This financial savings aspect is especially important to families already in tough financial straits. It’s important to remember that cloth diapers ARE an option for low-income families.  Flats (from flour sacks or even kitchen towels) are a great option for those struggling to afford the investment in fancy diapers.  And handwashing flats is totally workable.  Want to try it yourself to prepare for ? Join the Second Annual Flats and Handwashing Challenge organized by Kim of Dirty Diaper Laundry.

The past year has seen a noteworthy increase in the number of volunteers working to help low-income families get into cloth diapers. Real Diaper Association volunteers have shared their process for making things happen so that you, too, can help in your community with 5 simple steps.  Unable to make things happen locally?  You can donate to one of the cloth diaper charities listed on the Diaper Aid Hub Facebook page.

Heather McNamara

Executive Director, Real Diaper Association

- Americans are throwing away 60,000 diapers per minute.
- Households with babies in single-use diapers literally double their waste.
- These diapers then sit in landfills for 250-500 years before decomposing.
- In addition to the contribution to landfill, consider all the natural resources (trees, petroleum) used in the manufacture of billions of throwaway diapers.

Celebrating Earth Day means renewed commitments for many people to the tenets of Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Reusable cloth diapers consume fewer raw materials (including petro-chemicals) and produce less waste. Just as people are rejecting single-use plastic water bottles and grocery bags in favor of reusable versions, increasing numbers of parents are choosing reusable diapers. And, as it turns out, using cloth diapers isn’t the enormous hassle that “Big Disposables” make it out to be.

Locally, here’s how we celebrated Waste Reduction Day of Real Diaper Week in San Diego:

• Sent this message to local environmental organizations and asked them to spread the word to their constituents.
• Followed up on the diaper reduction sections of the zero waste plan in Oceanside (a community within our county).
• Planned upcoming classes for our Circle members to learn more about elimination communication (because diaper free is as environmentally-sound as it gets).
• Continued to plan for the Great Cloth Diaper Change on Saturday, April 21st!  Be there!

Heather McNamara

Executive Director, Real Diaper Association

Educating the advocates. As I mentioned on the Mothering.com blog for the Great Cloth Diaper Change, the primary way that we learn about diapering is from the companies trying to sell us more diapers.  To combat that constant barrage of advertising, you can choose to educate yourself, and you would do well to start with Dawn’s writeup on the Dangers of Disposable Diapers at Small Footprint Family.

Advocacy strategy. Calley, The Eco Chic, tackles advocacy strategies in 10 Ways You Can Become a Cloth Diaper Advocate to which Kim at Dirty Diaper Laundry adds some simple steps to Be a Better Advocate.  Because YOU can help change diapering practices!

Using visuals. Using other ways to advocate and educate is important, and Tara at Country Drawers has created some great visuals about cloth diapers. I had to pin the annual number of disposables vs. reusables per year, shown here.

Cloth Diaper Basics. Speaking of other ways to educate, how about this video out of the Real Diaper Circle of Wayne County, North Carolina? Cloth Diaper 101 in English and ASL! If education is your focus, you also can’t go wrong with a clear explanation about washing cloth diapers like they’ve done on Eco Baby Steps.  Mythbusting your thing? First Time Mom Elizabeth has you covered.

Ongoing Advocacy. Bryana and the gang at Diaper Junction also have some great ways to kick off Real Diaper Week advocacy.  They model their cloth diaper advocacy gear here and announce a photo contest that will benefit the Real Diaper Association’s work longer term!

All the outreach that volunteers are doing leading up to the Great Cloth Diaper Change is resulting in increased attention to cloth diapers! Here are some of today’s news highlights:

Katherine Loichinger of North Charleston, South Carolina, is pictured hanging her fitted diapers on the line. She and 114 other parent/baby pairs are registered to attend the Park Circle GCDC on Saturday. “Local moms use cloth diapers to save money,” The Post and Courier, April 16, 2012.

Karen Lord is featured in a piece about the significant financial and environmental value of cloth diapers. She expects 30-40 parent/baby pairs at the Canmore GCDC event that she is hosting. “Real value in cloth diapers,” Calgary Herald, April 12, 2012.

Check out Anita Palmer of Cloth Diaper Utah in Salt Lake City juggling child and sewing machine as she makes cloth diapers for the Utah Diaper Bank. For parents who qualify for WIC, she teaches a cloth diaper class then gives each family 6 handmade diapers to try out cloth diapering. “Cloth-diaper bank aims to make change possible,” Salt Lake Tribune, April 11, 2012.

Heather McNamara
Executive Director, Real Diaper Association

Monday

• Contacting the local radio station to ask for an interview that focuses on the benefits of cloth diapering and the support offered by the Real Diaper Association.
• Sharing the “Introduction to Cloth Diapers with ASL” video our Circle made on the Facebook page.

Tuesday

• Contacting the local waste department to ask for their support in spreading the word about our Circle and to get ideas for reaching more families in our community about the benefits of reusable diapers.
• Sharing the What A Waste link, “But I heard…”

Wednesday

• Contacting the Health Department ask about scheduling a class for cloth diapering on a budget.
• Collecting diapers to send to “Giving Diapers, Giving Hope.”  We will also be collecting diapers at our table during The Great Cloth Diaper Change.

Thursday

• Contacting the Partnership for Children of Wayne County to inquire about starting a “Cloth Diapers in Daycare” class for daycare providers.  We will be sharing the structure and procedures followed by a local daycare already using cloth diapers.
• Sharing the Daycare Tip Sheet on the Facebook page for our Circle.

Friday

• Purchasing unpaper towels for myself and encouraging the Circle members to do a similar action.
• Sharing “Top Ten (Money & Earth-Saving) Reuse Tips” from the Reuse Alliance.

Saturday

• Representing the Real Diaper Circle of Wayne County at Great Cloth Diaper Change of the Piedment hosted by Sweetbottom’s Baby.
• Collecting diapers for “Giving Diapers, Giving Hope.”

Sunday

• Spreading the word about cloth diapers and our Circle at the local Earth Day Festival.
• Handing out packets of flower seeds with a message to “Help Us Grow.”

I will also be wearing my “Ask me about cloth diapers” pin every day and putting my homemade “Real Simple. Real Diapers.” bumper sticker on my van.

How will you be spending your Real Diaper Week?

- Heather Bradley

Real Diaper Circle of Wayne County Leader

Board Member, Real Diaper Association

There are a lot of legalities to lending diapers to families in need, and while the Real Diaper Association is a resource for putting more babies in cloth, it is not a set up to provide direct aid. Fortunately, we have learned from our amazing volunteers how to bring cloth diapers to those in need while still maintaining our role as educators.

Here’s the framework for a good working model:

Existing agencies serving target low-income community + experienced cloth diaperers = cloth diaper program

Benefits of using this model:

• Agency has liability insurance to distribute goods and services to clients.
• Agency already has charitable status to qualify for donations.
• Agency already qualifies recipients of aid.
• You focus on your knowledge of diapering and connections within community.

If you want to get started during Real Diaper Week or at the Great Cloth Diaper Change, here’s what you can do:

1. Find and visit a local family support-focused social service agency[1].
   • Bring your cloth diapers and laundering handout.
   • Tell them how much money people save using cloth diapers.
   • Offer to do a free class about using cloth diapers for their interested clients.
   • Explain that their clients could receive donated diapers upon participation.
2. Run the class and take a list of attendee names (and baby ages) so the agency knows who was educated and how to match donations to families.
3. Collect diaper donations (within your Circle or through solicitations).
4. Drop off donations at the agency and help them to distribute to people on the list.
5. Offer a longer term relationship with agency to put together a more formal cloth diaper program.

More information about a starting a longer-term cloth diaper program is included in the interview I conducted with Circle Leader Megan Fernsler.  The videos of the interview are posted at the Diaper Aid Hub.

If you do work on this during Real Diaper Week, please tell us about it! Use hashtag #realdiapers on Twitter, post to the Diaper Aid Hub Facebook page, or write about it on your blog and join the Real Diaper Week Blog Hop!

Heather McNamara

Executive Director, Real Diaper Association

[1] To prepare yourself for the discussion, read more about why cloth diapers ARE an option for low-income families.

Even if you can’t join us in person during the event next Saturday, you can still support cloth diaper awareness through a new partnership we have established with pledge4good.com.

Through pledge4good, I created a personal pledge to donate $5 for every 1,000 diapers changed during the Great Cloth Diaper Change (http://p4g.us/PKA). Using their platform, supporters can join this pledge and donate $1, $10, or $20 for every 1,000 diapers changed during the record setting event. Better yet, when a supporter joins the pledge she can easily share the message on Facebook and Twitter and help generate more donations and buzz for the event.

This year there will be more than 300 cloth diaper-changing locations across 16 countries in 4 continents and we’re confident we can set a new Guinness World Record!

We look forward to seeing many of you at one of the official host sites around the world.

Let the fun begin!

Heather McNamara

Executive Director, Real Diaper Association

Elimination Communication is a practice in which parents or caregivers notice and respond to their baby’s elimination signals, and upon which give their baby an opportunity to eliminate in an appropriate receptacle (e.g. a potty, toilet, sink, nature…the list is long, but in theory does not include soiling themselves in a diaper).

The purpose is to allow your baby to be tuned in to their elimination needs from an early age (ideally at birth, however EC can be started at any age before one year old) thereby reducing their use of diapers, and avoiding the struggles of traditional potty training.  Lest we forget, the other equally important word in Elimination Communication is “communication”.  EC will work if we focus on communication, but if we focus on elimination, EC can be a stressful and unsuccessful experience.

It is a gentle and nurturing practice.  EC jargon includes “misses” instead of “accidents”, and if we keep in mind that even one “catch” a day equals one less diaper used, we can relax our expectations and make this a fun and bonding experience for baby and parent.  Cueing your baby upon elimination (whether during a catch or a miss) and letting your baby have diaper-free time as much as you’re comfortable with are both important, but no parent should be turned off from attempting EC — it can be done full-time, part-time, or occasionally.  EC can be practiced with or without diapers.

Speaking of diapers…I started what I refer to as “EC Light” when Adelaide was five months old.  I decided that introducing solid foods would be a great time to start “potty training”.  I didn’t know then that I was actually practicing Elimination Communication.

We had great initial success (my goal was to catch one pee a day), and we even made it through traveling to the grandparents’ for Thanksgiving and Christmas with our little potty in tow.  After two months of using the potty, and one full week without changing a single poopy diaper, I told my husband it was time to switch from disposables to cloth.  No way was I going to throw out a pee diaper when I could just throw it in the wash.

I don’t catch them all, but I try harder to tune in to my daughter when she’s in cloth diapers (I’d rather empty a potty than wash a diaper, especially a poopy one).  If you decide to use diapers when practicing Elimination Communication, consider cloth an important factor to your success.

My local cloth diaper store, Basic Baby in Syracuse NY, was the first to hear about my EC journey; this was where I bought my stash of FuzziBunz.  After talking to co-owner (and Central NY Real Diaper Circle Leader) Josh one day about unsuccessfully finding a local EC support group, he suggested I host one, and offered up their community room and social networking resources.  I’m no expert on EC — and just like breastfeeding, Adelaide and I are learning together as we go.

When I first started EC with my daughter I knew success would be more likely if I found support.  There are many resources online.  Check out www.diaperfreebaby.org for more information, books on Elimination Communication, and to find a mentor/support group in your area.  I also highly recommend www.tribalbaby.org.

- Emily Ayres, Syracuse NY

19 days old in a newborn size fitted

She wasn’t premature, but small for gestational age (SGA). I bought preemie & newborn sized prefolds and had knit the same sized soakers and longies before she was born thinking we were prepared. Babies are notorious for growing right out of these sizes right? Our first two did. Nope. Our tiny little 2160 grams baby (that’s 4.7 pounds) didn’t fit into those preemie sized diapers.  Everything was too big.

A baby that tiny doesn’t eliminate a large amount. But blowout poos became a problem because there were no chunky legs to fill out the diapers regardless of covers. A Snappi didn’t work very well because it was too big around her hips & didn’t fit comfortably with a preemie sized prefold. Pins didn’t work either. The pins themselves were too big to pin properly on either side and the diapers didn’t come around far enough to only use one pin in the front. The newborn prefolds hopelessly gaped wide at the legs too. Her legs were too skinny to fill out the legs of her fitted diapers as well.

So what’s a family to do?

Well, I’ve learned a lot since this happened, but here’s what we did.

I emailed a trusted small diaper store. She patiently answered all my many questions & we decided on a couple of brands that could work. I went with the smallest fitteds she had in her store.  With a small baby my concern was not just around her little legs, but the rise & the width of the crotch.  The crotch wasn’t as much an issue except it was making my husband crazy so I was working with that. You know, the dreaded wide leg. That huge gap looks especially crazy on a tiny baby laying on her side. These diapers worked well and after a while she started fitting into what we already had, but for this cloth diapering family on our 3^rd child it was a rough transition.

Later, as I got further into my RDA circle leader training I was reading more blogs & realized I hadn’t been as limited as I originally thought. I could have looked into more folding techniques. I was stuck on my trusty newspaper fold for prefolds. I didn’t try a jelly roll or the twist. I didn’t know anyone using flats & was afraid to try them even though I remember folding my sister’s flats as a child. I didn’t even think of using things we already had in our home. The ultimate in reusing! We could have used washcloths or old t-shirts for diapers & cut to fit. And I should have looked into a cover with gussets. Most importantly I didn’t reach out for additional support.

Ultimately, all the preparation can’t always prepare you for the reality. For us, with each problem a new solution revealed itself but not always in a timely fashion. This is why as parents it’s important to reach out and seek support from those who have already lived it.  You’re not alone. If you don’t have a local RDA Circle or cloth diaper store there is usually a pocket of cloth diapering families somewhere in your community. And of course, there are many resources online. Reach out. Together we’ll change one baby at a time.

~Angela Torres, NOVA Real Cloth Diaper Circle Leader

Since he lived in body cast, we had to pave our own diapering path, since the traditional  diaper sizing didn’t work for him.  Thankfully we chose the Flip, from Cotton Babies, because we didn’t even think of the fact that diapering our son would be any different from any other child.  However, what we quickly realized was that the cloth diapers were too bulky to tuck up and under his cast, the way we would a disposable diaper.  The only choice we had was to leave it below the cast.  So initially, following the sizing recommendations for our son’s weight we set the Flip (a One Size Diaper with a snap down rise setting) to the largest setting and fastened it on him, with the top sitting right under the cast.  To our beginners eye, things looked good – no gaps in the legs and it wasn’t falling off!  Yey we had done it!  Then what we quickly noticed was that when we changed him, although they didn’t leak, was that the soaker pad was getting all bunched up and the cover was getting very soiled.

So I consulted the internet, and soon realized that the rise setting was too tall. So after some trial and error we found that for him, the shortest rise setting (meant for infants between 8 and 15lbs) was the best choice. It kept the soaker pad nice and straight between his legs and kept our covers clean. To compensate for the low rise setting, we had to fasten to a larger setting in the waist.

Something that we were not expecting was that the poo-splosions and pee up the belly which we were accustomed to and were a HUGE issue with a body cast, disappeared!  The cloth diaper elastic was magic compared to disposable elastic!  I think this alone could have sold me on cloth! I was completely in love.

That said, we ran into 2 issues.  First, using the diapers on the newborn setting did stretch out the elastics in a pretty serious way.  You may not be able to use them on a second baby.  Since covers are fairly affordable, and I could reuse the inserts, this still works out to be much more affordable then disposables. The second issue for us was that when he eventually switched into a brace we could not find a way to continue to use cloth, since it came down below his butt crack and was even tighter against his skin.  Since my son HATED going back into disposables, we used it as our push to potty train   A third issue I can imagine would be that this solution to diapering could be difficult when diapering newborns, since I don’t know how you would get a low enough rise setting, though you may be able to modify a perfect fit small or newborn diaper by adding a rise setting to make it work for tiny babies.

The Flip was a fantastic option for our family, but it is far from the only option.  The trend towards One Sized diapers leaves families with countless options. Though I doubt many parents are facing cloth diapering babies with infantile scoliosis, this would likely work for other special needs babies, such as babies with g-tubes. Through cloth diapering our son, I have learned that adaptions can be made which will make diapering possible for a large range of situations.  If you can’t figure out a solution on your own, search one out.  Support groups, both online and local, for your child’s condition or situation may help you find other parents who are successfully cloth diapering.  Also visit a local cloth diaper store or Real Diaper Circle and get some help from other diapering parents.  If you are still not having any luck, reach out to national groups such as the Real Diaper Association for suggestions.

Happy Diapering!

Jenn Leggett, Tri-State (NY/MA/VT) Cloth Diaper Circle Leader

Q: Who will be watching baby?

This is an important question to answer before any other. If you or your partner will be your baby’s main care provider day in and day out, then you can pretty much pick whatever diaper suits you. However, if someone else will be in charge of your small one’s diapering needs for a chunk of time throughout the day or week, you should definitely take this into consideration. Some other caretakers may be open to whatever you choose. However, I find it’s generally better to stick with a diapering system that is user friendly, without too high of a learning curve. All-in-Ones, All-in-Twos, and pocket diapers can be some of the best options if you are trying to stick with something that is care provider friendly.

Q: What is your budget?

For some, this may not be a huge consideration. If you don’t have a limit on how much you want to spend, you can skip to the next question. For those of you who have a budget that you have to stick with, you have a few things to consider. In order to keep costs down you can choose less expensive options (ie: prefolds & covers), one size systems, or buy gently used diapers. Another thing you can do to maximize your budget is to watch for sales. Many online retailers will have sales around holidays where you can make your dollars stretch farther.

Q: Do you have a history of allergies or sensitivities in your family?

This is a question I would never have thought to ask before our second baby joined our family. Around his sixth month, though, I realized that the diapers we were using were causing him a very uncomfortable rash. This is because he is sensitive to the waterproof material used in a lot of diaper shells and covers. We switched to fitted (non-waterproof) diapers and wool covers and his rash disappeared. If anyone in your family has latex allergies, this is something to consider when choosing cloth diapers.

Q: Still undecided?

These, of course, are only a few questions to start you down the road towards choosing the right cloth diapers. However, if you’ve done a bunch of research and you are still undecided or confused, have hope! There are a good number of online retailers who offer trial packages. In most cases, you can put a deposit down and then you receive a number of different diapering options to try for a set period of time. This can be a great way to narrow down your options—especially if you are a hands-on kind of person. You can also choose to invest slowly, and add diapers a few at a time to see what works.

By answering some of these questions, you will hopefully be just that much closer to finding the right cloth diapers for your family. Happy cloth diapering!

—————–
Sarah is an RDA Volunteer, and she blogs about cloth diapering, family, natural parenting, baby wearing and life in general. She lives in Washington (the state) with her husband Joshua and their children Ainsley (4) & Liam (17 months). They are expecting a new baby to cloth diaper in August.