Squishy Tushies

There are some days I'd really like to be plugged back in to the Matrix.

Now that I'm really paying attention to our habits and lifestyle, there is so much potential for guilt. While there is much internet discussion about slacktivism and people easing their consciences with quick band-aid fixes, I think the converse is true as well. Sometimes there's so much I want to do, I'm almost paralyzed by the guilt/difficulty of doing it all. I don't want to be a slacktivist, I want to change the world.

My favorite writer, Anthony Doerr, recently wrote a somewhat depressing and frustrating article about how little awareness really changes things, and extreme technological fixes might just be the only viable solution. He also seems to be saying that even on the path to extinction we can stop to smell the roses.

I can't decide if I feel admiration or anger.

But enough of this intellectual codswallop! I'm a stay-at-home mom, I shouldn't be reading or thinking. I should be talking about baby bowel movements and diapers.*

*Sarcasm         

So.

In an earlier post I fretted about the expense and complications of cloth diapering vs. my huge guilt over the number of dipes Girl 2 is generating. The internet is CRAZY confusing when it comes to cloth diapering, even though there are 80 gazillion sites that claim to have an easy explanation. I gave up and decided that diapering was the one area I was just going to have to remain a wasteful Earth killer. Maybe I could potty train Girl 2 sooner, to reduce the number?

A friend of mine read my blog and shot me an email about how she cloth diapers. She was straight-forward, she was simple, and she told me what I really need in practical terms. Here's what she said, in a nutshell:

• I need a minimum of 3 diaper covers. She recommended Econobum   
• I need a stack of pre-fold diapers. Each of the diaper covers comes with one, plus you can use a good, absorbent flannel to make your own. Basically it's a 30 inch square, which you fold thusly. (first set of pics). I can use old receiving blankets.
• Then you just have to make sure you wash them sans fabric softener, and check to make sure your detergent works well with them. She recommended washing with baking soda.

Here's my math, once I understood what I really needed:

           I spend an average of .18 on a disposable diaper. (coupons!)
           If I do 5 changes a day, that's $0.90 a day in diapers.
           One econobum cover costs $9.95 on Amazon (free shipping since it'd be over $25)
           I can get by with 3, which would be a total of $29.85
           I have lots of flannel receiving blankets I'm not using, so the insert part is basically free.

          $29.85/.9 = 33.16, so basically in 34 days, I'd have broken even. 

One month. Seriously. 

So I talked to the man, and we decided to go for it. I bought 3 Econobums, folded all my old receiving blankets into diapers, and then the sweetest part, my cloth diaper mentor sent me this care package:

My econobum purchases with lots of adorable prefolds from my cloth diaper guru. 

Girl 2 has been wearing cloth diapers since Saturday afternoon, and it is going great. 

The relief I feel from eliminating disposable diapers is HUGE. I didn't realize how heavily it was weighing on me every time I rolled one up and pitched it in the trash. We still have a big stash of them, so she'll be wearing  one a night since she sleeps so long. That should give me a little wiggle room with laundry too. I can do the wash at night.

Crap

The kids go back to school on Monday, so we're in the prep zone. While I'm still working on getting my green on, I haven't had the time to put my fingers to the keys.

I've been researching cloth diapering. Why is it so confusing? While there are a lot of sites out there that explain the different types of diapers, how to fold them, where to buy them, I'd love a practical discussion of how well these methods work in real life. I just can't figure out practicality vs. effectiveness vs. cost.

Girl 2, aka "the Baby" is almost 10 months old. If she's like her siblings, we have a max of a year and a half left in diapers. When I look at all the prices out there for cloth diapers, it's just too expensive. I can get disposables pretty inexpensively, especially if I bargain shop and use coupons. If I was on my first child, and could reuse the diapers, or even if I'd started cloth diapering when Girl 2 was born, it might have been worth the cost. But the learning curve, the chaos in my house, and the price are just too much. I've also looked for biodegradable disposables, but so far the only kind I've found are also too expensive. 

I'm feeling sad and frustrated by this. I know that we're making a lot of waste, and LASTING waste with the way we're diapering now. I also know that we are on the run a lot once school starts, and I'm not sure we can learn how to cloth diaper on our fifth child. I really want to cloth diaper, but I don't think we have the time or money to afford it. 

To add to my guilt is this. I'm not going to look back at the number of diapers we've sent to the landfill with the first four, because there's nothing I can do about that, and it's just discouraging. But looking ahead, and assuming the Baby is in diapers for 18 more months, we're looking at a lot of waste.

Basically:

18 months = 547 days. 

Assuming 5 diapers a day 

= 2735 diapers or so until she's potty trained. 

And while I'm not looking back...there's a little mathematician in the back of my mind trying to calculate 2.5 years of disposable diapers for each of the 5 kids. I'm squelching that voice, I can't fix the mistakes I've done...but I feel the emotional weight of them.

So do I just decide that there's nothing I can do, so I should just keep on the way I have been? Or do I ignore our time & money limitations in order to be a better environmental steward? Is there some middle ground I'm missing?