The Not-So-Great Diaper Debate

May 11th, 2009

I’m home sick with a stomach bug today, and since I’m already on the couch I figured a bit of blogging would make me feel productive.  

We “did” our registry a couple of weeks ago, but didn’t have an idea what we were planing on doing for diapers.  We’ve leaned towards cloth, but really needed some help to figure everything out.  When we went to Sprout Soup in Clintonville to shop for a friends shower, it didn’t make a lick of sense, even with a list in our hands!  We bought a sprayer and a gift certificate, figuring that mommy and daddy could make the calls on all-in-one, prefold, PUL covers and whatever else they need.  One of the owners pointed out that there was a class coming up next week, so we signed up.  Tori and I returned to Sprout Soup for the Cloth Diaper 101 class last week, and it may be the best decision we’ve made yet.  Our options are a lot clearer now, and we feel like we have a handle on it.  I still think it’s overwhelming for the average, non-diapering people, so I don’t think we’ll actually set up a registry there.  

When you get down to it, we think cloth is a better option for baby’s well being, and our pocketbook.  There’s a link here for anyone who cares to look into this more, but it seems like cloth provides a substantial savings over the first few years.  To get going, we’ll just need about 40 unbleached prefolds, some water”proof” wool or fleece pants, some snappis, a diaper pail and some good clean soap.  Hell, if that jerkass Dave Matthews can do it, so can we… 

Here are some links if you’re interested…

• Consumer Reports article on cloth diapers
• Diaperpin.com, a fantastic resource for questions, answers and reviews.
• Another nice long article, this time from mothering.com.

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