Is it easy being green?
Seeking advice from two sets of parents: those current parents of young children who have opted for cloth diapers and those who were parents (or older siblings) back when there was no other choice.
We stand poised on the cusp of switching to cloth with Alice. We've always wanted to do it for environmental reasons, and the three main barriers with Edith are now non-issues:
(1) Commercial daycares won't usually do cloth diapers--too big a logistical/sanitary nightmare for them. But for the time being Alice is going to be at home with us or with a babysitter.
(2) The upfront cost of cloth diapers is steep, but we were just gifted a complete set that a friend's baby has outgrown: about three-dozen pre-folds and half a dozen plastic covers.
(3) We now have access to a private washer and dryer on site, rather than (as in 2005-2006) a private washer and dryer three miles away or (2007-2008) a shared coin-op.
Another mental hurdle was cleared when I tried the first wash load and discovered today's fancy new machines can be programmed to run through the complete set of steps required to soak, wash, and rinse these things in various solutions at various temperatures without a human being needing to run interference in the middle of the sequence. Just set the pattern and leave. Everything came out spotless.
Even so, we may find that an extra load of wash every other day is more than we can fit into an already straining family schedule. The laundry seems to have increased dramatically since Alice's birth as it is, what with her spitting up on all of us and Edith being suddenly much more into messy art projects. Tom and I can almost measure the progress of our marriage by the change in the laundry: Back in our newlyed days, we went to the grad student community room once every two to three weeks to do our 2-3 loads of laundry. Once Edith got through the infant stage we were doing 3-5 loads every other week to ten days. Now we seem to be running to the basement every day, and there is a perpetual cycle of laundry baskets going and coming, with dirties to be washed, washed to be dried, dried to be folded, and folded to be put away constantly in rotation. It may be that this particular semester more laundry is the straw that breaks the camel's back, in which case we'll hold off a bit.
But we'd like to at least give it a shot. The remaining hurdle, then, and the one about which I appeal here to collective wisdom, has to do with making these things work on the baby herself. It seems to us, in our first 24-hour trial, that the cotton diaper tends to wick moisture up and down so that the baby is covered tummy to back in it, rather than wicking it away from her skin. Fairly unpleasant. Are we not changing her often enough? Cloth diapers--at least the classic pre-fold kind--also seem to leak more readily than disposables, adding further to the laundry. Have we just not got the knack yet? And if so, what is it?
I promise to reward any thoughts in response to this pedestrian post with a spate of cute photos and video clips of Alice cooing and Edith tending to her next time around.
Last night Edith was telling us how much she likes Curmedy Frog. At first I wondered if this were a comic character from a book, one who perhaps tickles preschool funnybones the way the televsion station Curmedy Central sets Tom laughing. Then I realized she meant Curmedy Frog as in "Curmedy Frog here, with Sesame Street News..."
Santa brought Edith (sure, Edith) the "Old School Sesame Street" DVDs, featuring episodes of that show from the 1970s. That is, Sesame Street with Afros, disco, and Mr. Hooper, sans Elmo, as we remember it. Or at least as I remember it: Tom's house out on the farm didn't get PBS. So Edith and Tom have been enjoying their first exposure to Sesame Street, while I am in the throes of nostalgia--delighted to introduce the show to my family as if it were still 1978. Edith has now incorporated the concept "typewriter" into her mental universe, as well as "phone booth." She's poised to be a cultural historian already.
8 comments:
I've been doing a bunch of research on cloths lately for our upcoming one. Prefolds are hardcore. I was looking into the easier ones that have an insert and fit like a regular disposable. they also have some better covers out there than just plastic pants. There are also sneaky ways to wrap up the prefold that might keep the leaks in better, but you do have to change them more than disposables - like after about one pee, they get pretty soaked. Let me know via email if you'd like more info - i have a bunch of websites bookmarked.
you're not the only one wondering. Slate's Green Lantern, who does a column comparing the environment impacts of various choices (e.g. disposable pencils vs wood pencils) did a column on this. Greenness of cloth is maybe not so so huge.
http://www.slate.com/id/2187278/
We did cloth for Sam after about the first 2 months (? can't remember, those early days are foggy). We had shared laundry too, though, so got a diaper service (worked out to about the same cost as disposables, which we still used overnight or when out of the house for extended periods). You do have to change them a bit more often, but yes, there are folds that help with containing the wetness. I'll email you my favorite cloth-diapering sites if I can find the links I saved from back then. This time around I think we'll try doing it ourselves... I'm making no promises, though, as we seem to do too much laundry already and I can't imagine what newborn laundry on top of all this will be like...
We did cloth but did Fuzzi Bunz, which are what ALZ describes - have an insert, fit like disposables, but with snaps. I loved them, and they did a decent job of keeping Matilda dry.
I also changed a fair number of prefolds on Sam (!) so I guess I've tried both (though obviously not the day-to-day care of prefolds). The Fuzzi Bunz are definitely easier, but also a pretty steep initial cash outlay (though we used the same size from 6 months till she potty-trained). Either way, you have to change more frequently.
I found that once I gave in to the laundry cycle, it just didn't seem so bad. But I have a pretty high tolerance for piles of clean laundry on the bed, so YMMV.
As I recall, we both felt quite a bit of trepidation in taking the initial plunge, but found it to be manageable. Though of course I'd never fault someone for going the other way.
Not that I have personal experience to offer, but twosheep.com/blog did a long series of blogs about cloth diapering before she had her baby. Very thorough and interesting, if you need more websites to look through after all these suggestions!
it isn't too hard being green (although not as easy as tossing the diaper in the trash). We use bumGenius one size diapers on Abby. They are super easy and, in our experience, hold in explosive newborn poop better then disposables (that said, we change her every 2-3 hours, no matter what). One thing to love about one size diapers--the ones Abby wore at 4 months (when we got up the nerve to start) are the same ones that she is currently wearing (and that Hannah wore for awhile while 3). They expand so I save a ton of money while still having the convience of the all-in-ones or pocket diapers. Yes, I wash them every 2 to 3 days, but I figure it only adds an extra 15 minutes to my work load, which isn't too bad.
Michelle N is a great resource on cloth diapers-you should talk to her (she got me started).
Best of luck!
I haven't had experience with cloth diapers yet, but we're seriously leaning towards them for our upcoming arrival. One thing to consider when thinking about the "greenness" of cloth diapers is where you live. Deciding to cloth diaper in New Jersey involves a different calculus than in, say, Arizona, Montana, or some other water-starved location. Most sites I've been to suggest that cloth really is the better (though perhaps not easier) alternative.
I have found day cares in NY State that will accept cloth-diapered children, though some claim they will only deal with the cloth diapers until a certain age. Interestingly, health codes in our state *do not* prohibit use of cloth diapers in day cares. Day cares are simply *unwilling* to take the time to learn how to use them properly.
One common complaint is that the diaper needs to be dunked in the toilet, which isn't necessary. Also, some complain that solid waste needs to be removed (scraped, rolled, whatever) off the cloth diaper. Technically, human feces should *also* be removed from disposables before they are put in the trash (though I don't know how many people actually do that). It is a real health hazard to put human waste in a landfill--it can leach into ground water.
There is a company based in vermont (actually, more than one, but I'm thinking of a particular site and am not coming up with the name) that has examples of several different folds you can use with the prefold diapers. It's possible, as another commenter mentioned, that a different fold would work better for you and Alice.
Good luck!
Can't help on the diapers, though I can ask my parents, who did cloth diapers with us. But really I'm here to say YAY! -- Old School Sesame Street!!! I just ordered (yes, for myself, don't even have a kid to help me pretend it's not for me) the DVD of Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, and am looking forward to having that eventual kid so I can get the DVDs you describe. I love Curmedy Frog too! And hooray for typewriters and phone booths! :)
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