22 Weeks Pregnant

Happy Snow Day! For those of us in the South, today is a good day to stay in. We couldn’t even see the outline of our street when we woke up this morning. I think one of our neighbors tried to leave, then slid all over the cul de sac and had to ask for help pushing the car back into his driveway. I guess he gave up. We’re not even attempting it.

At 22 weeks (5 months!), my belly button is getting pretty shallow. :-P Baby has eyebrows and fingernails now, and is getting stronger and stronger. Last night Travis got to see the movements for the first time, and he also felt some pretty strong kicks. The baby should be 11 inches from head to toe, and weigh in at about a pound! It seems like yesterday that we were measuring it in millimeters and grams! In the past week I think I have felt baby hiccups a few times, as well as some Braxton-Hicks contractions once for about ten minutes.

I want to use the rest of this week’s blog to talk about cloth diapers. I hope I don’t bore you to pieces. This is exciting stuff to me, but I’m weird like that. I’m kind of obsessed, really.

Travis and I decided a LONG time ago that we want to use cloth diapers. There are a whole slew of reasons to do it, and only one or two reasons I can think of not to. Some of our reasons for doing it are:

· - They’re adorable! They come in a bajillion different colors.

· -You never have to worry about running out of diapers.

· - I don’t think it’ll be that much work, and I don’t mind what work it does involve.

· - They’re better for the baby’s skin, and more comfortable.

· - They’re way cheaper than disposables in the long run. This is an important point. The cost of using disposable diapers for one child (birth to potty training) is estimated to be around $2,000 in the US. Our cloth diapers will cost us around $350 TOTAL. (We plan to do diaper laundry every 2-3 days. It’s not a good idea to let them sit much longer than that.) If you factor in that we plan to reuse the same diapers on two or three children, the savings is humongous. If we have two kids, the disposable diaper total is around $4,000. $350 is less than 9% of 4,000! That’s like buying a $35 pack of disposable diapers for about $3.

· - Lastly, I don’t feel good about putting 4-ish years worth of diapers in the landfill. Nobody even knows how long it takes for them to break down…they pretty much just sit there forever, and they have chemicals in them that aren’t good for the environment. And poo. Gross.

Ok, now that I’ve filled you in on why we plan to use cloth diapers, I want to tell you about the specific diapers we chose.

There are a whole bunch of different “cloth diapering systems.” The cheapest are prefolds with covers. This is the old fashioned type. They involve folding the diaper a certain way, fastening it onto the baby, and then putting some type of waterproof shell overtop. You can fasten them with diaper pins, but these days they make something called a snappi that has little tiny hooks that hold the diaper together. These are safer and easier to use than pins.

At the other end of the spectrum (most expensive and most convenient) are all-in-one diapers. You use them just like you would disposables, except you throw them in the wash instead of in the trash. They snap or Velcro, and usually you buy them in sizes, so you have to buy a set of smalls, a set of mediums, etc. Another note about these is that they take forever to dry since they’re all in one piece.

The diapers we chose are somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. The first, which I found months and months ago, before I was pregnant, are called Best Bottom diapers, by Nicki’s Diapers (www.nickisdiapers.com).

This diaper is an “all-in-two” system. It consists of one-size waterproof covers (adjustable to fit babies from about 8 to 30 lbs.) with sized inserts (small, medium, and large) that snap into the covers. These end up being one of the cheaper systems to use because when you change the diaper, if the shell is pretty clean, you can just wipe it out and snap in a new insert. That way, you don’t have to have as many covers. (The cover is the expensive part.) I also like them because they won’t take up much room in a diaper bag and will make less laundry than other types.

The other diaper we plan to use is the GoGreen diaper, from www.gogreenpocketdiapers.com.

This is a pocket diaper. It consists of a waterproof shell with a soft fabric lining that has a pocket that you stuff with an absorbent insert. This particular brand is the least expensive of this type that I’ve seen that still gets wonderful reviews. The cost is $9 per diaper, while most other well-made pocket diapers cost around $20. I like it because of the cost, the adorable colors, the soft lining, and the fact that it, too, is adjustable to fit a baby from about 8 to 30 lbs.

So, why are we getting two different types? Both diapers get excellent reviews. They don’t leak, they fit well on babies of all shapes and sizes (some cloth diapers look really bulky), they’re cute, they’re well-made (don’t fall apart in the wash), and they’re cost effective! Honestly, we were having a hard time choosing one over the other, so we just decided to get some of each. Also, I think the Best Bottom will be better for outings and trips, while the GoGreen might be slightly more comfortable for the baby and will work well at home and at night, since you can stuff extra inserts into the pocket to absorb more wetness while the baby sleeps.

And that’s my dissertation on cloth diapers! I hope it was interesting enough that you actually made it to the end. J

If you haven’t voted on the gender yet, you have until the day of the ultrasound: Wednesday, January 19^th! Vote! Hope you have a good week!