By Worldchanging Canada writer Sonia Mendes

We’re out of diapers. Again. As my husband heads out to pick up yet another package of Pampers, I silently vow that this will be our last diaper run.

Currently on maternity leave with my second child, a pressing item on my personal “to do” list is to switch from disposable to cloth diapers. This is something that’s been weighing on my environmental conscience for some time, yet I haven’t taken the steps required to make the change.

Why didn’t I do this sooner? An excellent question…one that I frequently ask myself. Well, I could blame the fact that my first daughter was born with health problems, making the “disposable versus cloth” diaper debate seem trivial in relation to her frequent appointments to the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO). But I’m sure other parents have encountered health concerns with their babies and still managed to make the switch. Besides, my firstborn is now over three, blessed with good health and diapers are (very happily) a non-factor.

So what’s my excuse now? Just call me the Queen of Good Intentions. I can complain with the best of them—parenting is no easy gig. My four-month-old infant is currently showing no interest in sleeping through the night, nor does she like taking her milk from a bottle. That puts yours truly on the night shift. Admittedly, I do get bogged down with the seemingly never-ending cycle of sleeplessness and laundry, which make instant, disposable solutions like diapers seem crucial. But really…if I can’t get it together to make some changes in my everyday life, how can I expect my kids to respect their environment?

I’ve always known that diapers were environmentally “bad,” but seeing the facts in black-and-white really does hit home. According to Ingrid Bauer’s book, Diaper Free: The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene, single-use disposable diapers represent the third-largest single consumer item in landfills, following newspapers and beverage containers. Diapers comprise a staggering one-third of non-biodegradable waste.

“The word disposable is a true misnomer: these diapers do not go away!” emphasizes Bauer. “The average baby will contribute 2.75 tons of disposable diaper garbage to this heap by the time he is toilet trained.”

What an ugly mental picture. I don’t know about you, but my “green guilt” kicks in when I read that. So, I’ve made the decision to do something about it—today. I’m off to a local baby store to immerse myself in the foreign waters of reusable diapers, which I understand will require an initial financial investment and an ongoing commitment to (*sigh!*) more laundry.

Even this, of course, is not the perfect solution. Advocates of disposables would argue that cotton diapers produce their own ecological burden – growing non-organic cotton requires large amounts of chemicals, for example. Even if you’re using organic cotton or hemp diapers, “you will still consume resources in the changing, laundering, and drying processes, as well as contributing to water pollution,” argues Bauer.

So what is her suggested solution? Natural Infant Hygiene, a method explained in her book that promises to “provide an optimum way to deal with your baby’s body wastes, without creating either mountains of trash or mountains of laundry.” Natural Infant Hygiene offers an alternative to diapering, be it disposables or cloth, based on the belief that babies are aware of their elimination needs.

To me, this sounds like the nirvana of environmental parenting. I am absolutely fascinated, though admittedly a bit doubtful, by the notion that a little baby can eliminate in a potty. Yet Bauer shows plenty of evidence that this has long been the social norm in many major cultures around the world. Go figure—baby poop is just another area in which North Americans take the easy way out (no pun intended!) in comparison to the rest of the world.

While I am definitely interested in testing the concept of Natural Infant Hygiene on my baby, I’m not quite ready to throw all diapers out the window just yet. After all, everything takes practice, and I can’t expect my little one to master the potty immediately. Even once she does, I’m sure there will be times in the future when diapers are required—for that cross-Canada trip with baby, for example.

So for now, my focus is to get the reusable diapers in place—to dispose of my disposables. In the meantime, I’ll finish Bauer’s book. By then, baby and I should be ready to move on to bigger and better things—one baby step at a time.