What I Wish I Knew Then

I wish I'd known how cute they could be...
When I think back on all the things I didn't know when I first started cloth diapering, I feel a little sorry for myself.

Poor deluded, ignorant, living in the dark ages me. How young and naive I was. It was 1999 and Mongoosine was going to be a mostly sustainable baby if it killed me, and so, living at home and with the help of my mother who cloth diapered me, we were going to ressurect my old cloth diapers and a few more prefolds and flats, some nine pair of plastic pants (smalls, mediums, and larges) 8 diaperpinswhich eventually grew into 12, some 9 of which I still occasionally come across, five of which are about 18" away at the moment, four of them bedecked with teal and green turtles, hooked to the lone white one. The other four are floating around here somewhere, pink and blue Winnie the Pooh honey pot pins.

We had a wetpail in the laundry room and handrinsed the poopy diapers in the toilet. That water was always bitingly cold. When the diapers began to get stinky smelly it was vinegar in the wet pail's water and bleach in the hot wash. Mongoosine's diapers were then hung on the line. The plastic pants were washed like dishes with lemon joy and hung out with the diapers.

If I could travel back in time and give myself just ONE piece of advise, well, lets keep this to diapering advice, shall we? My one piece of diapering advise would have been a diaper sprayer. I don't even know if they existed back in '99, but if they hadn't, it's not like a person couldn't have figured that one out on their own. Not exactly the height of technology, just the brilliance of application. No more hands sore, chapped, and cracking from being plunged into icy cold toilet basins and then washed with Lava soap in the hottest water I could stand. No ma'am. Diaper Sprayer.

Let's all say it again. Diaper Sprayer.

Okay.

The second piece of advise I'd have given myself would be to look into these marvelous things called wrapping covers. Imagine, a world without nasty redmarks on my baby's legs from the gimpy (and less than adorable) plastic pants.

By the way, they say they've come a long way with plastic pants. That they're new and improved wth less abrasive elastic and higher quality material for the outer.

It's a lie. They still are decades behind, and not in the delightfully old school way that wool soakers and longies are behind the times. No, they're antiquated and kinda unpleasant. Sure, I still have 6 of them for those OMG-I'm-so-tired-I-could-die days when I get more than one diaperchange behind on the laundry and it's prefold and plastic pants or free-bird. But in general, plastic pants are my absolute last choice in grabbing a cloth diapering solution to my baby's bottom's needs.

I wish I'd known about AIOs, fitteds, covers, pockets, OS pockets and the wonderful absorbancy of materials like bamboo, hemp and microfiber. Truth be told, I'm not exactly sure how long microfiber has been around, and I don't think that bamboo and hemp were being readily used back then either. I might be misinformed. I haven't studied the history of cloth diapering innovations AT ALL, so feel free to correct me, but frankly, I wish that I'd known about these things.

This time, with Snapdragon, I have a different list of things I wish I had known.

I wish I'd known that ebay diapers (sunbaby) are apt to have snapfail and elastic that just isn't quite as snug as a girl would like. I wish I'd known how great a variety of clothdiapers were out there and to go for a wider variety up front so as to not get into a position of having only 60% of the stash which my mother bought me (and don't get me wrong, I'm entirely grateful and without his Sunbaby diapers, I can't imagine how we'd make this cloth diapering thing work!) be usable at any rise adjustment, or, even less.

I wish someone had told me about newborn sized diapers that have a litle snap down part to not irritate the cord stump so we could have started with cloth from change one instead of impatiently trying to wait for that nasty cord to fall off.

I'd also have told myself not to get too terribly attached to the idea of one size. Yes, I love one size and have nothing to say against them, but his es baby QD AIO (quick drying) is divine, and his Berry Plush AIO (which also has a snap in soaker and can be used as a cover) make me squee with delight for their wonderful trimness and how precise the fit is. Once I had heard of the longterm versatility of one size, I couldn't imagine why anyone would want sized diapers, but now I totally get it, and I so wish I'd known it sooner!

Lastly, I wish I'd known about the online shops like Kelly's Closet and their registry options a few weeks/months before my baby shower, because lets face it, a Rumparooz and a Dream Eze would make far finer shower gifts than bibs and an exerssaucer.

What do you wish you'd known when you first started cloth diapering?

For more great Cloth Diaper Carnival posts, don't forget to go to: