Our Diapering Plans

{source}

Before I ever got pregnant, I did the research and we made the decision to cloth diaper. I can't tell you where I heard about modern cloth diapering first but I liked the economical savings of it. Around the same time, I heard about "ECing" for the first time from the Progressive Pioneer. I quickly dismissed the concept because I never heard of anything like that before.

Fast forward nearly 3 years, and I started putting more and more thought into the benefits and philosophy behind ECing. This website offers an amazing explanation if you have never heard of "Elimination Communication" before. I decided to purchase the book The Diaper-Free Baby to learn the ins and outs of EC before making a final decision. It only took a few pages to convince me :)
Even more so, it helped me establish a diapering plan with Luke for our little Minion. We are doing a multi-faceted combination approach in order to save money and promote early potty training. We plan to exclusively disposable diaper for the first 6-8 weeks of Minion's life. At the same time, I will use a "cue-ing" sound when I know he is trying to poop so he'll start associating that sound with going potty.
At 6-8 weeks, we will switch to using All-in-One Cloth Diapers at home. I am purchasing the one size kind so that we will only need to purchase them once and they will last for his entire diapering stage (and hopefully for Minion2 as well). In conjunction with cloth diapering at home, I will practice ECing to catch his poops. I am considering myself a "part-time ECer" since we will only focus on poop and only when we are at home. We have purchased a Potette Plus potty for using on our toilet and I am hoping to find a gently used Baby Bjorn Little Potty.

When we go out we plan to still use disposable diapers so we don't have to worry about carrying a soiled cloth diaper around all day. I love this approach because it really does feel like the best of both worlds.
At 18 months we then plan to start potty training. This means we will switch to exclusively Cotton Training Undies and cloth diapers for after accidents and at night.

My favorite parts of our approach plan are:

• Huge savings! (I'll share our estimated budget on Wednesday)
• EC = more frequent changes which means no pee or poo smell on baby which is a huge pet peeve of mine
• Cloth diapers don't wick as much moisture so Minion will be able to communicate when he needs a change easier
• Studies show that cloth diapering and ECing leads to earlier potty training which is a win in my book

I feel so fortunate to live in a time where old fashioned parenting techniques are becoming more mainstream and that vendors are actually selling supplies to help make implementing them easier. For instance, I am probably more excited about this bumGenius Diaper Sprayer we received off our registry than I should be :)
I also love that most of our friends are super understanding and accepting of our approach. We actually had a fun conversation with our best couple friends about how when they heard I was gonna cloth diaper, they didn't even think twice about it. If it was someone else we knew, it might seem out of character, but my hippie ways means that the unconventional is expected now :)
Wednesday I plan to share how much money our approach will save exactly and eventually I will start sharing In-Application Updates :)