Three guys I’ve known for a lot of years have asked me recently about diapers. We’ve used cloth diapers with three kids, and it worked for us. It meant, among other things, less garbage, fewer shopping trips, no diaper rash, early potty training, and peace of mind about what what was (or wasn’t) pressed up against our kids’ genitals twenty-four hours a day. Lina wrote a nice post about some of the products we have used. This post is about poop.

Because, let’s face it, if you’re a new parent, you don’t really have much idea about how much poop there will be, or what it will be like, and part of your decision about what products to use will be informed by it.

For starters, your baby is going to come out and have this nasty, sticky poop that will stain everything for about two days. It’s called meconium, and it’s made out of all the hair that fell off your baby in-utero, I believe. It’s nasty stuff. During these couple days, use disposable diapers. If the baby is born in a hospital, they’ll provide such- use them. If you use them on a reusable diaper or washcloth, they’ll get stained.

At some point, when the kid starts breastfeeding (you should do this if you can, because it’s healthy, it’s free, and it will make the poop a little less stinky), you’ll start getting this golden smear in the diapers, maybe with little bits of curdled milk in it. It won’t smell bad, and it doesn’t even need to be rinsed off of the diapers before they’re washed. If the kid is eating formula, it will be a little stinkier, and a little more formed.

Every kid’s poop will be different. We had one that had pretty well-formed poop after the first meal of solid food, and we had another whose wasn’t until around two. If you’ve got a kid that has messy poops, invest in a sprayer for the back of the toilet. Took about fifteen minutes to install, and saved us a crapload of mess. Pun intended.

But your kid’s poop might not be that messy. My kids have a cousin whose poop just rolls right off the diaper into the toilet. If you’re using reusable diapers, that’s what you do with the poop: flush it. Imagine that.

You’ll need some accessories. You’ll need some washcloths to wash the kid’s butt when you change a diaper. If you’re already doing wash for the reusable diapers, using a disposable washcloth seemed silly to us. You’ll need a waterproof diaper pail (we use a plastic garbage bin) and some waterproof bags that you can buy anywhere people sell cloth diapers. We use two big ones for home, plus three or four more for when we’re out and about.

Last, but not least, your kid’s butt will be bigger in cloth diapers. Buy clothes that have a little room in the trunk for some junk. Then practice looking smugly superior for when you, a dad, whip out cloth diapers and start changing your kid. All the moms will stand around and marvel, and you’ll feel (justifiably) awesome.