This cloth diapering thing has worked out well for us so far - almost seven months in and counting - but there have been a few lessons learned. These are the things I would do differently if I had access to a Michael J. Fox-esque DeLorean.
1. I would have got it through my head sooner that sometimes you have to spend money to save money (and energy).
I know, I know, we should have just done the smart thing and gone with the 10 week trial diaper service, and rented covers like reasonable first timers. In hindsight, by buying covers we ended up locking ourselves into a set of diapers that we might have otherwise decided weren't the right type for us. We're lucky we don't mind the flat/fitted plus cover combination, but I sometimes wonder if we would have gone the more expensive but also more convenient route of pocket diapers or all-in-ones. By doing the trial we could and should have tried all of these options, and decided what was best for our family based on real experience rather than on our assumptions. Also, having been through the early days of having a newborn and imagining doing that with a toddler in diapers at the same time, if we were to have a second child I can envision us engaging a diaper service for the first few months, to get us through the period of time where we'd be in survival mode.
2. I would not underestimate the affect of first-time-parent syndrome and would have been slower to make purchases.
At the time, the wipes warmer seemed to be an absolute must. I had a screaming baby half the night, and if I could prevent even one episode of screaming baby in the daytime I was going to do everything in my power to do so. The day after we took the warmer out of its packaging, our midwife told us about another genius solution. Get a thermal carafe, that you fill with hot water every day. Take a pair of tongs and dunk the wipes in the carafe just prior to use. Ta-da!!! a less expensive, and dual purpose solution. Taking a wait and see, or a wait and research, approach would have saved us money, and in many cases left us with a better solution.
3. Everything changes. Quickly. Constantly.
Just when we thought something had become consistent enough to be a pattern (discomfort at being wiped with cold wipes, or needing extra covers because the baby is pooping so much), it changed. This too caused an unnecessary outlay of money, and some baby frustration because we were a bit slow to catch on. It turns that the fundamental definition of parent should be, “learns to adapt, frequently, out of necessity.”
And finally…
4. What works for other families may not work for us, and vice versa.
So much of what we've learned by trial and error is really about adapting to what works for us and our child. For instance, I can only imagine that most human beings don't like to have a dirty diaper. But our baby really, and I mean REALLY, does not like it. As a result it was causing her to wake up multiple times through the night in distress. As soon as we got some super absorbent microfibre stuffed pocket diapers like Bum Genius diapers, she was able to sleep through the night in relative comfort. Similarly in the day, bamboo squares work better for her than cotton fitteds, just in terms of her comfort level. We can still tell when she needs her diaper changed, and we respond immediately, but thankfully it isn't accompanied by the screeching pterodactyl cries, which had come to be her ‘I must be changed, and I must be changed NOW' signal. Along those same lines, we have the time and energy to deal with flat diapers and covers, but all-in-one diapers might better suit other families' lifestyles.
Next up: Advice for first timers...
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