Flushing for a change

The first year of my life I wore cloth diapers, they were white pieces of cloth pinned on the sides with big ducky pins and teddy bears. My mom has kept them throughout the years in a very special suitcase together with pictures, my first curl, a few teeth and too many embarrassing memories. I remember going through all these treasures once, years ago, and my mom told me all about the good all days. My mom would heat transfer or hand-embroider images to my diapers to make them look stylish. There was one of them in the suitcase, it had a little girl carrying a basket with a bunny next to it. A nostalgia feeling swirled the room as she went on explaining how she will wash them every night in a "punchera" (an outdoor sink) and hang them to dry in a line that extended from the barred windows outside my parents room to the chain link fence that divided our backyard from the neighbors. I said "ay foo mami" (yuck mom) and thought "thank god we got disposables now".

Years went by and although I was a very active environmental advocate, when I had my first child, I didn't use cloth. I was unaware of how long it takes for a disposable diaper to disintegrate and how much I was harming the planet by filling up the landfills with something that will be there for centuries. When I got pregnant with my second child, I knew I was going to use cloth diapers, no matter the cost (or work) it entailed. This time, my mom thought I was crazy, but so did everyone else. I wish I had seen the look on my family's faces when they found out! Now that I live thousands of miles away, I missed it, but knowing them I can imagine the disgusted look on their faces. You know the one, when you scrunch your nose and your mouth deforms into a wide opened frown as if someone had told you that they like to eat cereal with ketchup. Yuck! Well against everyone's disgust I followed my heart's desire and went into research mode. I knew there had to be something better that those god awful ducky pins, but I had no idea of what lay ahead.

I remember sitting in bed laptop on my lap, a cloth diaper review website on the monitor and the Star Wars Main Title Song playing on my mind as I stared in awe at the mountain of cloth diaper styles and brands staring blankly at me.  To tell you the truth, I am still baffled and have failed to decipher them all.   There are prefolds, fitted, flips, AIO, AI2, pockets, hybrids and all their complements. So many questions! What was an insert or a cover? And why were there so many of them?! I panicked! There was a whole world out there and in order for me to discover it I had to learn its language.

There is a lingo that comes with cloth diapering and I felt as lost as I felt when I went to my family reunions during my Goth years, salsa and heavy metal clashing and creating an invisible force field where everything mumbled up and became blurry and diffused. But I wasn't going to let that stop me, as with any other language, the best way to learn is through full immersion. I went to Facebook and joined every cloth diaper community I could find. I remember reading in one of them "how do you strip?" and thought "what did I get myself into?!" and it got worse when I read the comments and figured out it wasn't the kind of stripping I was thinking but one much worse! "I have to boil pooped diapers!" and I made the face, yep, I confess, I did, the very same one my family and friends did before.

My first stash, when I was 8 months pregnant.

I didn't talk with my family, friends or even my husband about this new information I had found out, but continued looking until I found the solution: gDiapers. It was like rays of bright light shined around their 'g' logo and a chorus of children singing "Hallelujah" echoed around the house. There it was a cloth diaper that gave me the option of flushing down the insert! Brilliant! Granted, I wouldn't be able to flush them while visiting my parents in Puerto Rico, as they might clog up the sewage, but I could compost them or throw them away as they will eventually decompose in a few months (a lot better than 500 years!). I started buying a few used ones, and yes, I received some more disgusted faces in return, but "c'est la vie" (such is life). By the time my little one was born I had quite a stash, more than I need it since I feel into the cloth diaper mania that most of us suffer when we first start and only some surpass.

The medium stash 

When I went to visit my mom she was so impressed with the diapers she took one with her, on her purse and showed it off to her friends. I smile every time I remember her explaining to a friend over the phone how her daughter was using cloth diapers that had like a plastic hammock inside to put an insert, and that you could choose to use one that you wash and reuse, or one that you throw away and then she when off into how she used to wash mine by hand and scrub them against the rolls of "la punchera"!... LOL.

After a while, once my little one had more stable bowel movements I started using more cloths than flushies (biodegradable inserts). I filled my gs with a variety of inserts going from gcloths to kitchen towels, anything that will absorb. I also grew the guts to try other styles of diapers, Kawaii, Charlie Bananas, Goodmama, Fuzzibunz, the works, even some WAHM ones! There are days that I am really thankful for flushable inserts and cloth liners, especially after my son has banana for breakfast or when we have a busy full or errands type of day. If I get discouraged I remember that one day at the grocery store when my 5 year old asked me "what is this?" while pointing at a package of disposable diapers. I told him "diapers", "but they are plastic" he told me, "yes they are" I responded and finally he said "yuck!" and made the face.






*Find gDiapers, flushable inserts and other cloth diapers at www.gruntybaby.com*