Bumping the gDiaper review

Hey, I may as well get some credit for it!

from TheMusicalDaddy blog (but still written by me)

I had heard about gDiapers before The Boy was born, possibly before he was even conceived, because I was discussing the family history of sensitive skin on both sides and someone recommended them as an equally convenient alternative to disposable diapers. I tabled the idea because they looked to be too expensive and still a bit too difficult. I was also unsure of Musical Daddy's willingness to put up with the extra steps. I needn't have worried.

Fast-forward...past the first 2.5 months where The Boy was constantly breaking out from disposables and we made the switch to cloth diapers. Past month 7 or so when the poop started to look like poop and we needed a way to flush it (by the way...you're really not supposed to throw poop in the trash). Here we are in cancer treatment land, and we are faced with the prospect of a baby who, every few weeks, will receive intravenous medication that will cause his urine to turn red or pink. We also noticed that for the brief time period before the surgery, when The Boy was in disposables, he was getting a rash from Pampers. So this sensitive skin stuff isn't in our head.

I purchased the starter kit for $25 at Whole Foods. The gDiapers starter kit includes 2 "little g pants", 4 snap-in liners, and 10 flushable inserts. Plus a swish stick and a little hook for hanging it. Not bad for $25, considering the cost of fancy cloth diapers. The instructions are pretty simple--shove the flushable insert into the liner (it is MUCH larger than the liner and is supposed to cause the liner to "bow" instead of being straight. Don't fold the liner.). Snap the liner/insert combo into the pants.

Put the diaper on the baby. Here's the first snag: these diapers velcro in the back instead of the front. Probably even more difficult on younger babies but not a picnic on The Boy either. I wasn't sure if I was getting a snug enough fit.

Change about as often as you would any other diaper. The insert is removed from the diaper. You tear the insert and let the insides fall out, and then you swish it a bit, and flush. The next snag: this may be gross especially if there's poo. You may want to rotate among covers to let them air-dry. Wash with normal laundry or with normal diaper laundry if you cloth-diaper. Since we were using gloves during toxic pee time, it was less gross to rip the insert. But babies are gross in general, so you get over it.

There was a poopy diaper, which was not contained very well. It didn't escape the whole diaper but it did get on the pant, rendering it unusable until the next washing. The rest of the diapering experience with these worked fine. No leaks, no other issues.

The whole process is more complicated than disposables and probably as difficult as cloth, minus laundry. However, price-wise it is somewhat expensive. The inserts run about 50¢ each, which is more than disposables, plus the cost of the pants and liners, which you'd have to buy in three sizes. That said, it costs only a little more overall and you neither have to do extra diaper laundry nor throw away a bunch of stuff that will take about a hundred years to decompose. If you throw away a gDiaper insert, it still breaks down relatively quickly.

There are also some options. Some people who use cloth diapers find it easier to use gDiapers when they travel.

Overall, I find gDiapers to be a good product for "sometimes" especially the times that we're using them. They are effective. They are cute. They are a bit difficult but not too bad...if you're looking for a part-time or full-time eco-friendly option, these work.

The Wonderful World of Books and Bathrooms

This morning, The Boy and I went to our local library to hang out and were pleasantly surprised to find that it was storytime! Even though I had tried to sign up for storytime and it was full, we crashed it anyway and had a good time. Some friends were there as well.

The structure of this storytime at the library is pretty good, taking into consideration the attention spans of the audience. It was a wonderful mix of songs, stories, and games. One of the games involved children holding jingle bells (which get washed after every session). The facilitator gave The Boy a plastic toy with bells in it because she saw that he had been chewing on my keys, but apparently he was more interested in the other bells that had been given to our friend sitting next to us and took them away! Fortunately, our little buddy was pretty laid back about the whole thing and I managed to convince The Boy to play with what he had, which included my keys and the plastic jingling toy, and return our friend's bells to her. I don't think that she held a grudge.

Here's a really lousy segue: I wonder when The Boy will start taking books into the bathroom with him. I am pleased to report that we had a multi-faceted success on the potty this morning. We have the Baby Bjorn Little Potty, which was $10. It is small enough for most babies who are old enough to sit up, so that they can put their feet on the floor.

Read the bottom half of this entry to get some insight as to why we started the potty with The Boy. It had nothing to do with the fact that we think our child is so brilliant and so advanced and want to put pressure on him--he gave us some signs, so we're rolling with it. In teacherspeak, we are potty training on the spiral curriculum. That means that the student will cover a concept several times over the course of the learning process, and each time he goes over it, his understanding will broaden. Plus, anything that ends up out of the diaper--even if it is on the floor or on the lawn--is that much better for Mr. Sensitive Skin.

Also, please keep in mind that neither Musical Daddy nor I get any sort of compensation for the products that we mention in our personal blogs. Please. We just have found certain items that work for us and perhaps you may find them to be useful.

I got some of my inspiration, especially right at the beginning, from the Cranky Little Man website. She hasn't updated it in awhile, but her website has a nice little collection of advice for new moms, with breastfeeding advice, product reviews, and honesty about the scary newborn stage.