lessons from cloth diapering after four years

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It’s been four years. Washing diapers. Folding diapers. Admiring diapers. Loving their little cute bottoms in the diapers.

I am probably one of those annoying moms. I really don’t mind changing diapers. Except when it is a massive explosion, that’s not always pleasant, but when it’s my own child, eh, I’m there. But I do love changing them into a fresh and adorable cloth diaper. A bright purple one for my girl, or when John was still wearing them, dinos or cows for my boy.

I loved folding cloth diapers

At the beginning, I would dream about cloth diapers. I used to love washing and folding my cloth diapers into color coordinated rows. I even looked forward to it. I was so over-eager and excited to diaper my little one. I had a newborn stash and an one-size stash all ready to go. Unfortunately, I didn’t listen to other moms and bought before I tried, so it took me a while before I knew what I “liked”. I wrote a post on What cloth diapers I would buy if I could do it all over again.

I stopped folding them

My daughter was born right after John turned 2. I had two in cloth diapers for a year. I was so excited to buy a whole new stash! Pink! Purple! It was very exciting to buy more, more more. (However, still, I have not even spent HALF of what diposables would have cost, so a little extra flower-y frill didn’t bother me.) But after about 6 months, 9 months or so, I had to relax the cleaning and folding schedule a bit. We still wash every three days and I wasn’t color coordinating anymore. They just got dumped into my basket, and I stuffed them as we went. (Or better yet, I would grab a BumGenius — the ultimate best diaper ever invented!! We have lots of these now.)

John didn’t potty-train until a couple days after his third birthday: “I’m potty-trained now!” And he was.

Disposables for four months

I became even more relaxed after breaking my arm. Not only could I not cloth diaper, I couldn’t diaper at all. For at least three months, if not longer. I couldn’t physically change a diaper. We used disposables that whole time — my husband has never done a load of cloth diaper laundry in our four year baby run…. or our six year marriage run for that matter! So sticking to cloth was out of the question and that was okay. I had to let go of so many things when I broke my arm, and this was just a very minor one. Oh dear.

How I survive now

I still love my cloth diapers. I prefer them to disposables. But sometimes you just want a disposable….

We use disposables at night. (They just absorb it all and don’t stink like cloth diapers do with all those inserts — I tried with John but just could never get the right diaper for all the pee.)

I use disposable wipes. (Cloth wipes gave John horrible rashes, so we have stuck with disposable wipes throughout. We just throw them away in the trash while the stuff goes in the toilet.)

We use disposables at my mother-in-laws. (She prefers it that way, and if she wants to watch the kids so I can go to physical therapy and maybe Panera for lunch, then that is now fine with me.)

We use disposables on vacation. (We used cloth for John several times because I thought I was oh so green, but now I’m over the stink and the mess.)

I use disposables when at church or other events where someone else will be changing a possible “poopy.”

So, the moral of the story is : cloth diaper. But don’t drive yourself mad by trying to be perfect. We have trash cans and landfills and I am grateful for the convenience they provide.