My cloth diaper story

Why cloth diaper?

With the modern age of disposable diaper, you must be wondering why anyone would go back to cloth diaper?

It all started with my mom. She was the advocate of cloth diaper for the family - for all her 4 daughters and now her grand-daughters too. In my mom's view, she always thinks disposables are so stuffy, hot, no air circulation for baby's bum and causes diaper rash. And true enough, both Werney and Anney have sensitive skin. If I put them in disposables for a day i.e. 24 hours, I will immediately see the diaper rash attacking the nappy area and it takes ages for this nasty rash to go away.

Werney was a cloth diaper baby. We started her with the traditional cloth diaper (white muslin square type) because back in year 2004, I didn't know that they were such thing as modern cloth diaper. These white muslins square type were easy to maintain, airy, but were not good for holding pee as it get really soaked up after just one pee.

I discovered the modern cloth diaper when I was preggy with Anney in 2007. It was still pretty new in Malaysia then and all the canggih and confusing terminologies like fitted, pocket diaper, one-size, microfiber, hemp, bamboo soaker etc were really confusing for any mommies. I started reading more on cloth diapers over the internet and bought a few diapers from Mia Bambina to understand more on cloth diapers. Werney was already toilet-trained then and I couldn't try these diapers on her! Yes, mommy was too eager to try these out!

Anney was born in March 2008 and I started with prefold / traditional muslin square and combined with the modern cloth diaper cover. My diaper stash was really limited then and I find that this is the best option for a newborn as Anney is a breastfed baby and she poo poo like 8-10 times a day! I just have to change the prefold and alternate the cloth diaper cover. Sometimes, I do put her in pocket cloth diaper and I find that Bumwear petite works best for newborn than any other size or one-size diaper. Even my confinement lady commented how great were these modern cloth diapers.

When Anney was 3 months old, I started getting more diaper stash as I will need to keep sufficient stash at my mom's house during day time and at my house for night time and also weekend. I started getting more one-size diaper as Anney was growing really fast and all my S and M sizes diapers look tiny on her. At that time, the one-size diaper seems to fit her better too as you know, sometimes, it is difficult to find the best fit with one-size diaper. You will have to adjust the snaps etc to find the best fit!

Why I love cloth diaper?

• No nappy rash attack (yes, this was my main reason to use cloth diaper)
  
• Better for baby as it is soft and cloth-like. Who likes to wear paper and plastic, right?
• Better air-circulation for baby's bum
  
• No chemical on cloth diaper
  
• Better for our mother earth
• Cost less in the long term
• Encourages early potty training (Werney was potty trained for both day and night @ 2.5 years old)
• It's so cute on baby
  

Well, cloth diaper is really simple and works as great as disposable. With simple instructions, daddy, granddad, maid, nanny or babysitter could also use cloth diaper with ease. It is as simple as wear and go! For laundry, I will just put everything into the washing machine and wash them together with baby clothes.

Looking back, I have traveled far with my cloth diaper journey, trying out many types and brands and introducing cloth diapers to friends and relatives. I'm sure Anney loves the cloth diaper too as it is definitely more comfortable for her nappy area!

At 16 months, Anney is already showing some signs that she is ready for potty training now (one of the benefit of cloth diaper!). She would tell us "mm mm" after she has poo-poo in her diaper and would regular sit on the potty to tell us "mm mm" but nothing comes out!

At one hand, I am happy that she would be potty trained soon and on another hand, I know I would miss all the wonderful cloth diapers!