These are not your mother's (or grandmother's) cloth diapers, they are better!

When I was a baby, way back in the 1960's, I wore cloth diapers. Cotton gauze things with elastic-edged plastic pants on top. My mom tells me how disposables were just coming out, and they'd use them for trips sometimes but they were very expensive and nobody used them ALL the time of course....

When I was expecting my first child 9.5 years ago, I looked into cloth diapers to see where things stood. There were still basic cotton things, ie prefolds, and covers, but now with velcro. I thought, ok, my ancestors back to the beginning of recorded time have worn cloth diapers (or rags or skins or leaves or whatever!), so why change (pun intended) now. Plus, it seemed so much more sane to have a few diapers you wash every couple of days that last you for a few years, than to buy things you throw out constantly, both economically and environmentally.

We did that, basic white diapers with basic white covers (Proraps for anyone keeping score), and we were good. Ok, not perfect, as they didn't hold up well enough to our super pee-er and we did disposables at night, but I could live with a pack of diapers lasting a month or two. Kiddo number one took a bit over 3 years to become friends with the potty, so we got our money's worth. I think there was even a pink and a mint green diaper cover in the mix, about as exotic as it got back then.

Finally, after 7+ years, we managed the second kiddo. Of course cloth diapers still made sense, even moreso with all the green initiatives and propaganda all permeating our existence of late. And Wowza, was I in for a surprise!


There were still prefolds and covers, but many brands, colors and styles. When I bought my diapers originally, it was mail-order from Born to Love in Canada since I could not even find a local store that carried them. Now there are a bunch, and even the local toy store and green products store have several kinds. I didn't even know anyone else retro enough to use cloth back then, but now there are many websites, user groups and forums on the topic and I was amazed to see how many people are really way more into all this than I could ever have imagined, buying, trying, reviewing, reselling and what not...

I dipped my toe into the water of modern diaperdom, getting a few Thirsties extra-small covers in a rainbow of colors to go with our 8-year-old prefolds, that we started as soon as the cord stump fell off. It went fine and they were very cute.

I knew there had to be more absorbent overnight solutions by now, so I did some research and ordered a couple Thirsties Duo diapers and Tiny Tush Elite, both pocket diapers where you adjust the absorbency by varying the type and quantity of inserts you stuff into them. [more on the expanding smorgasbord of booty bundling soon]