For those of you that don’t know, my wife, Carrie, and I are expecting our first child (That’s not him in the picture, that’s just the creature we practiced diapering on)! His due date (April 27th) is fast approaching, so, most of our recent conversations have been about baby stuff. We’ve looked at cribs, read a million reviews about different car seats, and found some ADORABLE clothes (it makes me sad that they done make some of these super comfy clothes in my size!). Besides all the stuff, though, we’ve looked into a few different classes and workshops.
Both of us are very conscientious about our impact on the planet, and we know how often a little one’s diaper has to get changed, so we started looking into the possibility of cloth diapers. Though my parents used cloth diapers on me and my two brothers decades ago, I don’t know anyone who uses them now. So, the picture I had in my head was one that involved me sticking myself with safety pins while I was trying to put on an ill-fitting cloth diaper on a wriggling baby. Not a fun prospect, but one I was willing to put up with to not have to contribute thousands of dirty diapers to the ever growing landfills.
Knowing my reservations, and wanting to understand better than the vast number of resources on the internet can seem to explain, Carrie found a cloth diaper workshop that was really close where we have our midwife appointments.
At 9:00 a.m. last Saturday, we headed to Diaper Lab in Somerville . We were surprised at how full the class was; clearly we’re not the only couple trying to navigate this tricky subject. Jennifer was the instructor on Saturday and was incredibly helpful and informative — and full of all kinds of poop-puns that brought laughs out of her half-awake attendees! My favorite of which came when she referred to their wide selection of diapers and accessories as their “poop platter”! HA! But eeewww!
She started with the variety of reasons to use cloth diapers (cost savings, reducing environmental impact, and the overall health of our son), then showed us the array of different options of diapers and diaper covers (pre-folds with covers, fitteds with covers, pockets, all-in-ones, and all-in-twos) — some of which are so adorable, it’s just ridiculous (again, why don’t these come in adult sizes?!?!). Then came the magic moment — technology has come a long way since my parents were using cloth, and now there are these Y shaped fasteners (snappies) instead of those scary safety pins! They work like ace bandage clips and are much less complicated and MUCH less sharp.
There are also a lot of different fabrics to choose from, like hemp and bamboo, which is so soft! I immediately put bamboo reusable wipes on our registry, saying that it would make our son’s tushy extra happy (psst! They are really for me! I’m going to make those full PJs with feet outta them—complete with a little turtle patch over my heart so you’ll know their mine!).
We learned a lot there, and not only about the diapers, but how to best wash them (not as difficult as I thought), that they have a program where you try a few different brands/styles for a short while so you know you got the right kind, etc. I’m really happy we went, and knowing that there are folks there who are incredibly helpful and supportive (and someone I can trade poop jokes with–I’m looking at you, Jennifer!), makes me confident that I can stare, unafraid, into the chasm that will be our dirty diaper pail knowing that I have the skill to provide clean and super soft diapers to our little boy!
