granola thursday {cloth diapers}

It took me about 60 seconds to really contemplate if I wanted to use disposable diapers or cloth diapers on Hudson's little hiney. It was honestly something I really didnt even have to think about, I knew right away I wanted to go cloth. It just made sense to me. Now to a lot of other people...it seemed crazy..even weird. As if putting cloth diapers on my son was a "bad" thing, like i was harming him, like doing one extra load of laundry every other day was going to just absolutely be then end of me. What was so weird to me was the amount of support Danny & I didnt get because we chose to cloth diaper. After really thinking about it, I really think it just came down to people's lack of knowledge, bc like i said cloth diapering just made more sense to me. But I'm aware that all families are different, all babies are different... not wrong, just different. =) But since its granola eating thursday, I thought I would share on why we as a family have chosen to put cloth diapers on our baby.

The average household family will spend at least $1500-$2000 by the time their child is out of diapers. And thats just with one child. Want to know how much we have spent on diapers? $0. Thats right zippo. My sweet employee's from where I worked before I had Hudson bought all my cloth diapers for me. Along with the laundry detergent as well. But if we were to purchase them, we would spend around$300 for enough diapers to last up until potty training and probably even for the next child as long as I'm taking good care of them. Some may argue that i'm using energry with the extra load of laundry. But I'm really not, mainly bc i wash them in cold water on the quickest cycle/smallest cycle and then hang them up to air dry outside bc really the sun is the best stain fighter their is and the diapers are always left smelling fresh! 

Money was the biggest seller for danny. If you know my husband at all, he will do anything to save a buck or two. My biggest reason for putting hudson in cloths was this:

"Super absorbent materials are important components in disposable diapers, training and youth pants and incontinence care products. Polypropylene and other synthetics and chemicals are the primary raw materials for manufacturing nonwoven fabrics, which are used in disposable diapers, training and youth pants, wet wipes, feminine pads, incontinence and health care products, and away-from-home wipers."

an article that talked about ingredients, materials used to make a disposable diaper. I know I know I know... kids have been wearing these diapers for centuries and their fine, but some kids have diseases that are still unexplainable. some kids get cancer and no one knows why. some kids get eczema. some kids are prone to diaper rashes. So again... if it was something i could maybe prevent  hudson from getting, then I wanted to keep him away from it. Plus it would be saving us almost $2000 dollars. Thats a  new awesome camera lens people! ;)

Finally another reason, i learned after we decided to cloth diaper, had to do with the environment. A disposable diaper is one of top products in landfills today. One baby will contribute to at least a ton of waste in your local landfill. Isnt that insane? And it can take up to 500 years for a diaper to decompose. 

So all in all, by cloth diapering, we're helping our environment out, possibly our child's health and of course our bank accounts. =)

FAQ

some frequently asked questions we get asked since using cloth diapers are:

What do you do in public? instead of throwing the diaper away, i put it in wet bag. Now that he is on solids his BM's are no longer liquidy...so just flipping the diaper over in the toilet to eliminate the "mess" is a piece of cake. =)

Do you really put his poop in your washer? haha no, like i said, we empty the diaper into the toilet.

Do you ever use disposables? yes, if I know i'm going to need more than 2 diapers, then I put hudson in a disposable. This is very rare though. I typically only put him in a disposable if were staying over night somewhere other than our home. We got a lot of disposable diapers as gifts when I was pregnant and so were still using those! SO...again we've never bought a diaper. =)

Are their pins involved? haha, no! These are not the same diapers you see at babies r us, or the ones our great great grandparents were in. Theses diapers either velcro or snap!

They are so bulky, can babies move in them? I wondered this at first, but hudson started sitting at 5 months, crawling at 7 months, pulling up at 8 months, and he's 2 weeks away from being 9 months and is cruising along furniture. So.... yes babies can move in them. 

Where do you get them? I'm glad you asked, you can order them online at a lot of different places, even target & babies r us are now selling them. There are tons of different brands, but the ones we use and love are bumGenius Cloth diapers from Cotton Babies.