Diaper Dilemma

Hold on, this one gets messy (and pretty long too).

So, the newest thing that Kim and I are trying to work through is our diaper philosophy. I imagine (as with most things in our lives) this would have been a much easier decision for us 2 or 3 years ago.

Back then we would have started stockpiling Huggies disposable diapers during our trips to Wal-Mart, and planning diaper showers where you all gave us even more. We’d register for or buy a Diaper Genie to dispose of the smelly little fecal bombs with just the twist of a knob. Then once a week the bags would be picked up with all our other garbage and go here.

And therein lies the new rub. We recycle when we can, and hope to get much better about it in our new home. But some things just have to be thrown away; some things have to go to the landfill. But on average, a baby will go through 6,000 disposable diapers in the first 2 ½ years of its life (the normal time kids become potty trained). That’s a lot of diapers and waste in landfills (somewhere around 2 tons as a matter of fact). Disposable diapers make up the 3^rd largest single consumer item at dumps – following newspapers and beverage containers. They account for nearly 4% of the total amount of solid waste, and 30% of the non-biodegradable waste. It takes 500 years for one disposable diaper to decompose, and I haven’t even talked about the chemicals that are slowly released into the soil by the diapers as they decompose! And the manufacturing process for disposable diapers is also troubling, think of the amount of trees cut down and chemicals used to make brand new diapers that will be in landfills within months.

So, what are our other options? Well, they run the gamut from fairly easy but more expensive to very complicated but less expensive. We know of 3 viable options (one of which has a subcategory):

1 – environmentally friendlier disposable diapers. Several companies (like Seventh Generation) make disposable diapers without the grosser dyes and chemicals that leak into the ground. They are also made of as much post consumer recycled material as possible. These diapers function and are disposed of just like normal disposables, but are a little more expensive.

2 – hybrid diapers composed of reusable and disposable elements. The one we know the most about is G Diapers. These diapers have a plastic or cloth outer layer that can be washed or reused and a disposable inner part that actually gets flushed down the toilet just like grown ups’ waste. These are even more expensive than the green disposable diapers, but you spend about the same money (or less) in the long run because you keep the outer layers.

3 – cloth diapers. These make the most sense in every way except for ease of use. Cloth diapers have come a long way from the kinds most of you are aware of. Some companies make Velcro or snapping outer covers to cover basic cloth diapers, and others make one piece reusable cloth diapers that fit and work just like disposable ones. We’ve learned a lot from Cotton Babies. This is the category with the subset, because there are amazing diaper services that I like to refer to as “The Netflix of Poopy Diapers.” There are 3 different companies in Austin that could bring us fresh diapers once a week and take away our gross ones from a contraption a lot like a Diaper Genie. One of them even has a “2 Year Warranty” that if your baby isn’t potty trained by the time they are 2 years old, the service becomes free from then on.

Cloth diapers would save us money in the long run because children are potty trained earlier. They cause next to no environmental problems (we’d be as efficient as possible with water and laundering them). And we get to reuse materials over and over instead of adding new trash to the world. BUT…they are much more complicated, especially if we tried owning our own cloth diapers and laundering them ourselves. And we’re not real sure what you do when you are traveling or away from home for a while. Maybe using mainly cloth diapers but keeping some disposables handy at all times makes the most sense.

What do you all think? What's the ebst way to go? Are we being silly for even considering this? Some people have told us the hassle isn't worth it. Others are militant about not using disposables. We're kind of indifferent at this point, but want to think about these things while we still have the time.

There haven’t been a ton of comments on this site so far, but this topic is definitely “ripe” for some interaction from you all.

Second Trimester...yay!

As Sam said in the last post, it's great to have hit that "safe" point in our pregancy. I actually officially entered the second trimester last Sunday. I'm starting to feel better, though I still have moments and hours that are tough. I'm not as tired as I have been, so we should soon be able to start pre-shopping and thinking about baby furniture and such.

Today we had a doctor's appointment and were able to ask her a lot of questions about options for classes such as Lamaze or Bradley. Sam and I are thinking that Lamaze fits us the best, so we should start classes around the beginning of the third trimester. We continue to like our doctor and I feel like we are on the same page, which is important. At our next appointment, we'll meet with a different doctor, though. Our doctor is in a group of three women and one of them is on call at the hospital at all times. So any one of the three could be actually delivering our baby and we'd like to meet each one of them beforehand.

Next month, we'll have a sonogram...and we'll find out if our little one is a boy or a girl. I'm so excited. We will be happy with either, but it will be fun to start thinking and planning more specifically. Sam wants to know if he needs to prepare for baseball or dance lessons. But if it's a girl like me, she's gonna go more for the baseball than the dance lessons anyway.