"When she gets a raging diaper rash, you'll know exactly what it's from. And I'm telling you, it will be raging. You might as well save yourself the trouble, and her the discomfort, and just go back to disposables now." That is the comment I got a couple days ago from someone (a man, no less) that saw me changing Jenna's diaper at the fire house and felt the need to sound off on our decision to use cloth. This man has no problem speaking his mind......to anyone...about anything...at any point in time...ever. He is never without an opinion about my 'crunchiness'. He is intelligent and very educated, and 99% of the time doesn't go into a conversation without the ammunition to back his opinions up, but this time I knew he was shooting from the hip and I jumped on it! :-) I asked him why he thought this, and he said "Moisture breeds diaper rash. Fast." So I schooled him.
I pulled out the pee soaked diaper and a spare clean pocket diaper. I told him to feel the inside of the pocket diaper - the fleece was dry. I showed him how it worked and told him that we had to use butt paste on Jenna with each disposable change during the first 2 months, but that we haven't had any problems with rash since we started using cloth. I told him that her skin is almost always dry when I open up a wet pocket diaper, as opposed to being damp with a disposable diaper. All he could say was "Huh. That's kind of neat. But it seems like a lot of work." I told him that over the course of a week it takes up about 60-75 minutes of my time, depending on whether I do it myself or have DH help (Somehow, it always takes longer when I have DH help, because he messes up my system. Some day I'll learn). After that, he didn't have anything else to say. He couldn't come up with a single point to argue.
We have been using cloth for 3 - 3.5 months now, and I love it. I have had the opportunity to talk with a few expectant moms over the last month, and offer up some of the things I have learned along the way. I have started a post about that; hopefully I can get it posted this weekend!
2 comments:
This is a great story! :)
I have you in mind to ask you about cloth diapers. With Acacia we were planning to use disposable at first (thinking that will be easier for us) and then start wtih cloth as soon as we could. But the options with cloth seem a bit overwhelming. I have 3 cloth diapers waiting for me from Acacia, that we never used. So I will definitely read your post about cloth diapers and benefit from your experience! :)
It bugs me when people give their opinion about something they have no experience in. Glad you showed him the truth!
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