Mom Stuff: A dissertation on the deceptiveness of disposable diapers

My daughter, the Sirenita, is thankfully becoming a great sleeper. We don't have to fight and spend
hours rocking and walking, or cry it out now that I've learned her cues and she has learned her sleep routine. It's amazing. In fact, a little too amazing. She's always taken a good long nap in the afternoon. I usually wake her after 3 hours, I don't want her to get her days and nights reversed. I have been a little concerned lately that maybe she sleeps too much.  I was concerned until Saturday.

Saturday afternoon I started thinking her nap was becoming excessively long. I had gotten her up early, as I'm trying to get her used to regular nap and wake times. That means she went down fairly early for her first nap. After three and a half hours, I was concerned. I couldn't believe she wasn't screaming to be picked up. I opened the door, thinking I would go in and sweetly wake her. When my eyes adjusted to the nap dimmed room, I saw that my sweet little introvert was quietly recharging her battery with some apparently much needed "me time." Makes sense, we were out all day the day before. Not only was she awake, but she had 180 degrees on her back, and was laying there sucking her thumb and kicking her changer with her sleep sack webbed feet. 

I thought I'd go steal a smile. There's nothing like that first smile a baby gives you when you lean over them in their bed and talk to them. I didn't get two steps in the door before the smell hit me. It seems that Sirenita had been awake longer than I thought. Long enough to poop way more than her disposable diaper could hold, and roll around in it. Her sleep sack was saturated and crusty at the same time. Her bed was covered. I had to call in reinforcements. The Accountant came from the other room and threw her right in the bath while I cleaned the bed and the sleep sack.  I even had to spray my homemade air freshener in the room to clean up the smell.  It was awful. And all because I bought the lie. 

Flashback to 8 am that morning. I woke up and got Sirenita up. She was smiley, playful as always in the morning. It was snowing, a rarity in these parts. I wanted to shower and enjoy the snow with a cup of coffee. I changed Sirenita, and out of laziness, I put a disposable diaper on her.  I didn't feel like having to wash out cloth on a Saturday. Disposable seemed "easier." I remember fighting to make sure the tabs were in the right place, playing the "Did I actually cover both butt cheeks" guessing game.  You've already seen the dreadful result a few hours later.

If I had put her in cloth, that wouldn't have happened. We may, from the sheer quantity of it, have had a small leak. A smudge around the back and some moisture around the legs. But let me tell you, since I have started using cloth diapers (once Sirenita got big enough for them) I have never had a cloth diaper explode like disposables. Disposables seem so much easier. You put it on with "easy" Velcro tabs. I remember in the old days the tabs were like duct tape, once they were on they were on. You better hope that you got both cheeks covered. Now diapers have all kinds of benefits, stretchy elastic to let baby move better, re-closable Velcro tabs, drier than ever before! In spite of all those magical sounding words, I find that disposables tend to make more work for me. I do keep disposables on hand, I admit. More than anything it is because Sirenita is still so small that the bulk of a one size cloth diaper would not be safe for her car seat.  In spite of all the magical promises that disposable diapers boast, I find that they tend to make more work for me.

 I could lecture  on how bad disposables are for the environment. Landfills full of poopy bio-hazardous waste, and all that.  Then there are the chemicals. Potentially poisonous chemicals hiding in the super absorbent disposables.  Since I'm not a scientist what I could tell you is only hear-say, although I find that alarming enough. Financially, the savings you get by using cloth diapers are huge. I think I spent more on disposables during Sirenita's first month than my entire cloth diaper collection and accessories have cost.

I was skeptical about cloth when I first started looking into it. It hadn't ever crossed my mind that cloth diapers were a modern thing. I thought they were a thing of the past, only the Amish and Homeschool Moms use cloth. Maybe some hipsters. I only looked into it because I was asked what my opinion on it was. The more I researched, the more convinced I was that cloth is the way to go. Most of my cloth diapers were bought for me as shower gifts by curious friends who wanted to use my baby as a guinea pig. I was ok with that. I tried the "cloth diapering thing." It worked.

You see, a well fitting cloth diaper doesn't leak. There is no guesswork every time you put the diaper on. You just need to know which set of snaps you're using. Occasionally there may be a little moisture escape around the legs, where there are no inserts. Usually that only happens when the diaper is already very wet. Comparing the little bit of moisture from cloth to the ricochet effect of poop on a wet disposable which some how causes it to explode up the child's back in search of more absorbent materials, I'll take definitely take cloth.

During the month of December both sides of the family came to visit. We were in and out of the house all day every day visiting the zoo, museums, shopping - all the things you do while vacationing in your home town. We used disposable diapers since she was in the car seat most days. I washed more onsies that were victims of poop-splosions than I had since Sirenita was a newborn.

Not only does cloth keep the yuckiness in better but a well laundered cloth diaper will keep the smell in, too. I am often caught off guard when I think I am just going to change a wet diaper. The poop smell generally doesn't escape to give it away.

Probably most important of all, cloth diapers keep the baby so much drier. When I use cloth, Sirenita never gets diaper rash. Most of the time the inside is so dry that I can't tell if she is actually wet or not without sticking my hands into the pocket to feel the inserts. Since it won't really cost me anything extra, I prefer just to change cloth diapers rather than sticking my hand into the insert swamp to find out how muggy it is in there.

The ease of tossing the diaper in the trash is deceptive. It may seem more convenient, but would I would rather wash out a diaper while my child happily plays than wash my child, her bedding, her clothes, and still have to sanitize the air in my bedroom.  If you're on the fence about whether to try cloth, or you use cloth and think that disposables may be easier, I implore you to envision my Saturday and forget not cloth and all its benefits. At least give cloth a try. You may be pleasantly surprised.