gdiapers review

A friend suggested gdiapers to me. I'd researched them before, but they are actually more expensive than disposables or cloth. Thus, they were not an option when I was looking to switch from disposibles to something more environmentally friendly as well as better for our budget.

I've written about the cloth diapers we use on a day-to-day basis, here and here.

Cloth diapers and traveling can work together. I've done it a number of times for long trips and short trips in cars or on planes. The thing with cloth and traveling is that cloth diapers take up a lot of room and need to be laundered with special detergents that don't contain dyes, perfumes or other additives. Usually, other familes won't have this detergent. Then we need to pack diapers (River's cloth diapers can fill an entire large luggage bag.) as well as enough detergent for our trips. 

When we went to the beach, I used disposibles because I wouldn't have easy access to a washing machine and dryer. Plus, really who wants to sit in a laundromat every couple days while on vacation?

Still, I feel guilty every time I use disposibles. Disposibles sit in landfills for 90 some odd years before they break down. That's a lot of diapers just sitting around. Plus, cloth is much nicer on River's bum. Go from using cloth to disposibles and you feel like you are wrapping your kid in newspaper!

We decieded to try gdiapers for our most recent trip because they are something of a middle ground between cloth and disposibles and for short durations of time (once the initial start up price is past) they are comparable to disposible diaper brands. We purchased a starter kit and one pack of inserts from the following site (best online deal I could find at the time).

The starter kit comes with two little gpants, three waterproof snap-in liners, and ten disposible inserts--plus a "swish stick" which we did not use.

The disposibles liners get inserted into the waterproof liner (white) which snaps into the orange little gpants in the image below.

Thank you internet for this image someone else took. Here they used a cloth insert instead of a disposible kind.

For a four days trip this is all we had. When River needed his diaper changed we simply removed the disposible liner and inserted a new one. If (when) the waterproof liners got soiled (with POOP!) it can be rinsed off in the sink with hot water (I also used a bit of soap) and then hung to dry. They dry quickly.

Unlike disposibles, the liners of gdiapers break down in a matter of months! They can be added to your compost. Supposedly you can also flush them, but I am terrified of clogging someone's pipes and did not dare try it.

I saw a few challenges when using these. One, there is no easy way to toss the liner without leaving your baby undiapered for longer than usual UNLESS you have the second diaper set up with a liner already in it to put on. Otherwise your baby is either bare bottomed and unattended while you walk across the public bathroom to a garbage bin or you have a balled-up, soppy diaper liner to set somewhere. I tried using bags (to pick up and hold the soiled liner) but that's a lot of bags!

Two, the liner collapses in on itself when wet. Sort of like a straw wrapper--if you know what I mean. So poop will get on the waterproof liner. River also managed to get a bit of poop on the cloth pants once. The site says this is because the pants are a bit too big on him, but poop leaks--it happens. If you have a younger baby  or are going on a longer vacation--you'll want to have a bit more of these outer pants in case of accidents. The cloth pants can be washed with your regular laundry!

I must admit we used the few disposibles I had left at night because River is a heavy wetter at night. I have heard that gdiapers begin to "break down" is left soaked with urine too long (ie:overnight) and so, rather than risk a pee leak of massive proportions--we used up the last of our disposibles. I can not testify to gdiapers overnight! Though I will be using them 24/7 during our next trip.

Overall though, these diapers allowed me to overcome my issues about traveling with cloth while still being conscious of the enviromental impacts of diapering. They took up a lot less room in our travel bags and very little effort on our part to keep clean. I strongly suggest them to parents that want a greener option without going completely the cloth route.

In fact, these diapers are more green than cloth because they require less energy (washing/drying) to maintain!

Happy diapering!