I'll just wash the poop away!

Baby poop doesn't bother me. Adult poop... disgusts me. Dog poop... makes me want to lose my lunch. But baby/toddler poop, I can deal with.

Before Jake and I even conceived our child, we decided (many thanks to our dear friend Randi, for helping make this decision) that we were going to use cloth diapers for our children. A lot of the time, when I would tell people that, especially those who are older than me (like, my parents age), they would look at me like I was crazy. Sometimes, we'd find a gem here or there that would support us and ask questions, but generally, people assumed that the only kind of cloth diapers there were are the fold and pin and try not to skew your infant style ones that existed so long ago.

Boy, were they wrong. Cloth diapers today are much more awesome. I told someone recently they're a cross between regular disposable diapers and underwear, at least in terms of function. They're even pretty cute!

Recently, Jake and I started looking into our actual options for cloth diapers. I was quickly overwhelmed with the variety that are available.

I won't bore everyone with all of the details, but after visiting a local store and getting a quick "seminar" on options, we left feeling even more excited and confident in our decision.

People wonder why we decided to go with cloth diapers. Part of it (and Jake really appreciates this decision, seeing as he's more finance-minded than I), is that you save a lot of money using cloth. Upfront, it sounds and looks pretty scary, when you can spend around $20 PER diaper, and you need, from what we've learned, around 20-30 if you don't want to do laundry every day. So, potentially, that's $400 in diapers. But then, you actually research and compare costs, and you realize, you're saving around... $1,000 - $2,000 just by using cloth. More, if you have multiple children I researched this online, as well as with some of the hand-outs we received with our lesson. And, the resources used for washing are pretty minimal, compared to my next point...

I also like how cloth diapers are much more eco-friendly than disposables. It can take up to 500 years for one diaper to break down! That is CRAZY. According to the handout received from Thirsties (a company/brand of diapers), 25 million trees are made into disposable diapers yearly. That's just not cool.

Cloth diapers are also "chemical-free," unlike disposables that contain gel-like agents and various toxins that absorb into a baby's bottom.

There's also found to be less instances of diaper rash with cloth diapers if you launder them correctly!

So yeah, sure, we're going to have to scrape poop off the diapers into the toilet, and do some extra laundry. Big deal.

Really, most diaper brands have fine print on them that say you're supposed to scrape the poop off into the toilet anyway and most people just don't follow it. Instead, there's a crap-ton (haha) of poop in landfills that seeps into our water supply and breeds viruses and bacteria. Stellar.

Anyway, as luck would have it, the other evening I realized I still had some cash left in my paypal account from when I used to sell photography on etsy, and after being directed to a "lesser known brand" of cloth diapers, called Nubunz (which are basically the same thing as the ever popular Fuzzibunz), I was able to purchase two. They arrived yesterday! I won't lie, I was beyond excited to receive the package, open them, see how they work, and put them on the shelf for our little Ninja to use once he's born and big enough!

Here they are, because I obviously was so excited I needed to photo document the occasion.

We put together a cloth diaper online registry, thinking maybe people would be interested in helping us get to our 20-30 goal, but we'll see how much support we really receive. Most people are more interested in buying outfits and toys, I figure (not that we don't appreciate or need those things, too).