New Exclusive Deal from RG Natural Babies!!

RACINE — There’s nothing pleasant about a dirty diaper for anyone, and parents who embraced disposables created a gargantuan industry.

But a local woman has forged a growing online business selling cloth diapers. Her endeavor is a throwback to the days when people had to deal with dirty diapers — not just toss them in the trash.

Michelle Schimian, 2924 Fleetwood Drive, launched RG Natural Babies in April 2008. Her Web site found its legs slowly but has entered its second year looking like a healthy, growing toddler.

Schimian, now 28, said she somewhat reluctantly tested her first cloth diaper with her first child. Friends had recommended them, based on their desire to reduce both waste and their babies’ possible exposure to chemicals in disposable diapers.

But, being “frugal,” Schimian tried them, because she said cloth diapers can be very cost-effective. Even using a once-weekly diaper service, they compete well on price with disposables. Using them with more than one child increases the savings, and they can ultimately be resold to recoup part of the initial cost.

“I thought it would be too much work,” Schimian said, “so we were going to stock up on disposables.”

“My husband was very hesitant,” she added. “A lot of people have issues with the poop, and there is more laundry.”

But she said she found cloth diapers surprisingly tolerable. “They were a lot simpler than I thought they would be.”

However, Schimian admitted, “You always get certain ones that are really gross. My husband hosed out a couple in the backyard,” she said, chuckling at the memory.

She started buying cloth diapers from Nicki’s Diapers and visited the New Glarus store. The idea of starting a similar business appealed to Schimian. “As a mom, I needed something more to do that was my own thing.”

She set up at least 20 wholesale accounts for such product lines as BumGenius and Fuzzi Bunz. The latter boasts that since 2000 it has kept hundreds of millions of disposable diapers out of landfills.

Schimian dubbed her new company RG Natural Babies for her daughter, Rachel Grace. She keeps inventory at home and fills orders at night.

Besides diapers — which come in many styles — RG Natural Babies carries such items as pail liners and wet bags, bibs, baby shoes and organic crib mattresses. Schimian noted that chemicals used in crib mattresses are widely suspected of causing sudden infant death syndrome.

In the beginning, she admitted, RG sales were very slow. But since then, she said, they are growing faster than she expected despite lots of online competitors. In six months this year she doubled her sales of 8 1/2 months last year.

She’s even pondering opening a store to raise RG’s visibility.

For more information visit http://www.rgnaturalbabies.com.