Cloth vs. Sposies

First an update on weeks three and four. Baby and I are thriving. Iyana is gaining more than what the doctors require (go pescavegan milk). 

My fave go to foods to keep baby and me healthy:

• lentils
• whole grains
• beans, beans, and more beans.....beans of all kinds
• fruit smoothies

My appetite honestly hasnt been great and I do tend to forget to eat but when I do eat, I make sure to pack it with lots of nutrition.

Now on to the topic at hand. With everything regarding parenting and what's best there are a lot of opinions. One thing I'm starting to find is that research, doctors, parents, in-laws, etc don't seems to agree on the same thing. So I won't sit here and tell you what IS better but what I THINK is better. 

First off, I've chosen to use cloth diapers over disposables. I'm currently using a hybrid system as I'm still trying to get into the swing of things but cloth is my intended route. They are easier on the pocket and environment and they put less chemicals on my angel baby's bum. These were the main reasons to go this route. Once I started cloth diapering I found many more reasons to prefer it.

The first two weeks after having Iyana, I used disposables exclusively because I couldn't make the trek up and down the stairs to so my own laundry let alone diapers. 

Pros:

• Using disposables in the first two weeks allowed me to avoid meconium stains on my cloth diapers.
• Slightly (only slightly) more convenient.
• More travel friendly
• Have a little groove for umbilical cord in NB sizes.

Cons:

• More blowouts.
• Tough to find a barnd that didn't irritate skin.
• Heavy diapers sometimes broke, getting jellies all over baby's bum (research shows these jellies can be cancerous).
• More waste.

Then once I was able to tackle my stairs, I started cloth at about two weeks. 

Pros:

• Almost no blowouts (only one so far and that's because hubby didn't put it on well)
• NO chemicals. 
• Poop rarely reaches the baby's genitals. With disposables, my baby's privates were always covered in poop.
• Saves a lot of money.
• Less waste.

Cons:

• There are a couple extra steps that can sometimes be tedious.
• Gives the baby a big bum.
• Takes extra care to maintain maximum absorbency.
• Too many types to chose from and it can be confusing.

After using both, I love my cloth diapers. Why spend money and hurt the environment (it takes a diaper 500 years to START decomposing) for a little extra convenience? When it comes down to what's best for baby, there really isn't much difference. That's my unbiased opinion. Other than the jellies (which can be avoided by making sure to change baby often) there really isn't much about a disposable that's bad for the baby. 

Oh! and an added bonus: cloth goes well with the hippy image :P 

Diapers I'm using:

These are prefolds.

I use Snappies to secure them.

And I use a waterproof cover similar to this one. 

          

So you see, there aren't ancient artifacts that I dug out of the ground. Cloth has gone modern and I think every parent should at least consider them.