It's been a while since I've posted about cloth diapering. It's still going great in our home and I'm starting to look at cloth potty training pants, since Lucia has started using the potty once in a while. Now that we have been cloth diapering for nearly a year and a half, I want to address one of the biggest debates in cloth diapering: hook-and-loop closures* or snaps. Because our cloth diaper stash has been cobbled together from various diaper sales, ebay and Craig's List purchases, we have some of each. We've gone back and forth between preferring one, then the other since before Lucia was born:
Initially (before Lucia was born), I was drawn to SNAPS because they would last longer. Most of what I learned about cloth diapers was from reading the experiences of other bloggers (and look at me now, contributing to this!). My main concern with cloth diapering was cost, so I downplayed any cons of snaps that I read about in relation to the longevity factor. We knew then that we wanted a large family and were looking for diapers that would last for several babies each.
With a newborn, David showed an immediate preference for HOOK-AND-LOOP because he couldn't snap the snaps with his large hands without pinching her. Hook and loop also seems better for smaller babies, especially when using one-size diapers because it's more "customizable"; sometimes one snap is too loose and the next a bit too tight. We also were not only new to cloth diapering, we were new parents, so anything that made diapering even just a tiny bit quicker or easier was appreciated.
Once we got the hang of cloth diapering (and parenting) and Lucia grew a bit, we started to notice some of the drawbacks of HOOK-AND LOOP closures. Even if we remembered to stick the hook-and-loop tabs down before putting them in the laundry, they often still stuck to other diapers and cloth wipes, which resulted in a huge tangled mess and diaper pilling (the "fuzzy" look that makes clothes look worn). Still, we continued to prefer hook-and-loop closures for the time-saving aspect and lack of accidental pinching involved. (During this time I once accidentally pinched Lucia with my nails while snapping her diaper during the middle of the night and left a scratch that bled. I felt like the world's worst mother.) However, the preference wasn't strong and if there was a great sale price on snaps, I didn't think twice about getting them. (If there was the option, I would still choose hook-and-loop.)
When Lucia was about nine months, we noticed that some of the HOOK-AND-LOOP closures were starting to wear and weren't quite as "sticky". At this point, we've ultimately decided to stick with them because Lucia is so darn
wiggly during diaper changes that we don't have an extra 20 seconds to
snap all the snaps. (This has only become more
pronounced not that she can walk away from a diaper change.) I've also heard of many moms replacing the hook-and-loop closures themselves to get extra wear out of their diapers and I imagine that the cost for more hook-and-loop material at the craft store is negligible. I got a sewing machine for Christmas and assume that sewing on some little aplix squares would be a good beginner's project.
Lucia is now able to take off the hook-and-loop closures, but we almost always have pants or bloomers over her diaper so it hasn't been much of an issue. I really prefer sized diapers, although we do have many "one sized" ones, so aplix on the smaller sizes and snaps on the larger ones seem like the best option for us. She's started using the potty sporadically, which I hope means she'll be potty trained early (she's17 months) so we won't have much longer in diapers. In fact, at this point, I'm really looking into training pants that can be pulled up and down, which would be much easier for getting her on and off the potty quickly.
I took a quick survey of some of my readers to ask which they preferred, and it seems that I'm in the minority as a hook-and-loop fan (although a few other agreed with me that they preferred them for newborns). To give you more perspectives, here's what some other cloth diapering mamas have to say:
Amy:
After Mass on Sunday, the lady behind us started to say something to us. I assumed it was a comment about how terribly behaved our toddler was, but instead she said this to me:
