ok so i am by no means PROmom. i have no parenting degree or even education other than what i've gained through parenting itself. i mess up. a lot. but, we live our life to the best of our abilities and take each situation as it comes, preparing as we can. i have experiences to share. while we each experience situations differently, i have found others who have shared their experiences (through personal stories on and offline) have helped me go through a similar situations.
ok, so now i want to share something with y'all, that was an issue with our 1st child and derail the crafting train. at least occasionally. diapering. you have a baby, you have to put something on it to contain the things that comes out of it. right?
how about some background?
with our 1st child (the boy, now five), we experienced some "minor" skin issues. we used
conventional huggies
from birth. at around 8 months we 1st noticed a few dry, red splotches on his diaper area, mostly his lower back/bum. they were very faint at first but then grew more intense as we entered summer and things heated up. no amount of
diaper rash creams or sprays changed the rash. it started to seem that the rash was causing discomfort. it was time to take the boy to the pediatrician. he diagnosed a possible case of eczema and set him up with a steroid cream. the cream worked but i hated the idea of using a steroid cream on his little bum and, if we didn't use it constantly, then the rash returned promptly. so i started looking into what causes these kinds of skin issues and if there was anything i could do.
after reading and posting and reading and sharing, we started to gain some ground and started removing potential skin irritants. since the rashes were limited to his diaper area, obviously changing the diapering routines seem to be the best starting point. soooo... after a lot of trial and error we found a combination of products (
Seventh Generation Diapers,
chlorine/alcohol free wipes
, and the occasional slathering of
California Baby Calendula Cream
) that improved our situation and the skin issues cleared up. neat huh?
i want to throw in here that i did try cloth with the boy around the time he was a year old and the rash was peaking with not so great results. looking back, it was the wrong time to attempt to transition to cloth. there was a heatwave, the boy's rash was at its peak and i was freaking frustrated already! never mind that i had ZERO prior knowledge of cloth diapering and, while over all fairly simple, there are a lot of options and that crap is effing confusing. srs.
ohay! we're having a baby!
so we're expecting our 2nd addition now and i know i am dreading diapering again. so, i'm also expecting our 1st set of gdiapers to arrive. our plan is to use the chlorine free diapers from seventh generation along with cloth diapers (read below for my initial cloth diaper choice) in hopes of preventing or at least lessening the possibility of skin irritation from day one.
the "green" factor honestly is a smaller portion of this decision than it seems others have. there are
disposable inserts(not planning on using these tbh) which have a waste factor and even washing the
cloth inserts leave some kind of footprint in terms of detergents, waste water and energy consumed... while reducing and reusing is in my daily thought process and obviously to benefit our children, but baby and her comfort are numero uno in terms of this decision.
why gdiapers?
well, i am the kind of person that will bend over backwards to not burden others will my decisions. husband is pretty well able to go with the flow on some things and willing to learn especially when it comes to the benefit of our children. BUT, what about others involved with our children? Grandmas? Aunties? Friends? we hope to share our children with our friends and family and that occasionally involves changing a diaper...
when i first told my mom we would cloth diapering at least part time, she pretty much just told me she would have a stash of disposables on hand. OK, one pampers isn't going to ruin baby forever, BUT it does defeat the purpose of this investment. I'm sure i will get her set up with the chlorine free disposables, BUT why can't a cloth diaper be as easy as a disposable diaper?
after poking around the internet, i pretty well became smitten with the idea and look of the gdiapers. they seem less bulky than some of the others. they come in bundles to help get you started. i can obtain inserts and accessories at the grocery store (whole foods and places of the like). they have velcro and vaguely look like a fancy disposable diaper. and, with a little effort, i bet i can pre-load the diaper covers with the inserts and liners so guest diaper-ers can just pull out a fresh diaper when needed. it seemed like a good jumping off point.
ps. some of the colors are really cute and i bet they would make for a great "diaper butt" and husband and i have coined it. we're a little obsessed with diaper butt. ah! cuteness!
So, here we are.
I am waiting on our 1st shipment of
gDiapers (the newborn bundle to be specific) so I can get back into practicing and see if i can gain a little confidence with this system. i do have plans to report back and share the experience. hopefully with photos. this post is dryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy....
sunshine&bunnies,
holly*
