It’s Just a Matter of Conviction

Our Cloth Diapering Community is made up of all sorts of different families with different backgrounds, believes and customs, but we all have a common conviction: Cloth Diapering is best for our babies, the planet and helps out on the family economy.

I’ll tell you a little about myself.

I’m the typical corporate career woman, I work from 9 am to 6 pm on regular days, but can log as much as 60 hours a week when there is a project deadline. I have to dress up, put make up on, style my hair and wear high heels to go to work every day. I have a degree in Civil Engineering and practice as a Licensed Professional Engineer designing and managing highway and levee projects for the second largest engineering firm in the US. I really love my job, it is very rewarding to see a project you worked on being built and used by the public.

When I got pregnant and started researching what brand of diaper to use with my baby I realized how damaging to our environment disposable diapers are just by its production cycle, material waste and waste to our landfills. I was looking for a less damaging diaper to use on my baby and found 7th Generation (they don’t bleach the diapers, therefore don’t release chlorine and dioxins into water streams) and then I found g-Diapers (no landfill waste, compostable), which I thought was the way to go, even though it was going to be more expensive to diaper a baby. I did not think of using cloth insert at that time.

One day while pregnant, I visited a dear friend who had just had a baby, I made a comment about diapers and my environmental concerns, she surprised me by saying that she used cloth diapers…I followed her to the baby’s room to change a diaper and I was instantaneously amazed with them. She used a fitted Kissuluv with a Thirsties cover; she also showed me the BumGenious AIOs and Fuzzi Bunz pockets. I was sold, I wanted to know more!! She explained to me the basics and her washing routine and as soon as I got home that night I researched in the internet and became obsessed with learning more about them…the rest is history.

Before going back to work after maternity leave I interviewed several daycares in my neighborhood, one of the requirements I had was that they accept using cloth diapers. After several rejections, and comments like “That is not sanitary”, or “It’s against our policy to use cloth diapers”, I found a wonderful place that said, “Sure, no problem, we’ve done it before”. It was interesting when I took the diapers to show to the caretakers, and they had no problem on using them, it was mainly the directors that would comment against them.

When baby began day care I took several brands that I had of pockets and AIOs, and let the care takers test which ones worked best for them. After a couple of months of using them they told me that the Fuzzi Bunz were their favorites, even though they were not my favorites and would have loved to test even more brands, I got all Fuzzi Bunz for my stash to accommodate their preference.

So the daily routine goes like this: I take 8 diapers in a clean wetbag at drop-off in the morning, in the afternoon at pick up I take all soiled diapers in the dirty wetbag back home. At home I get my alone peaceful moment with my diapers, I even call it my meditation moment, where I spray the poopy diapers in the toilet and rinse them all in the tub, I also hand scrub every poopy diaper to avoid any chance of stains in the wash, then I transfer them back to the wetbag if it is not wash day. I have a strict wash day schedule, every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday no matter what, even if it means washing at 11 pm at night after coming back from the office tired after a huge deadline and drying first thing in the morning so they are ready to stuff before leaving to daycare at 8:00 am. I might not be disciplined on many things, but my cloth kept me disciplined on this. I really don’t like doing regular laundry but I enjoy doing diaper laundry, I don’t know why…I guess it is just conviction.

In the 2 and a half years of cloth diapering my son at day care I never missed a day; according to them he has never worn a disposable (but have to admit that I always kept a pack of 7th generation disposables at home for “just in case”, and there were several “just in case” moments at home). Only once DH forgot to pick up the dirty wetbag from day care but it was no problem. I’m glad I found such a supportive day care for our family, where they respect my preference.

At this point I am working on a newborn stash and have a variety of new cloth diapers that I can’t wait to try with the new baby. I am amazed with the amount of support and new brands that are available now compared to 3 years ago.


Hello, my name is Carla and I am a cloth diaper addict, and if they tell me I got to go to rehab, I say no, no, no.



Carla and her husband have been married for 10 years, they have a 3-year old son (day and night potty trained for 3 months already) and they are expecting their second bundle of joy, a girl due in July. They both work full time in the corporate world. Carla cannot wait to get back to her meditation time scrubbing cloth diapers.