Hey Everyone,
If you know Adam and I you know that we try and live as organically and environmentally friendly as we can. We don’t like waste if it can be avoided and we try and avoid plastic as much as possible as well as various other things. That being said, we aren’t perfect and definitely have a ton of room for improvement. We have decided that we can both improve as well as teach our children from the beginning just by doing a few simple things.
One thing that we plan to do is use cloth diapers. It’s funny because when we tell people that we plan to do this, they look at us like we are insane, saying things like “Oh, taking it old school huh?”or “Eww, how will that work?”. Let me start by saying that cloth diapering is not what it was 50 or even 20 years ago. Do you still have the option for a diapering service, flats and safety pins? Yes, but you also have a lot of other options like all-in-ones, hybrids and pocket diapers. These days cloth diapers look like regular diapers just more colorful with snaps or velcro and depending on they type you pick, can be a bit bulky. There are also several accessories that you can get to make the whole process easier such as a sprayer and diaper liners. I feel like nothing about cloth diapering these days is old school other than the fact that they are cloth.
Because of the fact that cloth diapers aren’t what they used to be, that means they also aren’t as gross as they may have been in the past. Diaper liners make it so you can easily pick up anything in the diaper and flush it all down the toilet, including the liner, and sprayers allow you to spray the diapers contents into the toilet, how easy is that! I also think that it is important to note that if the baby is solely breastfed then the poop is water soluble so can just be thrown into the washer still in the diaper, though I am not sure I will go this route. You want to wash the lot of dirty diapers every 2-3 days and even though one wash cycle will do, it is ideal to do 2 wash cycles. I have done hours upon hours of research on this and think that even though it may seem time consuming and a lot of work, like anything else it will become routine. We will of coarse have to try different types and brands to see what will work best with our little one but in the end I think this will be the best choice for us.
As a side note I want to admit that we are not 100% against disposable diapers. We looked into disposables as well and found some great eco friendly and organic ones that we plan to use in the first month after the baby arrives. Newborns are often too small for the standard cloth diapers and we do not want to invest in newborn cloth diapers if we will not be using them long. We are aware that newborn poop, or meconium, is pretty gross and I have heard can be harder to deal with. We also agreed that if we are camping or are going on a trip that won’t allow for us to do laundry then disposables are the best bet so we want to use the most eco friendly option we can find for those situations.
Another thing that we are going to do is use glass bottles. I am planning to breast feed but when we do use bottles we will use glass. People have expressed their concerns about them being too heavy for the baby to hold on their own or them breaking if they fall or get thrown on the ground. They are heavier than plastic, sure, but they will be able to hold them just fine at a certain point, and many have silicone grips that double as handles and protection against breaking. They are made of durable glass so breaking isn’t likely, though it isn’t impossible, we are willing to deal with that when the time comes.
Though there are many other things that we can do, and are doing, we feel that these choices are a pretty good start. We know that everyone is different but for us this is the way to go. If you are doing anything with your baby that is environmentally friendly or have any ideas, feel free to throw them our way. Also let us know if you have any questions, we would be more than happy to give you some answers!
With love,
Tiffany
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