of cloth in July of 2009. I wanted to use cloth back when #4 was born, but the start cost was so overwhelming ($400 for 1 child.) I had an 18 month old and a newborn. So, 2 times $400= Not gonna happen.

July 2009, I was at a church flea market. #4 was in a mei tai on my back and a mama approached me to tell me how beautiful the mei tai was. We got talking and cloth diapers came up.

Other mama (OM), " Do you use cloth?"
me,"no, the start up was to expensive."
OM," really? oh my goodness, it is not to expensive, if you do it right."
me, " Maybe, when I have one in diapers I could do it and my husband is out of work right now."
OM," Well, you are the perfect mama for this. Follow me."

She shows me a bin of 40 flats, 10 medium covers, and 10 XLarge covers. OMG!!!! What a stash!!! Perfection! The clouds parted, a light shone down, and I heard "aaaaaaa." Then she hits me with the price. Ready????? $10 for all!!!! Of course I dont have my pocketbook or any cash in my pocket. I find my husband and ask for the money. I go back and I am now officially a cloth diapering mom!!! I am am sooooo stoked at this point. I research a wash routine, I research how to fold them, and I am researching everything I can about cloth. I rinse, wash, and rinse. Then I hang them out, and as soon as I have 2 that are almost dry I slap them on Frick and Frack! I can't explain my excitement, but it excited me almost as much as when I got a positive pregnancy test. lol

While doing my research I found some awesome CD sites (shopping, trading, & selling.) It was like a whole new world for me. I see all my options. For about a month I used the flats and covers. It was great!! My husband was not thrilled, well actually he hated it. He refused to change a single diaper. Well, our budget discussion was a little different the next month. We had an additional $150. Whoooo hoooo! My husband was fully on board. He was very willing to learn how to change "those nasty things."

Then I started browsing the for sale boards. I won a For sale for shipping WAHM diaper; it definitely changed my thoughts on sticking with flats. I started building a real stash. In 2 weeks I had 50 diapers. No money saved that month.

I had my boys in cloth! I was very excited. I do have to say the poopy diapers were overwhelming. All the information was overwhelming. The novelity wore off. I thought maybe it is easier to go back to sposies, but I could never go back. Way to many people made comments like, " You'll never follow thru", "You will be back in disposables in a month" , and (my favorite, blech) "Before you know it diapers will pile up and the boys will be wearing dish towels." So, I needed to keep pressing through. 4-6 poopy diapers a day was killing me. But then the baby stopped nursing and he slowed to 2 poops and my toddler was a daily pooper, so that was better! Phew! 1 hurdle jumped. I still had to do diapers daily only because I was anal about them sitting. Then within 3 months it was just a part of life. I was no longer overwhelmed, no longer bothered by rinsing poopy diapers, and got the perfect wash routine for me. I felt I was doing them all along. I was happy , my husband was happy, and the boys booties were happy!

Cloth Diapering has been a successful venture for us for almost 2 years. I am in no way saying it has been a walk in the park, but anything new can be a challenge.

By Tracie G.