My Experience with Disposable and Cloth Diapers

Every mom has her own take on diapering options. Some manage to make cloth diapers (CD) work, while others choose to stick with the traditional disposable diapers (DD). Here’s my take on the topic.

My son at five months, sporting fish printed cloth diapers


When I was still pregnant with my son, a fellow mommy and I decided that we would try cloth diapers. I’ve read so many topics about cloth diapering, and I was sold by its benefits to my baby, the environment and my pocket. In a nutshell, cloth diapers are re-usable, meaning you will only need to build your stash for a few weeks or months, then you just need to wash them after every use. With disposables, as the term suggests, you need to throw them away after every use and they become part of landfills. It takes less effort though compared to cloth diapers, just dump them and you’re done.

Check out this info graphic for more information:

I did not purchase cloth diapers til my son was four months old. I came across an online shop on Facebook that sells Alva cloth diapers. If I am not mistaken, this seems to be the cheapest cloth diaper option ranging from P200-P250,. The name of the shop is The Little Matter Cloth Diapers and what I like about this shop is that it posts on-hand designs that are ready to be shipped. Most shops I found on Sulit.com sold Alva’s on a pre-order basis.They also sell other cloth diaper brands, inserts and wetbags.

My Alva cloth diaper stash
Micro fiber insert, inclusive with each cloth diaper

The transaction was smooth and fast. I simply followed the instructions here and was sent their bank details. I used my BPI mobile app to transfer the payment and within minutes, my payment was confirmed! Since I placed my order on a Friday past cut-off, I received my order the following Monday. I made sure to wash the diapers before using them.

The following month, my father bought my son some Bamboo Dappy cloth diapers, which were way more expensive, about P700+ a pop!

The Bamboo Dappy stash
Closer look at the Bamboo Dappy inserts

From my experience, Alva cloth diapers are absorbent they don’t feel so wet when they’re soaked. The Bamboo Dappy ones, even though the material is superior and softer, leak easily. When my son sleeps at night I double up on the inserts for extra absorption. When he poops though, it tends to get messy whichever diaper I use. However, since I am pretty much aware of his pooping schedule, I let him wear disposables until he poops, then change him into cloth diapers for the rest of the day.

Eventually, I managed to get the hang of cloth diapering… not my mom though. She struggled a bit with the cloth diapers while I was at work and preferred to use the disposables. I couldn’t blame her though, cloth diapering involves a lot of effort, especially with the cleaning and washing.

In the end, we gradually shifted back again to disposable diapers. My father bought several packs of Pampers (I forgot which variant) so we had to use them in place of our regular brand, EQ Dry. I agree that Pampers are very absorbent, however, they are too absorbent to such a point that no one notices that my son’s diapers are all bulky with pee since he doesn’t fuss too much as he still feels dry. I didn’t like this at all. Once our stock of Pampers ran out, I decided to buy EQ Diapers, which is different from EQ Dry. EQ alone is a lot cheaper, and the fasteners are more secure than the ones from EQ Dry – those rip off easily.

EQ Diapers
My Opinion on DDs and CDs (Sorry it took a while to get to this part!)

I’m quite disappointed that I could not fully commit to CDs. They require attention and more work compared to disposables, which was something I could not find time for given that I was working full-time. Since they are easily soaked, they need to be changed regularly, about every two hours. I chose the easy wrap-and-dump option offered by DDs as it saved me more time and energy. In the long run, I am spending more than I should. Sigh.

I do believe that DDs can come in handy though, like for trips out of town or for days out at the mall. In my case, as mentioned above, while cloth diapering I still used DDs for when my son pooped.

However, now that I am a full-time hands-on mom, I am willing to give CDs another try. I really believe in cloth diapering benefits and I think it’s not too late for me to give up on CDs. I think I’ll start by adding more diapers to my stash so that I won’t need to keep washing them everday – I only have eight CDs in my current stash!

I will most likely blog again about returning to cloth diapering. I know that this post may not be as informative as others, however I just wanted to share my own experience and not overwhelm you with too much information, hence the info graphic.

So mommies, do you prefer CDs over DDs? I’d love to hear your opinion!

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A Tough Decision, A Big Change

I just came back from a 22 kilometer bike ride and I’m exhausted! However, my mind seems to be clear right now so I thought of updating my blog while by son is busy watching his nursery rhymes.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have made a life changing decision that will allow me to spend more time with my son. It was very difficult for me at first, however, after weighing the pros and cons, my husband and I decided that it was the best thing to do – for our family, especially our son.

I decided to quit my job.


Well, it’s not like I’ll stop working completely. The reason why we came to this decision is because we will be moving to another house, which means I can’t leave my son with my parents anymore. We don’t want to hire a nanny yet, because it’s quite hard to find one we could trust and our son is too young to tell on the nanny, ha!

It was a tough decision to make. Ever since I started working in the BPO industry I wanted nothing than to move up. I always aimed for career growth and promotions. With my latest company, I couldn’t move up since our management did not need another supervisor yet, which was understandable because it’s a small company. But now that we had to make changes to accommodate our growing baby boy, I decided not to wait for that promotion anymore and move on to becoming a full time mom. There were hesitations. What about my career? Are we going to manage with only one person working?

I realized that I could pick up my career again, perhaps when my son is older. Or maybe, I can pursue a different career. But in the meantime, how are we going to manage financially?

I prayed for an answer to this, and God answered my prayers.

I came across a friend on Facebook who posted about working from home. It turns out there is a PH based company that hires virtual assistants for foreign clients to do administrative tasks and calls. Long story short, I inquired, I applied and I got hired.

Everything just fell into place and I now believe that things were meant to be this way. The timing of how everything came to be just seemed right. Everything feels right. And even if things don’t work out, I have faith in my husband, that he would take care of us and find a way to get by. It’s one of his traits that I admire and I feel lucky that he is my son’s father.

It was sad for me though to leave my previous company as I made great friends there and the benefits and pay were good. However, I can’t help but feel excited for this new role of mine. I no longer need to commute four hours daily and I get to hug and kiss my son whenever I want to. I can finally cook for my husband all the time and catch up on our favorite TV series and movies.

All my hesitations are gone and I can’t wait to be a full-time mom, wife and homemaker.

Have you made any tough decisions like mine? Feel free to share your thoughts.

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My Recent Blogging Hiatus

Oh dear! It’s been a while since my last blog post, almost a month! I really feel bad about leaving my blog unattended, however, I do have my reasons. I have recently made a life changing decision that will give me the opportunity to spend more time with my son. This April though I promise to blog more often as I will have a lot more time on my hands, unless my now 9 month old baby boy decides to keep me busy. I can’t wait to bring this blog back to life, so do stick around for that.

 

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Baby Company’s Grand Baby Fair

Check this out, mommies!
Photo from Baby Company FB page

I would love to attend this event, unfortunately, I live way too far from SM Megamall. I’m also trying to save money for my son’s first birthday later this year. He’s seven months old now, time flies so fast! Well anyway, I decided to post this for you mommies who happened to drop by my lonely blog. Haha!

You can visit the Baby Company’s Facebook page here.
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Happy Sunday!

It’s the first Sunday of 2014.

That’s today’s breakfast right there. I’ve been craving pancakes for weeks! They don’t look as appetizing though because of the burnt sides and all, but they’re still as good. No smoothies for today because we forgot to buy fruits. Boo!

How will you be spending your Sunday? I’m going to have a nice day bonding with this little guy.

How can you not fall in love with him?

So anyway, I wish you all a blessed Sunday and a great week ahead! Let’s not forget to be thankful for the blessings we’ve received.

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