We've come a long way since then, and tried just about every diaper out there. We've made the switch from full time disposable diapering to part-time disposable, part-time cloth, and then to full-time cloth. We didn't go full-time cloth until we actually bit the bullet and spent some money on good cloth diapers and covers. Now I can't believe we ever used disposable diapers! Cloth is sooooo much better and nicer. Put a cloth diaper up to your face. Feel the softness. Breath in. It smells clean and fresh. Now try that with a disposable diaper - no don't - really, that's just too, um, just don't do it.

What did we learn? You can't be successful using cloth diapers if you don't own good cloth diapering supplies! That seems obvious, but it took us quite some time to figure that one out. It was hard to spend a chunk of money up front to buy good stuff, especially when all my peers, and even my husband, were very negative about the idea of cloth diapering. It was easy to buy another pack of disposable diapers for $15.00 because it was a relatively small amount of money each time. But those $15.00's really add up! Now I cringe to think that I could have bought an all-in-one for less than each pack of disposables. The all-in-ones are really what changed my husband from a disposable user into a cloth user. I wish I had had those sooner for him to use.

My Sensitive Son

Although I had a tough time getting the right diapers to make cloth diapering work for my daughter, she was actually easy to diaper. She had no rashes or sensitivities. Then a few years later along comes my son. He really gave me real diapering challenges. He was sensitive to everything, it seems. It's a good thing we used cloth, because there was no way his sensitive skin could tolerate disposable diapers. It took me a while to figure out that he was sensitive to polyester, but once we did, we made tremendous improvement in his skin condition. I got rid of my Mother-Ease(TM) diapers left over from my daughter's diapering days. They are cotton wrapped around a polyester base and he was sensitive to the poly content. We stopped using our brushed polyester covers, too. The only covers he could wear without reacting were nylon and the nylon-like polyester of the Re-Uz'm all-in-ones and Re-Uz'm Snap Covers. I can't explain why that particular kind of polyester was ok for him. That's just they way he was. The only products his sensitive bottom could tolerate were Aveeno(TM) or Cetaphil(TM) lotion on the wet wipes for poopy changes, and corn starch (yup, from the kitchen cabinet) on his clean bottom for extra dryness. All other products we tried turned his bottom red.

At some point well into the diapering years, a mom I met at a La Leche League meeting showed me how to pin a prefold diaper. I tried it. It was so much easier than I expected! And it gave such a nice fit, too. Before long I wondered why I had struggled for over a year with those contour diapers trying to avoid pinning when pinning was so easy and so effective. Always buy a pack of Dritz pins, even if you have no intention of pinning. It's worth it just to try it.

Diapering a baby can actually be a pleasure with cloth diapers. It's a special time to play with and talk to your baby, while you do something basic, but very caring and important for your child's health. You can be proud of your child's rash-free, chemical-free, cotton covered, super-cute bottom.