Cloth Diapers

Last night, Louis and I went to a free class on the basics of cloth diapering. There's a brand new store in Alameda called The Diaper Connection that sells the major brands of cloth diapers plus all the fancy accessories. The woman who owns it has a 6 month old baby and she started the business once she realized how much she really got into cloth diapering and that it was really difficult to find local places where you could actually go and see and feel the choices available before buying.

Once a week, she offers a class to anybody who wants to learn more about cloth diapers. She lays out a sample of each brand, design, and size that she carries, and the class participants actually get to see and feel each one to see what they like. She started with an overview of the benefits of cloth diapering and why families are choosing this route more and more. She then explained the different styles that are now available (unlike in our parents' day), then talked about how to clean them, how many to buy, how to use inserts from one brand and covers from another, etc. We got to ask all of our questions and play with fitting the diapers on a doll.

We loved the class. I had been feeling so overwhelmed by all the many choices available and I wasn't even really sure which style I wanted to try. I don't think Louis had even seen a modern cloth diaper before. The class was supposed to be an hour long, but we stayed about two and a half hours. By the time we left, I had such a better understanding of our options and preferences.

Here are some of the stats I found interesting:

A baby will typically go through about 6000 diaper changes from birth to potty.
Disposable diapers and wipes can add up to an average of $2500 in cost.
To make disposable diapers, 25 million trees are consumed each year.
Disposable diapers used today will still be intact in landfills 500 years from now.

Yuck.

I really want to try two different systems of cloth diapers. We liked the FuzziBunz diapers which come in both newborn size and one-size, plus the hemp inserts or prefolds that can be laid directly inside the diaper instead of tucked in the pocket. I also really like the GroVia all-in-one diaper which is all attached as one piece that is changed like a disposable. The GroVia all-in-ones seem to be the most convenient of cloth diapers but also the most expensive at $15-$25 each.

One of the cool things The Diaper Connection offers is a rental service for newborn size diapers. For about $80, you can rent newborn diapers for up to 8 weeks, so you don't have to put out a lot of money on the size the baby will grow out of super quickly. We're thinking about taking advantage of this, although if we get newborn size diapers as gifts, I know we can totally receive a good resale value if and when we decide to sell them.

We had listed some diapers on our registry already, but the more we learned from our class yesterday, the more Louis and I agreed that we would love to be able to support this great new business instead. The woman said she would match any price and that she would ship or even do local drop-offs. We asked her about adding the items we liked to our registry as a link from her web site, and we're now gonna try to set this up in the next few days.

I'm so glad we went to the class! I really want her business to take off. Who knew diapering could be so interesting? Goodness, this is my life now.