A Man of the Cloth: Part 1

A few people have asked me how the whole cloth diapering thing is going, so I thought I'd give a little update. But lets start with how I got here. The decision to cloth diaper is a personal one for most families. And for families that can't even fathom it, they might think I'm insane. I'm not insane, though. Just extremely suggestible. It was pretty easy for me to get sucked in since I was already a breast-feeding, baby-wearing, baby-food-making sort of Mama. But while I did get sucked in, I wouldn't say I necessarily got here easily. For those of you who didn't know, we have been cloth diapering since sometime in July. The subject had come up while I was pregnant, and maybe a few times when Jack was very young. My Mom had done it for years - with the help of a diaper service - and I remembered the folding and pins and pull on plastic pants. No thank you! I wanted no part of it. Especially since those diaper services were all but extinct unless you lived in a major metropolitan area.



And then in February we gave Jack some homemade banana puree with a little lemon juice in it to keep it from browning. That is when it all started. We tried to treat the ensuing diaper rash, but it just kept getting worse. Then, we saw the pediatrician. Four tubes of Nystatin later, we were driving 90 minutes to a dermatologist in Indianapolis. She gave us some sort of super cream that killed off the "super yeast" that had been attacking Jack's butt for 2 months. When I took him back 2 weeks later, the yeast infection was gone, but we were now dealing with some sort of allergy. She made me swear off everything but plain water, Vaseline, and a steroid she gave me. She wanted me to switch to cloth diapers, too, but I had to draw the line somewhere. If these measures didn't work, I promised I'd consider it. Once the rash healed up, I was allowed to add things back in slowly until I found the culprit. Hopefully it was just all the yeast infection creams and our old routine wouldn't have to change. So I was excited when his little butt was finally clear again. The first thing I added back in was the baby wipes. That whole washcloth thing HAD to come to an end. Sadly, however, the redness came back almost immediately. What on earth do you do when your baby is allergic to baby wipes?! Mike shook his head as I ran to my trusted advisor, Google, and what I learned there opened my eyes forever.



First of all, baby wipes have not always been around. But babies have pooped for as long as there have been babies. Apparently, the commercial baby wipe is not the critical tool I had always imagined it was. Gasp! Moms can actually make their own! Fairly easily and cheaply, too. It was as simple as cutting a roll of Bounty (not the cheap paper towels) in half, soaking them in a solution, and sticking them in a container. In fact, an old commercial baby wipes container works nicely. I could do that! And I did. It worked well. Until, that is, he started getting caustic poo from teething. My Dad swears to me that, from a medical standpoint, teething does not cause caustic poo, but I swear to you it does. I don't care what medicine says. Maybe they just haven't paid enough attention. Teething = caustic poo. At that point, the diaper rash started all over again. Not even the dermatologist could fix it. Any exposure to that caustic poo literally ate holes in his skin. But there were a few things that helped. The chlorine-free Seventh Generation Diapers helped heal the redness tremendously. I don't know how. Maybe the caustic poo was reacting with something in the diapers. Maybe not. Regardless, the rash got better faster when I used them. The problem was that they were ridiculously expensive. $10 for 35. That was even worse than the Pampers. And considering Mike and I were bums living off the kindness of our parents, we couldn't really even afford the Pampers. I turned back to Google.



While researching the homemade diaper wipes, I came across many, many, many sites touting the cloth diaper revolution. I hadn't paid them any attention before. Now I was desperately seeking them out. Cute boutique after boutique popped up. These were not my Mama's cloth diapers. Things had changed. Cloth diapers were pretty. They came in fancy prints and colors. They even came in drastically different styles; some were just like a disposable but you didn't throw them away. The invention of something called the Snappi had made those nasty pins all but obsolete. The covers were more like wraps, with Velcro and snaps to hold them together. They felt like fabric even though they were waterproof. So many dazzling images danced across my computer screen. The prices made me wary, but you only have to buy it once. You use it over and over. I found calculators that showed you how much money you could save, particularly if you planned to have more than 1 kid. The savings could be in the thousands!



I was tempted, but there was 1 nagging problem: the poo. I would have to actually deal with the poo. Disposables are nice. Wrap it up, toss it out, and forget about it. But did you know that you are supposed to shake out your disposable diapers? I didn't. Apparently, it is against the law to put human feces into a landfill. Oops! Shouldn't someone have mentioned that? And did you know that disposable diapers will take over 500 years to biodegrade? And that is assuming they have things like air and light, etc to help them along. Do you know what elements are missing in a landfill? Yup. Those things aren't going anywhere. AND they are filled with poo. Alien archaeologists will have a field day! Could the guilt over what I had been doing to the environment be enough to make me agree to come into even closer contact with my son's poo? It was enough to make me agree to try the reusable swim diaper. Just a toe in the water. Just to see what it was like.



Surprisingly, Jack only pooped in his swim diaper once. We were in a creek. There was no one else really around. I just dumped it out, rubbed the fabric together a little, and it looked good as new. That was easy. I could do that. This would be a piece of cake! Did you hear that sucking sound? That's when it happened. (To be continued...)



Homemade Baby Wipes

Roll of Bounty paper towels cut in half (or cloth wipes)

1 c DISTILLED water (not spring, mineral, or tap)

8 drops Lavender Essential Oil

4 drops Tea Tree Essential Oil



Mix together with a whisk, pour over the half roll of paper towels (stuck into an old wipes box or some sort of plastic container), and when the roll has become saturated enough, pull out the cardboard center. At this point, you can also spend a little extra time to refold the paper towels so that they go back and forth instead of around and around. It'll save you aggravation later. There are tons of different recipes, but this one is very basic and doesn't put any extra chemicals on your baby's butt. And it works great. The distilled water is essential to be sure that nothing starts growing in there. The Tea Tree oil does all sorts of good thing. It has antiseptic and antifungal properties, which will not only keep your wipes from getting moldy, but will help your baby's butt as well. It is great for healing wounds (a bonus when your kid has open sores on his butt) and some even say it has antiviral properties. And the Lavender Oil is not only calming, but it also has antiseptic and pain relieving qualities as well. And it helps the wipes to smell nice. Tea Tree oil can come on kind of strong all by itself.