The "D" Word...Part Deux

I warned you I talk about diapers a lot. So here is the conclusion of my journey. And by "conclusion" I mean, "still trying to figure it out on a daily basis." I stuck to the initial four-week commitment to the diaper service, but I gave myself a break. If we were leaving the house or putting Phoebe to bed for the night she got a paper diaper (Seventh Generation or Earth's Best). We are at a point where Phoebe sleeps in huge chunks during the night, so I don't feel at all wasteful in the night-time hours. I cancelled the diaper service...and am doing some cloth on my own!! It is not nearly as bad as I thought, but it's really easy to get lazy. If we have a day at home and everyone is in a good mood (mainly me) we do the cloth. We have a special bin for all diaper related dirtiness and it gets washed once a week. My friend Stephnie gave me some Bumkins (diapers and cover all in one) and I LOVE them! The only issue is that they are about $15 a piece, so I don't have as many as I would like. So here is your chance to forward my blog to all those execs you know at Bumkins so I can get some product-placement swag. Your product is awesome, Bumkins!! Bumkins are the best ever!! Bumkins, Bumkins, Bumkins!! We are also a big fan of gDiapers. If you have never heard of them, they are a hybrid...a cloth cover with a disposable insert. These were actually pretty difficult when Phoebe was tiny. Her poop would get all over the place and I would have to wash the whole thing every time she went. But now that she is older, fatter, and poops much less often, I can pretty much determine the part of the day she will be "number two-ing" and keep her in a paper diaper until I know we are in the clear. And since she is chunkier the gDiapers are a much snugger fit and really do the job. They are also adorable!

To be totally honest, as I read this I realize I am not as good as I could be with the cloth diapers. When you are as tired as we all are, sometimes putting in the extra effort is that straw that breaks your back. But babies are so innocent and pure, and I hate to think that anything about this beautiful little being is having a negative effect on the world. So maybe it will help, every time you place a diaper in the trash, to think about it....to truly consider it. Think about where it is going, and how long it will be there, and if it really worth the extra time and energy that a cloth diaper takes. If your answer is "yes," then you can take small, teeny, bitty steps in the right direction. And if your answer is "no," then, I hear you sister. You probably need a good night's sleep. But promise me you will ask yourself again in the morning!

totally depressing environmental fact:

Introduced just over 25 years ago, the ugly truth about our plastic bag addiction is that society's consumption rate is now estimated at well over 500,000,000,000 (that's 500 billion) plastic bags annually, or almost 1 million per minute.

The "D" Word

Let me start this new post by saying that I can't believe I am a person who talks about diapers. And I talk about diapers a lot...and think about them even more. I have done exciting things in my life! I've sipped wine in Paris, smoked a hookah in Istanbul, at one point I even had a wild monkey on my head. But if you are at all passionate about the environment you will quickly become consumed with how much trash your new baby makes. 2% of the solid waste created by Americans are diapers. That is 18,000,000,000 diapers a year that take about 500 years to decompose. Think about that. The dirty diapers that you made as a baby should finally decompose by the time your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren are born.

So here is the long and the short of it all. Cloth diapers are a bazillion times better for baby and Earth, but crazy hard on you as a parent. When my daughter Phoebe was six-weeks-old I decided to go 100% cloth and get a diaper service. This is HANDS DOWN the way to go with cloth diapers, especially to start. The service and everything they provide is cheaper than regular diapers, so it's a win-win! In the Los Angeles area there is one provider; Dy-dee diaper service (www.dy-dee.com). They are wonderful. They drop off the diapers, the dirty diaper bin, and instructions. You drop the dirty diapers in the bin, and once a week they haul them away and give you fresh new ones. But do you want to hear the nitty-gritty?

I was a total dumb-dumb and didn't consider that I needed something to keep the diapers together and keep them from leaking. This led to an emergency trip to Babies R Us to get diaper pins and vinyl undies. Problem solved? Nope. Diaper pins are a nightmare, even the cute little ones I bought with flowers and peace signs on them. They are hard to maneuver, especially around a wiggling baby. And the worse thing about pins is that they are actually pins! In an effort to not pierce tiny Phoebe's skin I pierced my own several times. I had just about had it with them, so I did a little research and found this amazing product called the Snappi. It's one stretchy piece of rubbery plastic that easily pulls the baby's diaper together. It turned out only two places in all of LA sold these tiny miracles, and one was just blocks from my apartment! The store is called Green and Greener (4838 Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Valley Village CA 91607) and it's great. I nearly wept when I brought the Snappi's home and used them for the first time. You may think I am over-dramatizing my cloth diaper experience, but what you need to realize is that I was trying this on my own. My husband had gone out of town for the first time since the birth of our daughter and I was completely sleep-deprived and overwhelmed.

Here is one more vital fact you need to know about cloth diapers, and get ready, because it's a doozy. When you switch to cloth you will change about 3x more diapers than you will with disposables. Yes, I said it. You will have MORE diaper changes. Disposable diapers are designed to wick away moisture. This is why your baby can pee several times in them before they cry to have their diaper changed. But while wearing a cloth diaper (which is healthier for your baby's skin) they will want their diaper changed every time they go. I learned this lesson between 3 and 5 AM the second day of cloth diapers when I changed SEVEN diapers in that two-hour period and was sure Phoebe had some illness where a symptom was excessive urination. A week after the diapers had first arrived I felt like I had been thru boot camp. I was a non-stop diaper-changing machine, carrying a bag of dirty cloth diapers, in my pin-pricked hands, home with me after a day out with Phoebe. I remember collapsing on the sofa wondering if someone could actually die from exhaustion from too much diaper changing.

I had had it. I was done. Parenting was so exhausting to begin with, there was no way I could keep this up. But I found a way to make it work...sort of...

To be continued...

totally depressing environmental fact:

the average baby will use 13,000 disposable diapers in their lifetime.

Being Eco-Conscious...When You're Barely Conscious

I just had a baby and can barely wrap my brain around everything it takes to keep this wee bundle alive. And seriously? I need to think about being a "Green" mother? Oh, ok. I'll do it in my spare time. I'll fit it in between my mid-morning nap and my daily massage. I'll just make sure my nanny and personal chef have given the unicorns their vitamins.

As a new mother I have quickly adopted the phrase, "as much as I can." I'm not going to be that perfect environmentalist who only dresses my kid in clothes made of bamboo and gets a special attachment for my toilet to spray the baby's dirty diapers...yikes. But I can't get swept up in the runaway train that is new-parenthood and throw away every thing the child touches for a clean, fresh, germ-free one.

So I'll be a hybrid! I'll tell you the things I've learned, the experiments I've tried, and the stuff I just totally gave up on. Hopefully I can spare you some of my greatest errors...like deciding to do 100% cloth diapers the first week my husband was out of town. Or thinking I could handle our new "Worm Factory" alone. I'll try to keep the posts short so you can get in and out and learn something. I'll put up new posts on the regular schedule of "when I have the time." And don't be mad at me, but I will probably end each post with a totally depressing environmental fact.

Let's do this! Come on! We can do it! We can make the world a better...oh god...I am so tired...let's save the world after this nap.

totally depressing environmental fact:

the highest point in the state of ohio is a landfill