Are you a cloth at all costs household?  You know, where there’s a will there’s a way-type-of-cloth diaper user?  We, unapologetically, are not.

NIGHTTIME DIAPERING
The first inklings we had were when we just couldn’t get cloth to work at nighttime.  After trying a couple of options, and two terrible ammonia burns on D’s bits, I went into a diaper-stripping fervor, panicking that I had done something wrong.  I stopped, after buying special detergent and stripping made no difference…and the second burn Declan received.  The solution was easy, we switched to disposables for nighttime diapering, and have never looked back.  Not even once.

Declan spends all of his waking hours in a cloth diaper, so putting him in a disposable diaper at night doesn’t make me feel guilty.  D’s recently become a heavy wetter, so we’ve had to add a disposable booster on top of a disposable diaper that’s one size larger than he is.  I just can’t imagine that he would be comfortable in cloth that wet overnight.

I was taken aback by how many people suggested (I asked for solutions, which is how I found out about disposable boosters) that I wake Declan up to do a diaper change at night.  Given how hard we worked to have Declan develop healthy sleep habits (and sleep through the night), overnight waking just wasn’t an option for him (no way, no how).  I would rather he wake up wet in the morning than wake him in the middle of the night!

I understand that many people who cloth diaper do so in an effort to reduce their carbon footprint and impact on the environment, as well as to keep harmful chemicals away from baby’s skin (those were some of our motivators as well).  But I can also understand why many people give up on cloth diapering, when they say that cloth at night isn’t working for them.  They turn to Google searches & cloth diaper groups, where the majority of people responding will tell them to try XYZ diapers (undoubtedly, you’ll walk away with no fewer than 5 diaper suggestions).  After investing more money into cloth diapering, and when those diapers don’t work, or their baby soaks through them, or reeks of ammonia in the morning (I won’t even go into the ammonia issue), they end up incredibly frustrated and feeling like a cloth diapering “failure.”  I’ve seen it so many times, people embarrassed to admit that they use a disposable at night (I used to be one of them).

Let me reiterate, there is nothing wrong with supplementing your cloth diapering routine with disposables.  Absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.

DIAPER RASHES
When do you call it day?  When do you accept that it’s fine to take a break from cloth…and be okay with it?  Rashes are another time I switch to disposables.  Declan develops a yeast rash each time he has a new tooth coming in.  The past couple of times the yeast rashes were the worst I had seen.  Whenever yeast enters the equation, I change D to disposables because a.) I would rather not have yeast in his cloth diapers, and b.) I like to ‘spackle’ his bottom with a heavy duty anti-fungal + barrier cream (I swear by Triple Paste AF), which is absolutely not cloth diaper friendly.  Rather than ruin my fleece liners, or use uncomfortable flushable liners, I just throw a disposable on and rest easy.  (I will add this disclaimer: the last yeast rash we battled was cleared in 3 days by using coconut oil.  I had read the claims, and thought I’d give it a go for a day or so to see if it worked.  We used Eco Sprout’s Coconut Stick and his bottom was entirely clear in a matter of days…and our cloth diapers were never at risk (coconut oil is cloth-friendly)

TRAVELING
I remember planning for our first extended weekend trip.  Declan was around six months old, still in cloth at night, and I still felt obligated to find cloth solutions for this trip (specifically, the travel portion).  Our car ride was going to be 6 1/2 hours each way, and I didn’t want to have to stop every hour or so to change Declan’s diaper.  Not wanting to use disposable diapers, I shopped GroVia’s BioSoakers because we used GroVia Shells.  In the end, it was much cheaper just to buy a small pack of disposable diapers, as we were cloth diapering while at our destination.  We’ve not traveled by air, so we’ve been able to cloth diaper with all of our trips.  Unabashedly, we would use disposable diapers while flying (carting luggage & a car seat through an airport w/ a kid is enough without dragging a bag of dirty diapers along with you).

What is the point of this post, you ask?  Well, to make those of you who do use disposable diapers as part of your cloth diapering regimen not feel so…alone.  I still consider myself a fervently dedicated cloth diaperer, despite having disposables as part of our regimen.  While I love cloth diapering, I really only see them as pee and poop catchers.  The same principles behind my disposable diaper usage can be applied to my cloth diaper laundering (another *HOT* topic in the CD community).  I simply lack(ed) the patience to a.) try 10 different brands of cloth diaper-safe detergent, and b.) don’t really care what I use as long as my diapers are clean.  I’m all about no-fuss cloth/ diapering — whatever helps us make it to potty training smoothly is what we’ll do….

Are you a cloth diaper at all costs type of diaperer, or are you unabashedly using disposables?

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