diaper duty, 33 weeks, 6 days

Please excuse my absence, I’ve been deep in the vortex of YouTube, watching strangers with terrible camera skills put cloth diapers on their infants and uncooperative toddlers.

Let me explain.

Since the beginning[1], C and I had thought we wanted to cloth diaper. Because we are C is self-righteous and judgy cheap. Plus, we enjoy a challenge[2].

At first, I was terrified, imagining a future wherein I’m forced to resign from gainful, intellectually stimulating employment so as to remain at home, forever tied to the washing machine[3], just one load of poopy pre-folds away from sheer insanity, forever on the precipice of diaper doom.

Enter stage left: diaper service! Which, apparently, is a thing. A thing that I did not know existed outside some kind of exclusive celebrity run club of high rolling, sanctimonious eco moms who import organic Yak cheese from Nepal to fuel their solar generating wind turbines (Gwyneth, I’m looking at you).

But you guys. This is totally a thing within reach of the every-woman! It’s still (a lot) cheaper to launder your cloth diapers at home, sure – but the cost of a service, at least in this neck of the woods, remains equal to or cheaper than the boatload of disposable Huggies[4] that are being aggressively marketed to me every-freakin’-day-over-email dear-lord-in-heaven-please-enough![5] Plus, we don’t have a washer-dryer in our apartment. We share one with two other families – at least one of which would probably call the authorities if they found us the washing machine with baby-stink laden rags.

So here we are. Having selected the basic service and having spoken to the, predictably kind of crazy, middle aged lady named “Donna” who runs the place and will be showing up to retrieve our 70 filthy diapers every Monday night between 8-10 pm.[6]

<Deep breath>. Now to navigate the gear. Our basic service provides 70 “pre-folds” a week[7]. Pre-fold. A distinction which is endlessly confusing because, brace yourselves: you have to fold them all. by. your. self. There’s absolutely nothing pre-folded about these rectangular squares of cotton. Why, universe? Why?

Of course, in addition to the provided for pre-folds, there’s a veritable word soup of accessories and accoutrements to contemplate. Covers and Snappis and All-in-Ones and Pocket Diapers and Doublers and Inserts, OH MY. <Law degree, don’t fail me now>

Scout’s honor, it has taken me weeks to fully even partially understand the world of cloth diapering. To be able to wrangle from the jaws of the interwebs the necessary, amidst all the noise. (Noise being mostly related to long winded discussions of “blow-outs” and other soon-to-be-my-living-reality-horrors.)

So far, here is what we have determined:

(1) Covers

After much research and painstaking Amazon sleuthing, we’ve decided to buy about 5-6 covers. It’s an added layer of waterproof, reusable protection and we won’t have to wash them with every use. Because we’re always ones to bend to popular opinion, I think we’ll invest in a couple high quality Thirsties. Kind of digging the “Apricot” color. Or maybe, just maybe, I’ll cave and buy some devastatingly adorable number from Etsy.

(2) Snappis        

My how times have changed. Apparently, the stabby pins of yesteryear are out. The new fangled appears-to-be-some-kind-of-tinker-toy?, Snappi, is very, very in. I guess the cover can hold things in place, but the added Snappi protection seems worth the investment. Word on the street is that one package of Snappis should get us through at least the first year. But somehow I can already see “Luna toy” written all over this…

(3) We care about the earth – to an extent[8]

When I finally thought I was done making sense of this cloth diaper bizness and feeling smug in my general environmental-feel-good-moral-superiority, a friend who cloth diapered her twins offered up the following gem: you probably also want to use non-disposable wipes.

HOLD THE PHONE. Are you possibly suggesting that I want to clean up my inevitable baby-blow-outs with a reusable rag? Is this a thing?

Sigh.

(I am completely, 100% not at all judgy of all the parents who use disposables. I swear. In fact, there will probably be some kind of heartfelt, deep-soul-searching post about 3 months from now in which I tearfully lament the end of cloth diapering because just-cannot-deal-and-Mother-Earth-can-go-to-hell! and please-make-the-baby-stop-crying! and all sorts of other “reasonable” and “balanced” commentary that suggests I have gone off the deep end. That’s a promise, not a threat. Stay tuned!).

For a much more in depth tutorial on all things cloth diaper, Amalah/Alphamom is where it’s at: here and oh-my-goodness-cloth-diaper-made-from-recycled-sweater-HERE and also, for good measure, here.

Any other cloth-diaper-hopefuls out there? Any intel to share from the experienced among you?

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[1] Of time? Infertility? This pregnancy? Our very existence!

[2] That’s a lie. For I am lazy.

[3] I just love how the title of this photo is “weary, dejected woman.” <I see my future>.

[4] Which, I kid you not (pun intended), are now made “with an umbilical cord cutout!” I could not make this stuff up if I tried.

[5] I blame Pea in the Pod, who conned me in to sharing my email in exchange for apple juice and some kind of estrogen laced fiber bar made for vulnerable pregnant ladies. *shakes fist*

[6] Can’t you just imagine the reality show? After the babies go to bed, one woman takes on the city. From east to west and north to south, she travels neighborhood by neighborhood in her diaper-mobile, laundering the hundreds of cloth diapers that keep these babies running!  Okay, maybe it needs some work. But I totally have a picture in my head – one that, apparently, Google Image does not share for my unrelenting searches have yielded nothing suitable. Use your imagination.

[7] That’s 10 ever-loving diapers a day for those keeping score at home.

[8] Truth: sometimes I drive to the drycleaner. Which is 4 blocks away. Now you know my shame.