I wear many hats these days. Between being a wife, chasing my two kids around, and running a website full time, the absolute last thing you’d expect me to tell you is that I use cloth diapers on my youngest. I mean, who on earth has the time? But you should prepare yourself for a shock. I am in fact a 100% completely sold cloth diapering mommy.
Now you think that I must have some weird love of laundry, and again you’d be very wrong. Of all the chores, laundry tortures me the most. It confounds me with its piles and mocks me with its endless loop of stains and separating colors. So why on earth would I give myself more laundry to do?!
The answer is simple. Cloth diapering is by far and away the most economical way to deal with this particular side affect of babies (aside from elimination communication, of course, but it would take more of a woman than I am to tackle that!) With my oldest, it was actually physically painful to throw away the disposable diapers. I felt like I was taking wads of cash and chucking them in to the trash. But what on earth was I to do?
I continued down the disposable road with my oldest, and time marched on. Then my husband lost 2 of his three jobs, and baby number two was on the way. It was time to face facts. I was going to have to figure the whole cloth diaper thing out. I had fabulous friends who had been there before me to tell me what they liked. Once the field was narrowed down (because if you’ve ever tried looking in to this, you’ve probably been overwhelmed immediately!) I realized this might not be anywhere near as hard as I thought it would be. We brought our sweet little one home from the hospital, and after the free packs of diapers were spent, I realized it was time. And do you know something? They worked just fine. No leaking, no explosions, and my baby did not even look at me askance or even seem to notice! Better still, all of those awful blowouts I remembered from my first were nonexistent. I think I can count on one finger the time we had a blowout.
So what’s the moral of my little tale? It’s not as scary as you think it is. And the reasons for doing it can be as simple as saving money or as complex as saving the planet, though my reasons are more economical. If you’re on the fence and need a push, I’m happy to shove you (mostly gently, I promise!) If you want to know where to start, please check out these posts I’ve done, and you’ll hopefully get a good grip on the basics!
-Amy at The Budget Mommy
We have twins and when we used cloth nappies for them. People thought we were mad but I loved to see my clothes line looking like it was going to set sail in a high breeze. My babies never had nappy rash. When they needed changing you knew. I fell in love with all of the cute nappy covers that are out there.
Come on people the planet is choking….do your bit to help save it.
Oh and by the way, if you add white vinegar to your machine instead of fabric softener as a final rinse not only are you ensuring the nappies stay beautiful and soft and absorbent, it also helps with nappy rash.
I rented a variety of cloth diapers for a one week trial a few months ago and was a huge fan of everything you mentioned as well – absorbancy, no blowouts, SUPER cute bum in those darling covers, but ultimately, I could NOT keep up with the laundry – starting the machine 3 times (cold rinse, hot wash, hot rinse) for the same load of dipes, and then the dryer, sometimes twice to get them fully dry, just wasn’t working. Do you do something different? I can’t seem to find any evidence of another acceptable method… with last baby now 13 months, I am not sure it would work out economically to switch now anyway…
Nancy – That’s how I wash mine as well. I just make sure it’s on days I don’t need to wash anything else. You could air dry the diapers, which is what we do. Just do the diaper laundry towards the end of the evening, and then before you go to bed, lay everything out under a fan. It should be dry by morning.
We had a big plastic garbage bin that we use to soak them in with Napisan…I think it is Australian but our Mum’s used it to soak Nappies and whites in. It is an antibacterial whitening soaker. We also had a nappy hose next to the toilet that we would first of all blast the nappy with. After a soak we would just pop them through on a cold wash with some lux flakes and the vinegar. I always line dried them because that was all we had at the time.
While I was reading your post, I felt like I was retelling my own story and why we made the decision to cloth & the blowouts, etc. Sometimes it is a reaffirming to go back and recall why you make the decisions you have and your post definitely did that for me.
Thanks.
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