Day 29:

I began my experiment with cloth diapers this week. It took me a while to get this experiment going because I couldn't find diaper covers at the baby stores within a 5 mile radius of our home in Berkeley. For as green a town Berkeley is and with as many parents who live there, you'd think they'd sell diaper covers at the 7-11 (maybe they do, I didn't check.)

My interest in cloth diapers stems primarily from the garbage bags full of diapers which we seem to remove from the house daily. I understand that there is concern over the chemicals and bleach used in disposable diapers, but I figure I'm exposing the baby to far more chemicals when we dress her in Made in China flammable clothing.

Most companies recommend buying 6 diaper covers. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on the experiment, so I bought only one cover.

The baby does seem more comfortable wearing a dry cloth diaper than a dry paper one. (A wet diaper may be an entirely different story.)

Cleaning the cloth diaper for a #1 was no big deal, I threw it into a pail of water then later into the laundry machine. Cleaning up after a #2 was a little more work, requiring rinsing the diaper in the toilet, and also cleaning the diaper cover itself in the case where the diaper leaked onto the cover. Having only one diaper cover, I had to wait a day for the cover to dry before going back to cloth. I can see where the recommendation to buy 6 covers comes from.

So far, I think it makes a lot of sense to use cloth diapers, especially during the newborn phase when the diaper changes are frequent (and the #2s are still manageable in volume and stench.)

I'm reading a bit more about cloth diapers online, and have discovered that I can buy diaper covers from the diaper service for $24 for a three pack, vs $12 each at the baby store. I also found out that I should be laundering them in baby friendly detergent as opposed to Dreft.

ABC, a local diaper service, charges $18 per week for 80 diapers. They don't require you to rinse the diaper in the toilet, so that saves a step. (The stench of diapers may lead us to change our mind.) Once I can get my act together to buy some more diaper covers, I'm going to check out this service. There is a 4 week minimum on the service. I'm going back to work in two weeks and not sure how many diapers we'll use. But even if we can use diapers on the evenings and weekends this service may make sense. Stay tuned.