GDiapers, You Had A Good Run

This post is long overdue, but it still needs to be said.

Not two weeks after I wrote a lengthy post about our life with gDiapers, I gave up on them. I still love them and plan to use them with future babies, but it got to the point where it was a HUGE hassle to keep using them. In the end my sanity is worth more than my pride.

Break-Up Reason #1: We had absorbency problems again.

The root of the problem is the fact that the absorbent core of the g-insert is made of hippie stuff like paper pulp which doesn't wick moisture like a traditional diaper. In a disposable, when Luke pees the moisture gets pulled away from Luke wherever the diaper is still dry (usually toward his bottom). With a gDiaper, the moisture doesn't get pulled anywhere and just overflows as soon as the top part is saturated. When I had this problem before I just switched to a larger size and it solved the problem. That wasn't an option this time because we were already using the largest insert size. I read that some moms put one and a half inserts in the diaper to help with overflow but that became a cost issue. Not including the cost of the liners and pants, using gDiapers cost us about the same as using traditional disposables. Multiply that by 1.5 and there was no way we could reasonably afford that.

Break-Up Reason #2: The poo was too hard to handle.

The plastic liner is trimmed with elastic which means the edges have lots of little pleats and crevices. When Luke had a dirty diaper the poo typically got on the liner and into the little pleats. This wasn't a problem when he had runny, newborn poo (God bless it); I could just clean it out with a peri-bottle over the toilet. Once he started eating rice cereal and baby food the blessed newborn poo went away. The new poo was thick and much more stubborn about coming out of the crevices. I tried soaking them in warm water, running and extra rinse cycle in the washing machine and scrubbing them by hand but the only places the poo wanted to be was in the crevices or on my hands. Gross! I know touching poo and other bodily fluids is part of the mom territory, but I'm not willing to let that happen every time he has a dirty diaper, which is often.

pictured: lots and lots of crevices, not pictured: lots and lots of poop

In the end it was just too much of a headache to deal with. Steven got tired of them way before I did, but he was a trooper and waited until I threw in the towel myself. I think if we had only one of the two issues I might have searched for a solution, but with two problems to overcome it was too much to handle. I am all for being environmentally friendly, but I can only be so patient when my sanity and quality time with my son are on the line.

Bottom Line: I completely plan to use gDiapers in the future with other babies. The absorbency didn't become a problem until Luke was older and his output was greater. For newborns they still work great. I have also heard boys have more diaper leaks than girls (moms - yes or no?) so maybe I can use them longer if I ever have a girl. The poo problem will probably happen again, but still very easy to deal with when diapering newborns.

My compromise was to switch to Seventh Generation disposables. From a post-consumer standpoint, they're just as bad as traditional disposables. They spend way too much time in a landfill, but I try not to dwell on that. The benefit of the SG's is that they are just as absorbent as Pampers or Huggies, but they are hypoallergenic and free of chlorine, latex and fragrances. Meaning the process in which they are made is better for the environment. As an added bonus for a design snob like me, the SG's are a plain, natural brown color with no flowers or cartoon characters in sight. I still happily use any diaper that comes my way - freebies, gifts, whatever - but when I'm shelling out my hard earned dollars, I am happy to spend them on earth-friendly(ish) disposables.

As usual, nobody paid or perk'ed me for talking about diapers. I just wanted to share the poop, er, scoop with you!