Guest Post Diary of a First Child – Why Reusable?

Hello all, seems I’m a bit under the weather again. Yesterday I wasn’t exactly feeling the best, but sucked it up and took the kids to their dentist appointment. It was that time of the year again when we have to get their teeth cleaned. It was even Kaitlynn’s first trip to the dentist!!! Of course though I was still having problems with my dreaded wisdom tooth, and so I had them look it over. Of course the stupid hole is infected and I’m now on antibiotics!  On top of that I seem to have caught some sort of flu bug, and so now I’m just hoping that I get over it before anyone else gets it! It’s not fun!

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Meet Luschka, she’s an awesome mama who lives in London with her husband and 5month old Daughter Kyra. Luschka feels passionate about all things natural living, as well as Cloth Diapers. She writes about it all on her blog Diary of a First Child. Go ahead and check her out, and leave this awesome mama some love!

Why Reusable? A Mother Makes the Choice

I had always planned to use cloth diapers. I hadn’t really thought about it, about the logistics of it, but I had always thought that was what I would do. I even put a starter pack of trial terry squares on my baby shower gift list. Instead, I received 996 disposable diapers. Yes, I counted them.

I remember sitting on the floor in my living room arranging disposables by size and being overwhelmed by the sheer volume that roughly six months worth of diapers took up. I imagined, say, three times that amount for my baby alone and felt appalled at the sheer mass of space we would be taking up in our landfill. Then I thought of the four babies on our block, and actually felt quite distressed.

And that doesn’t even take in to consideration the millions of trees cut down to produce disposables every day. Nor does it include the toxins that return to our waterways after they have been made.

My desire to use reusable's goes beyond my eco-conscience, though. I take special care not to bathe my daughter in anything containing Sodium Lauryl Sulphate (which sadly cuts out most ‘baby’ products). Instead we use lavender essence in her bath water, and saffron oil to moisturize her.

Why, then, do I want to put diapers made up of chemicals such as Sodium Polyacrylate (the stuff that makes it absorbent and which has been linked to Toxic Shock Syndrome in women who used tampons prior to 1985) on my baby? We have no idea what the risks of this are, because no studies have been done. And that’s just one of the potentially dangerous chemicals.

A further reason to at least look at reusable is financial. Yes, the upfront cost is a real problem, and has certainly hampered me from making the switch. But the cumulative cost of disposables is far higher (unless you’re buying the super-leaky supermarket own brand variety that we had two bags of!). In addition, there is a relatively good resale value on second-hand diapers. Although cheaper than buying new, it seems most parents make a fair bit of their money back by selling used diapers on parenting forums.

But, having no reusable's, and bags upon bags of disposables hidden behind couches and on top of cupboards, I decided to use them up while I explored the world of reusable's. And wow. What a world. I had no idea how far we have moved on from terry squares! The diapers available, the different types, brands, colours and styles are amazing.

Although it is quite difficult knowing where to start, there are plenty of web resources available to give a helping hand.  The best one I have found is from Fill Your Pants. This site is definitely worth a look.

So, as I set off on my journey of discovery with reusable diapers, I hope to end up being one of those mothers who never look back.