Cloth Diapers

Did you know that a baby at age 2 would have used up 2 tons of diapers? (hmmm... I can't imagine I went through that much with my daughter) And did you know it will take more than 10 years for a disposable diaper to decompose? (Now that, I would believe)

When I was pregnant and on bed rest, I was carefully studying the option of cloth diapering my second baby. I really went dizzy with all the choices out there-  wrap, birdseye, hemp, prefold, Kissaluvs, Thirsties, all in one, etc etc etc. I even made an excel sheet of my choices and the costs. Some websites suggested so many kinds.  I knew I wanted something better than the birdseye my mom used to use for my brothers back in the 80s. It had to be changed practically after every pee and the bed or whoever was carrying the baby would be wet too. But the choices made me go crazy! Analysis paralysis.

I ordered a trial kit composed of a Thirsties wrap, Kissaluvs all in one and some liners from pinoybaby.com. I planned to try it on my 2 year old before I bought a whole supply in Amazon for my newborn. It didn't go too well because no matter how much I tried to make the yayas use them, they seemed to favor the disposables (old habits are hard to break). And my daughter would complain "ang laki ng lubot ko!" (my butt is so big) or "may mali sa diaper ko!". I think it was her way of saying it's too bulky. I even tried being the one to put it on her but I realized that having to put the diaper THEN the wrap on a squirming 2 year old was too much of a hasstle for us.

When my baby boy was born, I still hadn't made up my mind on what to buy for him. He was diapered in disposables until I found Charlie Banana in Hong Kong. I was shopping at Three Sixty the grocery in Elements Mall and decided to give a boxful a try. The print was really cute and the system looked easy to use. It cost 778HKD for a box of 6 with 12 liners already. Plus, it was cheaper than many of the cloth diapers in Manila.

Success!!! Yaya shifted to it after just 1 reminder from me. I realize that it's easier to use than the first set I bought. The only catch... 6 diapers aren't enough since we do the laundry every other day. So now Emilio is in cloth diapers until we do the laundry. I'll be asking my Tita to buy another box of 6 for me. And did I mention that it's one size so I'll be able to use these for a good long time?

I've been able to cut down a lot on disposables. Washing the cloth diapers is a breeze because we just pre-soak them for awhile and wash them together with Ava and Emilio's regular clothes. It's practically the same amount of soap and water. We still use the small load setting on the washing machine. Since it's summer, we line dry all our clothes too.

I don't cloth diaper Ava anymore since she's almost potty trained. She just uses diapers for naps and nightime. For daytime naps, I notice that sometimes, yaya already uses the cloth diapers I bought before.  Note to self, remind her to use them for Ava's daily naps.

So here we are saving the world one cloth diaper at a time. Cloth diapering is really easy once you find the right system for you and your family. But I have to be honest, we still have some disposables too.