Diapering Choices

When I had my daughter, nearly 13 years ago, I was considered quite odd by my husband's family and many friends.  There were several reasons for this, among them was my choice of cloth diapers.  They just couldn't understand why I would go through the hassle of washing cloth diapers when there were a gazillion different disposables on the shelves of every grocery store, convenience store, and baby store.  They tried to tell me that cloth diapering wasn't any cheaper than disposables (I beg to differ--at $11/per week for the diaper service we started with, it was considerably cheaper!), it wasn't any more environmentally friendly, it wasn't as good for the baby's skin, and it just wasn't convenient.  I didn't care what those packaged-food-eating people had to say, I knew in my heart what was best for my daughter and that included my milk, homemade baby food, and yes, cloth diapers.

For me, the choices were partly economical, partly personal taste (have you ever tasted commercial baby food?!), and partly a deep-seated knowledge of what's the right thing to do.  Breastfeeding is certainly more economical than artificial infant milks and it is more convenient as well.  There are no bottles to sterilize and nothing needs to be heated or tested.  Just tuck baby under shirt, sit back, and relax.  Once I took a taste of the commercially-prepared infant food, I knew I couldn't continue to feed that stuff to my offspring.  Have you ever read the labels on baby food?  Ugh!  Instead, my little one had nutritious meals, lovingly prepared by her mother, who was not afraid to eat any of them in a pinch.  I invested in a slew of little Rubbermaid containers and put my dusty blender and food processor to work.  Once the food was prepared and put into its little labeled dishes, it went into the freezer until it was needed.

But cloth diapering remains the single most controversial subject from those days, and is just as controversial today.  I heard everything from "What if you stick the baby with a pin?" to "How can you stand to handle those messy diapers?"  Ummm . . . . I stuck myself quite often, but never the wee one.  And it's not like the disposables are any less messy than cloth.  Living in Turkiye, the land of textile production, you would think it would be easy to find cloth diapers.  Wrong!  Cloth diapers are more difficult to find than an OB/GYN who isn't scalpel-happy.  I asked around, both Expats and Turks, and received more shocked looks over the cloth diapering than over the idea of homebirth.  My wonderful neighbors pointed out that even the Gypsies (known for their unwillingness to part with any money for any reason) shell out for disposables.  I checked with some of the maternity stores--not a cloth diaper to be found, unless you count the ones imported from the UK by Mothercare which are more like tea-towels than the pre-folds I'm looking for.  This is where the Expat travel buddy system comes into play.  Nearly every American I know will call all her other American friends at least a week before traveling and say, "Leaving soon, send in your shopping list."  I've happily brought things back for friends, and now I've sent someone off with my list: cloth diapers!  Yes, I sent my friend Tara back to Ohio with a fistful of cash and a short list topped by Cloth Diapers.  (Incidentally, she's the one friend who hasn't had a negative word to say about any of my parenting choices, in fact she's been behind me 100%, God love her!)

I could go into a lengthy dissertation about the evils of disposable diapers, but Peggy O'Mara of Mothering magazine has done such a great job with her article, A Tale of Two Diapers, that it would be much better to put the article out for everyone to read firsthand.  Just click the link.