I did something yesterday I swore I would never do, and I’m afraid this will significantly up my crunchiness level. I spent all day shopping online for cloth diapers.

Gasp! I know! Cloth! Stone age! Poo everywhere! Mass hysteria and extra laundry!

Now that is out of our systems, I’m going to tell you why, and I’m not even going mention the ecological benefits, because, let’s face it, I’m just as selfish as the majority of the rest of the world, and if it isn’t making my life better right now, I’m unlikely to go green. Pathetic, yes. Honest, yes. Moving on.

My children have really, really scary diaper rash. Jonas, thank heaven, is now potty trained, but Maggie has at least a year to go before we ditch the diapers. Due to her extremely sensitive skin, she has had more than her fair share of diaper rashes. Hers tend to go from nothing to red, raised, bumpy and bleeding in one change. Eczema forms where the edges rub on her thighs. It’s not pretty, and it is clearly very painful, and I can fight a rash for over a month before it subsides, only to return the following week. The medical profession has been useless. Currently, we are entering her fifth week of a rash. She has been gooped with fifteen kinds of goo and allowed to run around naked for days on end. Nothing is working.

So yesterday morning when I went to take off her night time diaper and she arched her back and clenched her cheeks and screamed bloody murder when I tried to clean her up, I saw the blood on the wipe, and her purple, tear-streaked face, and it put me over the edge. This simply cannot go on.

I had seriously considered going cloth before I had Maggie. The only thing that stopped me was a sense of being so hugely overwhelmed with everything else going on that the idea of an extra load of laundry and two in diapers made me stop short. Part of me wonders if I made a mistake there, but the logical part of me says, it simply wasn’t my time. Aside from being economically a better choice, cloth diapered babies rarely get diaper rash. Why this is I’m not entirely certain; I’m sure it has to do with chemicals and breathability. I’ve reached the point where I will try anything to make Maggie feel better. (Have I mentioned that she has head to toe eczema and we are waiting for allergy testing results to determine what she can and can’t eat? Trust me, she’s suffered enough lately.) Because I really had no idea what I was doing I e-mailed Jessica over at Very Mom, who runs a Very Baby, a Very Cool diaper supply shop, and knows lots of interesting diaper factoids, and, most importantly could tell me what I needed to get started, the best places to shop, and help me not get blindsided by really awesome and funky, but ultimately unnecessary distractions.

Cloth diapering has come a long way since I was a baby. Instead of a soggy, leaky, stained rag, we now have some incredibly cute and highly functional (read: no leaks and no jabbing the baby with pins) cloth options available. I am told they are easy to use and very absorbent, and not difficult to care for. I should have a big box of basic stuff, and a small box with two custom made diapers arriving at my house very soon, so I’ll let you know!