Ok, so if you have little kids, you probably have concern every now and then that your house smells like poop.  I mean, come on, let’s be honest.  You may even have that one friend in your life who’s house always does smell like poop, so you’re very conscious of trying NOT to have that same aroma in your home.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I registered for the Diaper Champ.  I did my research, read the reviews, and decided it was the best,  and most cost effective.  I liked that you could use normal trash bags in it and not have to buy any type of special refill.  And none of that silly sausage, twisting, stuff like with the older style Diaper Genie.  It was great….until that fateful day.  I can hear myself saying “What’s that smell??  It smells like poop, like all the time now.”  Oh yes, the days of no more breastfeeding and only table food had begun.  And they stunk!! The Diaper Champ just wasn’t doing the job.

And thus, I began my search for an alternative to stink.  They had just come out with the new Diaper Genie II and though I didn’t like the idea of special refills, I liked it better than smelling poop.  I don’t really like the idea of having a special “doo-doo” trash can right outside my back door.  I can’t imagine how bad it would smell after sitting outside in the heat for several days, and to be honest, I just don’t want that on my back porch.  So, I bought the Diaper Genie II. Let me tell you folks, it works!!  NO MORE POOP SMELL!!!  No sausage twisting either! Ahhh, clean indoor air quality, again.

By the time my second child was born we had gotten even smarter.  Pee diapers don’t stink.  Therefore, don’t waste those precious Diaper Genie refill bags on them!  We throw pee diapers in the regular trash can.  And, breastfeed newborn poop doesn’t stink either.  So, until he started eating solids at 6 months, we threw all of his diapers in our regular trash can.  Now that he’s on solids, we do use the Diaper Genie II again.  The pee diapers still go in our regular trash, and we really don’t go through the refills that fast.

So there you have it, the tale of our diaper pail journey.  Hope this gives you some ideas on what works!  And I hope you too can have clean indoor air!

When I started my diapering journey almost three years ago, I didn’t give cloth diapers a second thought. I didn’t even give them a first thought. It was disposable all the way. I’m still on my diapering journey, but with my second baby. Again, I didn’t even consider cloth diapers…until now.

I’ve been reading a lot about cloth diapers lately. They seem to be getting more popular, so there must be more articles, like this one, mentioning their use. So last week I unofficially decided we should maybe try it. I hunkered down in the office and spent some research time on the computer. Here is what I came up with.

I knew that if I was going to take the cloth diaper route, I would have to find the easiest one there is. I don’t need anything to make my life more complicated at this point. So, all things considered, I would choose the bumGenius 3.0. It’s an all-in-one diaper, which means it’s a diaper and cover all in one piece.  It’s also a one-size diaper.  That means it will fit your baby from newborn to potty-training.  These diapers are $17.95 each, and the customer support area says I need 24 diapers.  Let’s see; that would be about $400.  That seems like an awesome deal!  Four hundred dollars for an child’s entire diapering life!  Maybe even more than one child!  Right now we spend about $419 a year on diapers for one child. But then I read on a forum that these diapers aren’t lasting too much longer than 15 months.  The elastic starts to stretch out and the closures on the front aren’t “sticky” anymore.  Hmmm…..is there another option?

My next choice would be Fuzzi Bunz.  I’ve read many reviews that say people have used these for multiple children, so I know they must last longer.  The problem here is, even though they are all-in-one diapers, they are not one-size.  It would be about $690 to buy these if you got 12 of each size.  That’s a little steep, but not when you consider using them for multiple children.  It’s just a lot up front.

If I decided to cloth diaper I would also need to invest in…

• cloth wipes, $11.95 for 12 wipes
• doublers (for extra absorption), $6-10.50 for 3
• odor remover, $5.99
• diaper sprayer $39.95

Then, I would also need to take into consideration the extra water and electricity usage for washing all of the diapers.  Most of the washing instructions I came across suggested two cycles with an extra rinse.  If you want to research more, there is a lot of great information on cloth diapering at Prayer of Hannah and also at DiaperPin. At this point, I was starting to wonder if disposables really were THAT bad.  Maybe all those washing instructions had me discouraged.

I had about decided that I didn’t want to put that much effort into diapers when I read that sodium polyacrylate (SAP), the very absorbent gel in disposable diapers, can be toxic and harmful.  GREAT!  It has been linked in the past to toxic shock syndrome, allergic reactions and is very harmful and potentially lethal to pets.  You can read more about the chemical exposure here. So are there any disposables without SAP? Tushies, the cheaper of the only two brands of disposable diapers that do not contain SAP, would run me $657 a year.  WOW!  That is pretty steep; especially compared to my Pampers at $419.

So what did I decide in the end?  Here are my main thoughts, in no particular order…

• we never hear anything about running out of room for landfills, but we do hear about how we need to conserve water and energy all the time
• I really don’t like the idea of taking every diaper to the bathroom to spray it out, but I think my hubby likes it even less
• I really don’t like the idea of adding lots of laundry to my to-do list
• I don’t really feel like any of the harmful side effects of the SAP are THAT conclusive.  I saw a lot of “may”, “might”, “no specific link”, “not directly linked”…
• I don’t want to spend $200 more per year on the better disposables

So, in the end, I just decided to stick with my old standard: Pampers.  No, they may not be perfect, but they’ve never failed me yet, and they’re the best I’ve found.  Who knows, maybe one day I’ll just use the diaper-free method.