Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Air-drying the nappy* rainbow

*"nappy" is British-English for "diaper"

Now that baby Stephanie is just over a year old, we're making the switch to cloth diapers. Why? Well, I'll tell ya.
When we were pregnant with Ellie four years ago, we debated the whole cloth v disposable thing, and we couldn't come up with a solid choice. Landfill waste v extra laundry detergent and energy used...it comes out about the same environmentally, considering the disposables we have been using are at least partially biodegradable. Markus was still inclined to try cloth, so we ordered a big trial pack of four different brands in the newborn size. Of course, Hurricane Katrina had other plans. By the time we were allowed back into New Orleans to get our things, Ellie was too big to try them out so we just stuck with disposables for her.
When baby Stephanie was born, we gave them a go, but I didn't like a single one. Each of the four brands was flawed. They cinched, they leaked, they were generally icky and we didn't like them. Disposables won!
But recently I saw a cute flash of fuzzy turquoise on a baby bum while we were out and about, and I asked her mum about her diaper. I told her our cloth saga, but she had nothing but rave reviews of the brand she was using. Never a leak, never a problem, and they are so cute and soft that we had to try them. I ordered two and put them to the test. Not only do they lack the flaws we experienced before, but also baby Stephanie seems to prefer them! An extra bonus for us is that she knows how to remove the disposables on her own, and I've been dreading the day I would find her naked and covered in poo in her crib. The cloth nappies snap shut and present more of a challenge. When we ran the numbers, we realized that even if we just use a full set of cloth nappies for the next six months (assuming she might outgrow this size by then), we will still be saving more than 2 months worth of purchasing disposables. Hopefully, the size will fit even longer than 6 months, in which case we save even more. So, we gave it a go and the fluffy package arrived yesterday. I'm not sure if these are available outside Australia, but I am a huge fan of the itti bitti d'lish AIO! So cute, so soft, and (most importantly) soooooo effective. And who could resist the rainbow of colors? We got one of each (minus the black), and now baby Stephanie officially has the cutest baby bum around, covered or not.

1 comment:

Karly said...

Too cute!! So glad you found some that worked :)