Man of the Cloth

Today was our first full day of cloth diapering, and after a lot of experimenting with various folding and rolling methods...

...we survived!

Actually we did more than just "survive"- we were "totally fine".   And if you'd asked me last night if that would be my feelings at the end of the day (or even if you'd asked me this morning, while I was wallowing in my irrational "I'm not a good mother" funk) that's probably not the answer you'd have gotten.  I had some Capital A Anxiety over the whole thing, which is so weird because it's not like we haven't sprung leaks/had blowouts with disposable diapers- why did it seem So Horrible that it might happen with a cloth diaper?  Irrational Brain is Irrational.  And anyway we didn't actually have any leaks (or blowouts!), so there's still that to look forward to.  Yay?

So far the main thing that's getting to me is just how wet the cloth gets.  Like, totally soaked, edge to edge.  Apparently my son pees, like, a lot, because I'm changing him at least every two hours, and each time there's not a bit of dry material left.  Mind boggling.  And I can't imagine it's comfortable, but he doesn't seem to mind.  At any rate, his half-gallon bladder makes me glad I decided to stick with disposables for overnight.

But on to the solids!  I spent all day On Edge, waiting for his first Cloth Diaper Bowel Movement.  I was expecting it to come in the morning (which it normally does) but of course it didn't, and the anticipation just continued to build, leading to probably way too many instances of me holding Neeps above my head so I could sniff his butt.  When it finally happened in the late afternoon it... wasn't that bad.  In fact I liked being able to use any and every part of the diaper to wipe him with.  And it was so soft, too- I felt like it was probably much nicer on the skin than his normal wipes.

(Look at me.  I'm reduced to blogging about the little pleasures to be found in wiping poop off another human's derriere.  ::sigh::  Oh well!  Experience!  Adventure!)

Anyway, I signed a three-month contract with the diaper service people, so here's hoping that most of the awkwardness wears off well before then- and that I can figure out a way to make the whole process as easy as possible for whatever daycare provider we go with!