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Friday, August 9, 2013

My quest to reduce the C footprint of a large family CD1




After the birth of my 6th child at home in my tub, it was not much of a jump to cloth diaper.  I had moved from the sterile environment of a hospital, a degree in Early Childhood Education where vaccination reigned king to a barefoot, composting, gardening, organic loving, wood toy touting, extended breast feeding cloth diapering  hippy. Living in the Connecticut River Valley and attending a progressive college only exposed me to more and more of what it was to be one with the earth--or at least as close as one can get. My cousin recommended Diaper Swappers to me and I was HOOKED.  What started out as a box of gerber Walmart special prefolds gifted from a friend evolved into a collection of some of the most lovely, soft and expensive fluff to grace a baby's butt.

The beginning WAS NOT EASY.  I cannot tell you how many times this co-sleeping couple woke to be covered with the closest child's pee--and not just a little pee.  But a turn on the lights, strip the sheets and lay down a towel wet.  My husband was not an immediate fan to put it mildly..  Add a few choice words and you get the idea.  But I persevered.  One of my early diapers--first used were prefolds (the lousy gerber kind) with this Bummies bear cover worn by Ella when she was two.  She is now ten and I can't wait to show her this picture!  I think by this time I had finally accepted her Gerber diapers were not absorbing so the next step was to see if a better prefold was made.  The words Diaper Service Quality became very important when searching for something better.   This means the diaper has layers of material in the cneter and not foam like the Gerber diapers.  Unbleached Indian and Unbleached Chinese prefolds also worked really well and I did not have a preference between the two.  And if one worked well, then TWO stuffed into a GREAT cover would work even better.  We were getting closer to making it through the night dry!

At this point, I knew nothing about boosters or extra padding.  The diapers I first bought new were called Little Lambs and I was able to get them for two for $5 or $6 on ebay.  They were a  rather shapeless all in two diaper.   A rather leaky cover lined with fleece, the diaper had a cotton bifold snap in soaker. Since the maker also was seller Hemp boosters, I found out that , added to a AI2, this made an okay daytime diaper.  Funny, even these inevitably leaked more times than not, it was this slew of diapers my husband was sad to see go.  To tell the truth, I don't think they even make these any more.  I found a picture of Trenton wearing one.  I am really curious if anyone remembers these!

In the following picture is Trenton wearing my first wool purchase (soon to become an obsession) --a Little Lambs worsted wool soaker.  This became the BEST cover for everything and I have only recently parted with it.  You will note that I did learn.  It takes only a glance to see how much packing is stuffed into this cover.   It is about this time that Baby Legs became the new rage and a have to have accessory



So I had made it through two children and now another baby was on the way.  I now knew wool was my passion and with boy after boy to follow, this is a story for another day.