It's All in the Cloth, Part One

Call me crazy ("You so crazy!") But I'm thinking about using cloth diapers on Rudd baby #3. I never in a million years thought I would be one of "those hippie moms", but I've been reading up on it and it just makes sense. Here's why (in my humble opinion):

- Diapers are EXPENSIVE. And I believe you get what you pay for, so I am pretty loyal to Pampers. Even with sales and coupons, I'm paying an average of $10/week on diapers and wipes. That's $40 a month, $480 a year,  or approximately $1440 until potty trained.

- Diapers are AWFUL for the environment. It takes an average of 500 years for a disposable diaper to decompose.

- A few times I've gone to change a diaper and found clear, gel-like beads on their tush. I had no idea what it was, but wasn't comfortable finding it there! (I googled it, it's sodium polyacrylate, a polymer that can absorb 200-300 times it's weight. It's no longer used in tampons because of it's link to Toxic Shock Syndrome.)

I decided to buy a couple cloth diapers and try them out on their toughest critic...

...Brenna-Saurus Rex. (Here she is in her cloth diaper 'helping' me fix the screen door.)

I bought a bumGenius 3.0 One Size in Tangerine and a Flip One-Size in Blossom. You may ask, "But Bethany, why would you buy diapers for Brenna if she's going to be potty-trained soon? (God willing!!) Shouldn't you buy small diapers for the new baby?" That's the beauty of it! Since these are one-size diapers, they adjust to fit babies of any size (average of 7-35 pounds!) So I can use the same diapers on Brenna and Baby Siobhan (not going to be the real name)! Brilliant! Frugal! Neat! I attempted to get uni-sex colors just in case Siobhan is a William. That and I LOVED the springy yellow and orange. :-)

So how did it go? What do I think? Will I continue on my quest to cloth diaper? You'll have to come back and find out!