Thursday, January 27, 2011

gGenius

The great Jacques diaper debacle!  You'd think that the stuff coming out of my son's behind was valuable or something, given the amount of time that my husband and I spent talking about what to put around his bits!  But I think I've figured the problem out.

When I was pregnant, I was totally and fully pro-cloth.  (Keep in mind that I hadn't used a cloth diaper on a baby since my babysitting days, and I'm pretty sure I didn't do it right).  I registered for the Kushies all-in-ones and the gDiapers, since they were so cute.  I got one pair of gPants and no cloth diapers for my shower.  I got a few cloth diapers from our local thrift store, and also later got some pre-folds.  I was planning on getting a cloth trial set (12 different types of cloth diapers) from jilliansdrawers.com once I had delivered.  

However, my mom and my husband colluded against me, saying that I didn't need to do any more laundry than necessary--here, have a package of Pampers!  My mom, all on her own (although fully encouraged by my husband) kept us in disposables from size preemies until my son reached 12 pounds.  I was appreciative, as I knew they were expensive....but the expense was one reason why I kept feeling the need to transition to cloth.  I didn't want to throw that amount of money into our Diaper Champ every day.  (Disclaimer:  I do buy a package of Attitude disposable diapers for when Carlin goes to daycare.  Since he goes only two days a week, it's not that expensive, and I'm grateful enough to our daycare lady that I'm willing to make her work easier).  

I finally bought a Sweet Bundle of gDiapers, along with some biodegradable refills.  I liked the idea that the refills would break down and thus were a bit more eco-friendly than something that would take 500 years to degrade in a landfill.  However, I was still caught in the needing-to-buy-diapers trap.

So a couple of weeks ago, I bought my first set of gCloth.  At about $29 for six cloth inserts, they're pretty pricey.  But I was impressed with how soft and absorbent they were (even though they tended to bunch up where they were soaked).  

But I had my a-HA! moment a few days ago.  I had a bunch of prefolds that I was using for burp cloths--why not fold one up and see if it would work okay inside the gDiaper?  I tried it, and the Smallman, always willing to oblige, promptly took a huge dump.  But you know what?  The prefolds worked just as well as the fancy gCloths.  I was instantly converted.

The prefolds are about half the price of the gCloth, and they work just as well.  My husband doesn't mind changing the gDiapers as much as he thought he would; the Smallman is comfortable; we're saving a bunch of money; the world isn't going to have the Smallman's poopy diapers in it's landfill for the next 500 years; and despite all predictions, the amount of laundry isn't too terrible. 

See?  Sometimes people need to listen to the pregnant lady. 

2 comments:

  1. AWESOME!
    I've got a TON of prefolds doing diddly at home. Maybe I'll try doing the cloth thing.

    Did you figure out storage issues for the dirties?

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  2. We got a diaper pail (http://www.diapers.com/product/productdetail.aspx?productid=26914) and use it for the cloth dirties. The Champ is still used for the disposables (the ones he comes home in from daycare, and for the nighttime disposables, which I forgot to blog about, silly me).

    I like the prefolds b/c you can fold them down in front, giving extra absorption where the little men need it most!

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Our CLZ Smallman

Our CLZ Smallman