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Cloth diapers are awesome and cloth diapers suck

Here in the frenzy, we've tried different things to reduce the waste we produce and save money. One thing that has definitely worked well for our budget is cloth diapers. I was a skeptic at first but I took the chance and eventually I was won over. We saved a bunch of money and being a parent will eventually desensitize you to baby poop... and baby pee... oh, and spit up... and drool... and whatever other mysterious substances that manage to make it onto children's hands... OK, I'll stop.

For the first year or so, cloth diapers are awesome. We got past the grossness and managed to make spraying them off and washing them part of the routine. Then you introduce more solid food. And your child starts eating more and more food. Eventually, if the input volume increases, then you know the output volume will follow. Sometimes, the output volume exceeds the carrying capacity of the diapers. This is never fun.

I was eventually beaten down. My tolerance used up. The siren song of those easy disposable diapers started singing sweetly calling me to them. Now, I know there is probably some contrarian website out there that says that cloth diapers are just as bad as disposable when you count the washing and extra manufacturing. That they are dropped from helicopters with silent rotors into your local bumgenius store. I don't believe it. It just doesn't pass the smell test to me (yes, I really did just use "the smell test" in a post about diapers). We switched to the disposable diapers that made us feel at least somewhat responsible, but I know it's worse. All I can say is eventually cloth diapers suck.

That doesn't mean I regret buying them. The second child went straight into cloth diapers again. Diapers are expensive. You'll still come out way ahead on the investment even if you give up at some point down the road. And you'll have created less child rearing related waste at the local landfill. I know some cloth diaper enthusiasts will disagree with this post. And I'll own up to the environmental guilt of having never even used reusable wipes which would really cut down on the waste. I'm sure someone made it all the way through using three cloth diapers washed in the stream behind their house and multi-purposing their hand towels as wipes. They're better than me. But hopefully if you're a skeptic you'll at least be willing to try it out at first. And if you give it up somewhere down the road, I've been there. I'm not judging your choices. Whatever it takes to survive the frenzy.

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