Diaper quest.

First, I'm peeved again at the Baby Industrial Complex. Then a discussion of nappies.*

All through the pregnancy, there is the litany of magazines and the gift registering and the Babies R Us telling you all about all of things you "need" to have before the baby arrives. It's nonsense.

It's like how they tell you that you need this or that for the perfect wedding, but when it comes down to it, the only thing you really need is someone else who will say "I do."

With Number One, here's what we've "needed" so far:

1. Car seat. (Actually, I'm glad I spent a fair amount of time researching this, but the information at car-safety.org was much more helpful than anything I found in any magazine's buyer's guide. Them folks in the Forums are obsessed with car seats.)

2. Our Bugaboo Frog (Admittedly, probably not something that we need, but we use it all the time. Number One sleeps in it in bassinet mode day and night, and it's super convenient to put her in while we cook and eat dinner, etc. I can honestly say that it's been one of the most useful things we have.)

3. Some clothes that fit and aren't totally off the Cute Scale. My current favorite is this kimono-style bodysuit. It opens up, so it's easy to get her into it without pulling it over her head.

4. And finally, nappies and wipes. As chief nappy changer, this is the one area in which I'm becoming competent and moderately knowledgeable.

In the hospital, we had the standard-issue Pampers, which were fine, but to me, smell much too strongly of deodorant and whatever other chemicals they put in them to make them impervious to moisture. Not to mention the Elmos and the whatnot all over them. The quest begins.

The first option was cotton. Before Number One arrived, I enrolled us with a diaper service for cloth diapers. I find them to be only marginally more trouble than disposables, but I haven't got total buy-in from Mom yet. They're a little bulky, but Number One seems to be slightly happier when I first put them on. The dry, breathable cotton on a freshly-wiped bum seems much nicer than the air-tight disposables.

The only drawback is they don't wick away the moisture like the disposables, so you have to be right on top of things with your changes. Unfortunately, Number One doesn't always let us know right away when there's an issue, so it's hard to know sometimes if we're changing her fast enough.

The National Association of Diaper Services has a ton of information on using cloth on their site. I'm still positive on the cloth, but it looks like it might ultimately depend on Mom after I go back to work.

I've also been using the Seventh Generation, chlorine-free variety. These fit well, don't smell like a chemical factory, and seem to be a good compromise between cloth and disposables. Obviously, they're not totally "green" (whatever that means), but I like supporting a corporation that at least purports to care about the environment. Also, they seem to be far less toxic overall than the Pampers-Huggies varieties. I won't reinvent the wheel here, because MamaStories has already posted a ton of research on this topic.

As for wipes, we've also been using the Seventh Generation, but she goes through so many that I want to make sure I'm using the gentlest ones we can find. It's astounding at how many times in a row she can go...and spaced just awkwardly enough...just when you think it's safe to put on the clean nappy...

More on this later.

Things we have yet to need: pack and play; play mat or anything else with sounds or bells and whistles; a swing; pretty much everything else they're selling.

* Really, this post was intended to deal only with diapers, but then I started thinking about how nappies are the one thing that occupy most of my time with Number One and how everything else has mattered very little. Needless to say the post morphed into how they sell, sell, sell you crap you don't need while neglecting the things that you really do.