There are three main arguments I hear when people say they don't want to cloth diaper.
Besides thinking that there are copious amounts of laundry and money involved, parents are afraid of poop.
The fact is, you're going to end up with poop on you, on your baby and in your washer whether you use cloth or disposables.
Baby poop is unreliable.
Granted, there is a big difference between a little poo on an outfit and a load [no pun intended] of poo diapers.
A lot of people ask just WHAT are you supposed to do with the solid waste when you use cloth...
A little known (or paid-attention-to) fact is that even with disposables, solid waste should be removed. Yup, it's right there on the box. Here's a link to Wegman's site where you can see that the second to last sentence says to "shake diaper contents into toilet before discarding". It's not just these diapers either, this instruction is on all boxes.
I digress.
If you're exclusively breast feeding (being that baby isn't taking any formula), you don't even have to worry about poop until solids are introduced. EBF poop is water soluble. Of course, you can remove the solid waste if you want to...
When baby starts (or continues) solids, then you have some options:
* Dunk'n'Swirl: Take the non-soiled ends of the diaper, dunk into the toilet and swirl/flush until most of the solids are off. Remove excess water. Ta-da!
* Diaper Sprayer: This gadget attaches to the water line on your toilet (kind of like the sprayer at your kitchen sink) and you use the water pressure to rinse the solids away. Ta-da.
* The Ol' Spatula/Spoon: Some parents prefer to scrape the solids off the diaper and into the toilet. Ta-da.
* Toilet Paper.
* Flushable Liners: These sheets go between baby's bottom and the diaper itself. Ideally, the solid waste is contained to the liner, which is then removed and flushed away, along with most of the solid waste. Ta-da.
* Liners: Reusable liners, so instead of having to dunk/swish/spray/scrape solids, the liner should have a majority of the waste and that part gets dunked/swished/sprayed/scraped. Ta-da.
After the solids are removed, the diaper goes into the pail. You don't have to have buckets of water sitting around anymore! In fact, some of the pail liners and wet bags are pretty darn cute...
Today's washers can handle diapers. If you're concerned about waste getting transferred to your other clothes, you can run a load of whites after your launder your cloth.
Next up, we'll tackle that blown-out-of-proportion molehill of diaper laundry.
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