The Great gDiaper Dilemma

gDiapers are a flushable diaper and the third contender in the great cloth vs. disposable debate. The concept of a flushable diaper was created by a diaper company in Tasmania and later brought to the United States by parents and gDiaper founders Jason and Kim Graham-Nye. The gDiapers are a healthier alternative to most disposables, using no elemental chlorine and no perfumes. Plus, since you flush gDiapers down the toilet, there's no smelly diaper pail to deal with and no guilt over filling our landfills with a substance that can take up to 500 years to biodegrade. They are also much easier and less time-consuming then washing like you do with cloth diapers.

So where's the dilemma, right?

Well, I started using the gDiapers when PZ was about 4 months old (before that I was using the Seventh Generation diapers which are a chlorine-free disposable) and after the initial shock of handling and flushing several VERY poopy diapers, I was pleased with my new guilt-free, odorless diapering alternative. We started out using the medium diapers (13-26lbs), but within only a couple of months we were having frequent leaks. We decided to try moving up to the large size (27-35lbs) even though PZ only weighed around 20lbs. This worked until she was about nine months old and then we started getting leaks again. I also noticed some chafing where the snap-in liner touched her legs. Note: She hadn't gained any weight during this time, but was growing longer and starting to move around more.

So, we switched back to Seventh Generation diapers and have been leak free now for about four months. But the stink is phenomenal and with each bag of dirty diapers we throw away I envision a growing tower of white poop-filled garbage bags wobbling toward the sky. Not a pretty picture and not the legacy I want to leave my daughter. I've tried the cloth diapers sporadically throughout my daughter's life and they are just too much work, a real mess with my washing machine, and certainly not the leak-proof answer I was hoping for. What's a mama to do?

For one, I went to the gDiaper website where they have fit tips, videos, and contact information. I've also been in contact with Karen at the headquarters here in town (Portland, OR) and we are trying to schedule a time to get together for a personal fitting. Talk about customer service! I've also been told that they are working on a new little g pants prototype for all the cherubic babies out there, PZ included.

PZ is wearing the large size gDiapers today which I put on her using the fit tips from the website. So far so good. I'm giving the gDiaper a definite Woo! for all the strides they've taken in making an environmentally responsible, easy-to-use, supercute product. When and if we can get all the fit issues solved I'll add the Hoo! But until then, I guess the answer to my own personal gDiaper dilemma will have to be a Hard to Choose.