New Obsessions

I have extracted a new promise from Hubby. He is to tell me the point I become too "baby weird"...I have the feeling that time is near. I am fluxing between cool and calm and an urgent need to GET STUFF DONE even though I have almost four more months to get said stuff done. Right now I have solved the diaper dilemma. Yes, it was a serious problem. The diaper discussions began before conception (I'm an early planner, usually about stuff that doesn't REALLY matter) when I just needed to know if we were going to go cloth or disposable. Well, it should be no surprise to those who know me that we came down on the cloth side of the equation. Cloth had many advantages: cost effectiveness for the husband and the old-fashioned buck the trend-ness for me. There was also a level of difficulty involved that intrigued me. Not to mention the skin and health benefits for the little one, who is sure to inherit the sensitive skin of both his/her parents.

The next step, and the one that has been interrupting my sleep as of late, is to decide on which cloth diapers to purchase. Yes, there are choices...all-in-ones, fitted, pre-folds with covers, pinned 'traditional' style, covers with snaps or Velcro, polyester, organic cotton, cotton flannel, fleece, wool...each with its own set of pros and cons and ardent followers. Then the sizing problem kicks in. Just how big will the baby be at birth? Do I need "newborn" size...good to 7 lbs, or should I start out with small? The brands don't help much; one brand’s small runs through another brand’s medium. Oh, and when does a kid hit the magical 35 lbs? I had to do some looking at average growth charts, guess how big the kid will be at birth and go from there.

After my size/weight research (if the baby weighs around 8 lbs at birth one can expect him/her to weigh about 16 lbs at six months with steady, predictable amounts between those two points) I have now made a chart of everything I will be buying sometime within the next two months. My chart started out in Word as a simple list and grew into a table and by the time Hubby spied it, he asked why I hadn’t done a spreadsheet in Excel. Yeah…I should have. My chart has the uses for each piece of my “system” (as cloth diaper choices are called once they are combined to the users liking), it lists the sizes, the amounts to buy and the prices from the website I have decided to order this lot from. Hopefully my list will get us through at least the first six months of life. Hopefully, because the upfront cost of cloth can be intimidating. I’m not going for the most expensive all-in-one system that is the closest to using disposables, but neither am I going for the least expensive one-giant-piece-of-cloth diapers either. I’ve chosen a happy medium combination of fitted (shaped diapers with closures, I’m going with Velcro) and pre-folds (pre-folded and sized squares of absorbent cloth to be used with a cover that has self closures) with various cover options for day, night and babysitters.

After the first six months, it should be easier to adjust for the size and shape of the baby and by then the diapers fit for a larger pound range. I am concerned now that I might not have ordered enough…but I am controlling my urge to over-shop until I know exactly what I am getting into. Plus…one of the reasons we’re going cloth is that they are washable. I shouldn’t need to have a stockpile large enough for a baby army.

Now for the first crazy part. Because newborns outgrow some cloth sizes so fast, I have decided to sew my own newborn/small diapers to save on some money. I’m going to sew my own fitted, padded and self-closing diapers. With some help from my mom, of course. I have a pattern, I have a website with suggestions and pictures, I have yards of cute flannel. I now need an afternoon to cut, serge and stitch a cache of about 20 tiny diapers. I have this need to sew diapers. It’s driving me mad. To control the itch until I can get on mom’s Serger, I am contenting myself by making deluxe baby wipes.

This is crazed mom part two. After looking at the actual diapers, it was time to look at the accessories. Why use disposable wipes if you’re using cloth diapers? They all wash together. So, I’m poking around and find the deluxe wipes. Yeah baby. One side is workhorse terry cloth and the other is soft, smooth flannel. The terry side of the wipe is for scrubbing pooh and the flannel side for smoothing the baby bum and quick pee clean-ups. Sounds good to me. Only if I purchased the recommended amount, I’d be dropping another $55.00 on wipes. That didn’t make sense. I can sew. I can sew squares. I can sew squares cheaper than $1.60 a piece. Off to the fabric store I go again to purchase two yards of terry and two of flannel. This is after I did the yield calculations to find out how many wipes I’d get from each yard of fabric. My original thought was I’d need about four yards each. I’m glad I did the numbers, because yesterday I cut 64 beautiful squares of each fabric. I’m getting 1/3 more wipes for half the price. And some work. I am now feeling a bit daunted by the large stack of squares that need to be sewn. But at this point, I am committed. I figure if I can sew 10-15 a night, I’ll be done in a week. That’s fine with me. It should, if nothing else, keep me from starting in on yet another crazed mommy project.

Or I just might find out all about the alternate meaning of “committed”.