Man of the Cloth

About 4 months into my pregnancy, I started surfing the web with insane fervor. I wanted to know ALL my baby options. I'm a planner by nature (much to Dennis' chagrin, he thinks I have mental flow charts for everything) and being on the road all day every day I wasn't in the mood for actual store front shopping. So off I went down the information highway. The first thing I did was Google "L & D Checklist." This gave me my suitcase packing list for the hospital, which contrary to popular belief, I did NOT use until my 8th month. Okay, it took some restraint to wait, but wait I did. Once that checklist went into the baby file (yes, there was an actual manilla file folder) I started surfing actual baby things. I looked at carseat/stroller combos. I looked at swings. I looked at pumps. I looked at first toys. You start to get the picture... and to keep track of all this browsing, I decided to start my registry.

It's a weird thing registering for things in your thirties. I registered for my first wedding at the tender age of 20 or so, but we had nothing and felt no compunction in relying on the generosity of others. But when Dennis and I got married, we were over thirty, had each been living on our own for many years, then together for several more. We didn't want to register for anything for this reason, along with the fact that we were "eloping" and didn't feel it was fair to ask for wedding gifts from people we weren't inviting to our nuptials. So when it came time to register for baby things I felt weird. Like I was begging. I know it's a traditional thing to do, but I've never been one for blindly following baseless rituals. So at first, I created one just to keep track of what I needed to get. As the list grew, so did the requests from family for info on "what to get." So I sent a link around for those who wanted to get items. I got over it because I figured it was for the baby, not for me.

I needed to figure out where I was going to register, which was also a bit of a chore. We were will still living in Florida, just north of an overhyped, over-money'd, over-plasticized area called Aventura. Aventura had my most and least favorite places to baby shop right up the road from each other. I loved the Target as it was next to my favorite Whole Foods of all time (shout out to Vanessa and Anthony!!) and a Petsmart. The Target was well stocked and the staff was pretty friendly as far as superstores go. The Babies R Us down the road was my personal hell. For some reason, anytime Dennis and I went into that store, we would get the heebies. Big time. Later in the pregnancy I had to go out to another Babies R Us and realized they aren't all that way, but the Aventura store left a deep dent in my Psyche. Along with these experiences was the practical reasoning that I wanted to register somewhere more generalized. That way if I got doubles of things or gift cards, I wasn't locked into specific baby items. So Target it was. Once the decision was made, I was a woman on fire. I wanted to know everything about any baby item ever made. I looked up recalls, reviews, and related items (gotta love built in suggestive sells on these websites.) Along the way, I started digging through the diaper wars. Much like Coke v Pepsi, there was Pampers v Huggies et al. I looked at prices and reviews trying to decipher which would be the better buy, when low and behold... here comes a "related item." It was a cloth diaper! But not your mama's cloth diaper. These came in colors, didn't need pins, and were cute. Yup. Cute diapers. It makes sense as diapers invariably stick out of the bottoms of onesies. Cute is not enough to sell this mama though. The first diaper brand I came across was BumGenius. I liked the idea and dug into the reviews. The vast majority of purchasers liked the cloth diapers in general, but I saw a lot of references to the velcro tape fastening mechanism. Seems that washing fleece diapers with velcro is not without its issues. The company provided "backing" tape to attach to the exposed hook side of the velcro, but who needs an extra step when trying to wash a giant pile of ammonia soaked nappies? Many reviewers made reference to FuzziBunz diapers. FuzziBunz come with snaps rather than velcro, eliminating the issue.

So off I sped to the FuzziBunz website. They had tons of information on how cloth diapers of any kind can keep millions of TONS of slow decomposing waste out of the earth. If that wasn't motivation enough to do extra laundry and take the leap, the fact that one set of diapers costs approximately $300 and disposables cost about $2500 over the baby's diaper wearing years. We have already established in previous blogs that I'm a serious cheapskate. So it was a no-brainer. I also had a friend or two that had experience with the brand and had nothing but glowing reviews.

Once the brand decision was made, I had to figure out whether I wanted the "One Size" diapers which were a little more bulky when the baby is under 9 months and required adjustments to the leg elastic, or if I wanted the "Perfect Size" diapers which came in different sizes for a more trim fit. So it was my sense of stinge v my sense of style. Crap. In the end, the decision was made for me by funds. Or lack there of. You see, when you move, even if the company is awesome enough to help with the costs, it's still really really expensive. Especially if you're moving halfway up the east coast. So while disposables are more expensive in the long run, when you are counting every penny and doing the check to check thing for a while they tend to be the only choice.

Now that we have settled in, the size choice is easy. We are finally getting diapers a bit at a time. Two to start just to make sure we are happy with them, then we'll take the plunge and get two dozen as they are cheaper that way. Alex is now at the 15 lb point, so we're getting the Medium sized Perfect Fit diapers. They are supposed to last him from now until he hits 30 or so lbs. At that point we'll be trying to potty train, so we ended up with the less bulky diaper without having to buy two sizes. I've been using the two we have as his night time diapers, cuz it was go big or go home time. If they were awful overnight I don't know if I'd still be sold, but they've been great! I wash them every day so I'm looking forward to having two days worth. Alex doesn't seem mind the change. When I change him before his 6:00 am feeding the quiet nature of the snaps opposed to the sound of disposable tape ripping seems to allow him to stay in sleepy mode which is great for getting him back down for an hour or two after his feeding.

Best of all: he looks really cute in them :)