The cutest unborn baby tush ever!

If it wasn’t obvious by my ultrasound pictures, I think there is something so dang adorable about a miniature baby tush (aka: butt). Seeing this cute little butt on the ultrasound was a good reminder for me of all the trouble/work/poop/laundry/stank that little tush will be causing me. It also reminded me that I wanted to look into… dahn dahn dahhhhnnnnn… cloth diapering.

Now, I know this is a subject that provokes a lot of love/hate emotions, but being the “need to know all my options” kinda gal that I am, I’ve started to do some digging on the subject.

So, why do people choose cloth diapers over disposable?

• It takes 20 trees to provide diapers two years of disposable diapers for a child… and then all 20 of those trees – now filled with poop and nastiness – go into landfills.
• To save some dollars! By the time a child is out of disposable diapers, covering that cute little tush can cost parents $1,600 to $2,500. Including the cost to wash disposable diapers, this compares to about $425-700 for cloth diapers… that’s a savings of $1,200 to $2,100 for three years, or $400 to $700 per year.
• It is said that cloth diapers reduce diaper rash! Also, because a cloth diaper can absorb less liquid, it is more obvious when you need to change said diaper and thus, your sweet babe isn’t wallowing in his or her own filth for hours on end.
• The cloth diaper fanatics say that kiddies in cloth diapers are potty trained in much less time than “those other kids” in the disposables.
• I don’t really know why, but these same diaper fanatics claim that they have SIGNIFICANTLY less diaper blow outs with cloth. (Oofta… am I ready for diaper blow outs? Not to be a total girl, but I don’t like poop. Especially the all over kind.)

I’m sure there are other reasons why parents choose cloth, but that’s the extent of my list for now.

I think the reasons for disposable are pretty obvious, but here’s my quick, unresearched list of reasons:

• There is limited handling of nasty soiled diaper.
• Just wrap it up and toss…
• Did I mention the amount of laundry you have to do with cloth diapers?
• It seems easier and just kind of like the thing to do.

Now, from what I’ve heard, the laundry thing isn’t the biggest deal… you do the wash at least every other day and you get used to it. By adding a little sprayer thing to your toilet (imagine a vegetable sprayer), you can easily get the poop and nastiness from the diaper to the toilet, and in terms of the stink, the diaper pails work just as well if not better than those for disposable diapers.

So where am I at with my research and my decision? I have no idea. I’d love to hear from people who have tried cloth diapers because I’m still very intrigued. I’m all for saving money and protecting the bum… but at the same time, I don’t really love laundry. BUT, maybe it would be a good reason to get a high-efficiency washer/dryer. We could use the money saved on disposable diapers to upgrade. Hmmm… that sounds like a good idea!

I think my next step is to talk to some people who have used cloth and maybe do a little more research on the actual diaper options. I’ve heard that once you decide to go cloth, there are about 5,000 other decisions to be made. Brand, Style, etc. Based on my initial research, though, I want to look into bumGenius, Kissaluvs and gDiapers.

Wish me luck and, if you’ve used them, let me know what you think!