Super Eco

Elimination Communication. Wow. Hard not to be in awe of parents that don't use diapers and instead rush their child to the toilet when they pick up on their child's physical and verbal cues.

When my one-year-old son is "eminating" his face turns slighly red, his lips purse, and he stops moving. It's the quiet and stillness that draw attention. When we make eye contact, he will sometimes say, "Poo out." At that point, though, it's too late to get him to the toilet (the "big boppy" he calls it) let alone do all the necessary unbuttoning, snapping, zipping, and/or unvelcro-ing.

Unless your eyes never leave your kid, there are bound to be EC problems at home. And what about daycare? In New Orleans, our daycare adjusted to FuzziBunz—cotton or hemp liners inside a fleece diaper (with colorful plastic experiors). In Minneapolis, our daycare won't take anything other than "disposable" diapers, a term that has come to mean "eco-unfriendly". Neither place would have been keen on EC for kids under two.

On weekends, we still use FuzziBunz. I can say "FuzziBunz" with a straight face now, but it's taken about a year. The name's more burdensome than they are. Poo tumbles off pretty easily (especially if you use the thin paper liners). A cold rinse cycle with a little vinegar gets rid of the smell and just about everything else. After a hot wash with just a little dye- and fragrance-free detergent (like Method), they're perfectly clean. The hemp ones harden like paper-mâché on the line, but five minutes of dryer time softens them up.

Photo Credit: Free to EC!