Friday, February 15, 2013

Cloth diapers

In the interest of keeping our green life as free of waste as possible, we wanted to use cloth diapers. We visited a gigantic landfill outside Jakarta last year, and found that a) it was hell on earth, and b) hell is filled with plastic bags and diapers. We already keep our plastic bag usage to a minimum by carrying around shopping bags and food storage boxes (to get takeaway without the bags), but the diapers were going to be an issue. Most friends and family said we wouldn't last more than a few days or weeks on cloth diapers, but we're almost five months and going... thanks to gDiapers!




That's Luce, above, in her first gDiaper.

We were using thin white cotton cloth when she had just arrived in our lives, but we were washing about 15 to 20 cloths per day, including the one she was wearing, the one she was sleeping on, etc.



We ordered one gDiaper and had my younger brother bring it from the US, and we were hooked, so we my brother and my sister-in-law bring a few more.


The gDiapers come apart into three layers: the stretchy outer colored shell, the water-resistant snap-in liner, and the innermost absorbent fleece and hemp cloths. We now have a total of four colored shells (which come with the snap-in liners) and 18 fleece/hemp cloths -- which we've found is a good number for full-time cloth diapering. We wash each fleece/hemp cloth immediately after it's dirtied, to keep the stink and mess to a minimum. Because the gDiapers are three separate layers, they dry quickly on the clothesline, which is an issue because we live in the tropics... though we've yet to test them during the thick of the monsoon season, which is several months away.

She normally goes through three outer liners and eight fleece/hemp cloths per day. We've been to London twice for work, and each time, we take the diapering set with us. When we're out about town, we take an extra outer shell + water-resistant liner, and two to four fleece/hemp cloths, depending on how many hours we're out. We wash the dirtied cloths as soon as we get home.

That's enough chat of gDiapers. We don't want to be an ad for them (note: we've had no contact with the company, but I have put a review on Amazon), but to let others interested in cloth diapering know of a good option for tropical weather because many cloth diapers come as one piece -- which would be impossible to line dry here.