Mommy's Supply

Diaper Liners - how to use them.

Veteran parents, especially parents of big families, heartily and enthusiastically will testify that, for the first few months, you cannot make a better investment than a diaper service. During the first few months, you remain constantly sleep-deprived, and the whole world seems more than a little fuzzy, grainy, and generally out of focus. Anything that lightens your workload also helps to reduce your stress...and maybe allow an extra hour's sleep or the remote chance of a nap. During the first few months, you even can go all out for both the baby and the planet, subscribing to an eco-friendly diaper service. The service will exchange your dirty diapers for clean ones several times each week, usually using flex-fuel or earth-friendly vans, guaranteeing to wash the diapers in detergents that will not harm the water system or animals, and assuring that the diapers themselves are earth-friendly. From your perspective, you should see that the diaper service is doing the most labor-intensive diaper plan known to mankind; you, the baby, and Mother Earth get all the benefits.

So, do you really need to buy diapers? After the first few months, yes you do, because Mom has gone back to work, and your daycare provider almost inevitably will want the convenience of disposables. Even if it's grandma or Aunt Sophie, your daycare provider still will want disposables. The best diaper services drain the wallet, and you need to economize, because you have the added cost of daycare. You will learn that properly licensed, professional daycare providers cost quite a bit. With both parents working, time management grows tricky, and it becomes incredibly difficult to block-out time for daily loads of laundry-especially because proper care of cloth diapers requires a couple of extra additives and cycles. Not only will you need to buy diapers, but you probably will see the wisdom of buying disposable diapers...in bulk.

But do you really-really need to buy diapers? This is where diaper liners come into play. Once again, the appeal of bio-degradable diapers becomes clear, because you can buy a twenty-pack of cloth diapers and line them with disposable-biodegradable diaper liners. If you're really clever, you will find cloth diapers equipped with Velcro tabs, so that you keep the efficiency advantage of disposables, and if you're really dexterous, you will perfect the art of diapering with one hand while managing business on your blackberry with the other. Many mothers can add other verbal tasks to the multi-task while diapering repertoire.