I have a confession to make to you: could you keep it a secret?

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You know the main reason I didn't want to do cloth diapers for my first two kids?

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(just don't tell anyone, OK?)

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Wetness indicators. I loved wetness indicators! When you get out of the hospital with the little tiny new baby, you usually get as part at your "package" some Huggies or Pampers for newborns and they will invariably have wetness indicators. Ever since that very day when we got baby Michael, there were two diapers in my world: the ones that had wetness indicator and the ones that I didn't want to use!

That actually gets hard as the babies grow older because most brands will remove wetness indicators eventually. And generic brands or cheaper brands won't usually have them. Hence reinforcing my view that wetness indicators were "premium" and the distinguishable feature for a "good" diaper.

Now, as you know, constant reader, I'm the cloth diaper Papi. So what about my wetness indicator? Well, I figured out, I was born with it. Let me fill you in in the secret:

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(just don't tell anyone, OK?)

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The index finger!

Alright, alright, here I probably lost most of the mommas that are reading my blog. So I might be now writing for the one cloth diaper dad that is not intimidated by the idea or some moms that are willing to get their hands "dirty" when it comes to cloth diapering (bad pun, I'm sorry, it will be the last one, I promise, don't go away!).

I saw some really "bizarre" recommendations to avoid touching your baby's cloth diaper to see if it is wet. Some recommended checking every so often, others touching the outside to see if it is cold or "squishy". For me, the index finger inside the front part of the cover to see if it feels dry is the most effective way. If you are checking for a "poopy" diaper then a wetness indicator is not needed but your nose should be sufficient (and the older the baby gets, the farther away you'll need to check!).

Now, I actually thought twice about posting this and adding this "tip" to the conversation. Mostly I did wonder about the argument that it is not a "pleasant" thing and that you do get your finger "dirty". The realization I had recently was this: you are basically doing the same thing to your finger as what the diaper is doing to your baby's bottom and front on all his places. If it doesn't feel good for your index finger, you very well bet your baby is not feeling good about it too! Do this experiment: wet a small area of your T-Shirt and wear it for a few minutes. I'll bet you will be wanting to change that thing pronto.

Of course, wash your hands afterwards. I'm writing at the tail end of "COVID times" so having an extra reason to wash your hands regularly will actually be a good thing. Now, a final thought is this tip might be better for boys since the wet stuff happens in the front so there is less of a chance that the finger catches "something else". So if you have a baby girl and you have tried a "natural" approach, let me know if you can. Not sure if this cloth Papi will get to try that tip with a new baby girl in his lifetime. And good luck!!

Edit: My wife read this one and asked, is this really a post saying that disposable diapers are better? Not really. I was going to talk a bit about that but then I removed it from my original post. Basically, using the "natural" way is not necessarily worse that a wetness indicator. It is faster for sure as you don't need to remove all the clothes. Also, the wetness indicator is not reliable sometimes as diaper may be wet or dirty elsewhere. If you don't want to get your hands dirty then do almost the same as you would do with a wetness indicator, remove all the clothes around the diaper and then look at it. And if you are reading this far (I'm very impressed), then I assume that you know that we are doing cloth diapers for other reasons as well, right?