Our Cloth Diaper Experiment

True story -- A few months ago me, hubby and kiddo went to a friend's son's birthday party at Gymboree. There was a cute, freckled two-year-old boy at the party that we had never met before. About halfway through the party my husband whispered in my ear to ask me if I knew what was wrong with the little guy.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "There doesn't seem like there's anything wrong with him to me. What are you talking about?"

"Look at his pants," Hubby said. "There's something coming out of the back of his pants. I think it's a colostomy bag or something. Look."

He preceded to point to the area of his lower back where a little green fabric stuck out from underneath his jeans.

"Seriously!?!" I said looking at my concerned husband. "Those are cloth diapers not a colostomy bag! Come on!"

"Oh." He said. "Well I knew there was something wrong."

I tell you this story to illustrate what little exposure or experience either one of us had with cloth diapers before a few weeks ago. Seeing something other than a pamper on a baby butt my husband's brain went to colostomy.

I am now proud to say my son is officially now a cloth diapered kid. Sorta. Kinda. Definitely at least part-time.

After getting my little one's cloth diapers in the mail (and then waiting a few more days to receive my special hippie baby laundry detergent) I washed them, prepped them and then rubbed them on on my face because they were so darn soft. (They were new diapers at that point. Never been used. It wasn't gross. Promise.) Then I snapped them on kiddo's hiney and held my breath in elimination anticipation.

Once the blessed event did take place (the christening of the diaper -- aka -- he peed) I was kind of let down because, well, nothing happened. I'm not sure what I expected -- I guess I assumed everything would get wet and I would have to change him immediately and clean up a big mess. (Please remember I have zero experience with cloth diapers and have been scared to death of them until now.) But sure enough, they work. They work well. I have no complaints. They seem to work as well if not better than any disposable diaper I've used.

So we have two different kinds -- Flips and Fuzzibunz. The Flip is a waterproof fabric shell with a cotton insert. There are two super cool things about Flips -- 1) The insert catches everything so you can reuse the shell 2) You can use a disposable insert if you're going to be out and about and don't want to have to carry around dirty diapers.  And Fuzzibunz are pretty awesome too. They're an all-in-one pocket diaper so they're pretty easy for daycares or daddies to use. I'm hoping to order a few prefolds and covers soon to try out the real old-school diapers.

We're only doing cloth part-time right now because when I'm working outside the home kiddo is either with daddy or at our church's morning preschool program and I don't have that many all-in-ones yet. I think I've mentioned before how lousey I am at keeping up with the laundry.

If you're interested in cloth diapers and haven't gotten up the nerve to try them yet you should do it! It's totally not that scary. If I were you I'd go to http://www.cottonbabies.com/ and get a "Try It" package or a starter kit of Flips. They're a great way to try out cloth!