Local Cloth Diapering Resources: Making baby poo a little greener

It's the thing every expectant parent dreads and every new parent comes to accept within hours of their child's birth: the copious amounts of poo that little bodies are capable of producing. For families interested in "going green," cloth diapers may be an appealing alternative to sending endless bags of disposables to the landfill. But where to start? Fortunately, while cloth diapering can seem overwhelming, Boston has several local resources to help figure out if cloth diapering is right for your family.

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To many people, "cloth diapering" conjures images of scratchy white linen held on the baby by extra large safety pins, but cloth diapering enthusiasts of the twenty-first century have a variety of options to choose from: from old fashioned pre-folds (the technical name for the white squares which now come in cotton, bamboo, and hemp fabrics), to pocket diapers, to all-one diaper systems. They come in different sizes for different ages, or "one size fits all" with adjustable snaps to grow with your baby.

We began our foray into cloth diapering with old-fashioned cotton pre-folds we purchased online from Green Mountain Diapers, only we skipped the safety pins in favor of a fancy stretchy gizmo called a snappi. Green Mountain is run by a stay at home mom, and in addition to selling various kinds of cloth diapers has how-to videos and lots of adorable pictures of newborn babies in fluffy cloth diapers. Unfortunately we lived in an apartment with no washer or dryer at the time, so we were washing our diapers in the kitchen sink with a hand washing contraption called Wonder Wash. I would not recommend going this route given how many diapers babies go through and how many better things you can think of to do with your time.

After two weeks of it we decided that it wasn't working for us and called Donna at Changing Habits. This diaper service delivers clean diapers to families in Franklin, Hampshire, Middlesex, and Norfolk counties.  In this case, pre-folds are the only option, but the website has videos and information on how to use them. Donna also does cloth diapering workshops occasionally at local businesses, and is super helpful over the phone.

If you have your own laundry machines and want to buy diapers, head to Diaper Lab--a Cambridge shop that carries all different sorts of cloth diapers staffed by knowledgeable people who will help you find what works for you. In addition to selling both new and gently used (and well laundered!) cloth diapers, Diaper Lab offers workshops to teach new parents about the different types of cloth diapers, as well as how to clean and maintain them.

For families with older babies, Diaper Lab offers an "experiment to own" program where you pay a rental fee of $35, pick out eight different kinds of cloth diapers to take home and try for two weeks. At the end of the trial period you can return any diapers that didn't work for you (these become the gently used diapers for sale) and buy whatever did. Talk to anyone who uses cloth diapers and they will probably talk your ear off about why they chose the brand they did. Trouble is, talk to another cloth diapering parent and you will get an earful of praise for a different kind of diaper entirely. Like the rest of us, babies come in different shapes and sizes, and experimenting with different types of diapers is a great way to find the diaper that works best for your baby. The Diaper Lab staff will also ask you questions about your general lifestyle and diapering preferences--are you the kind of person who folds laundry right away, or the kind of person who lets clean clothes gather in laundry baskets around the house until the dresser is empty? How you answer will affect what kind of diaper will make you happiest.

If you want to learn more about cloth diapering without going to a store--where, let's face it, people will be trying to sell you things--be sure to check out Diaper Pin. With forums for asking cloth diapering parents any questions you might have, reviews of different brands of cloth diapers, directories of cloth diaper related businesses, and a blog with give-aways, this website is full of useful information.

If you do decide to go the cloth route, I would also recommend getting some sort of diaper sprayer, like this one from the Potty Pail. We bought the sprayer and made our own version of the pail by cutting a hole in the bottom of a five gallon bucket from the hardware store. This definitely removes some of the yuck factor from getting the poop off the diaper and into the toilet.

Using cloth diapers is a great way to lessen the environmental impact of having a baby, but it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing experience, either. Like many families, we use a combination of cloth diapers and disposable diapers. When our son was a baby and less predictable in his bowel movements, we'd use disposables whenever we were out and cloth at home. Now that he is basically a morning pooper, we put him in cloth when we are out and about too, but he still uses disposables at night and whenever we fall behind on laundry!

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