I get nervous when talking to people I know in real life who do not cloth diaper about cloth diapering and they try to find excuses for why they don’t cloth diaper. Most often I hear, “I would never have time for it.”
But really, what about cloth diapering takes more time than disposables? Sure, there is more laundry. But the laundry doesn’t take THAT much extra time and depending on how fancy your washer is, you could program in the cycles you want at bedtime and wake up in the morning to clean (albeit still wet) diapers.
Is it the actual diapering? Yes, I tend to take a little more time when I’m putting a prefold on, but most of that is my fussiness. I’ve found I can be as quick or as slow with a diaper change as I want to be. With a pre-stuffed pocket diaper, changing is literally a breeze. No slower than a disposable change, to be sure.
I guess my point here is: cloth diapering does NOT take more time than disposables. Not like most disposable users would think. And trust me when I say: If *I* can do it and say it’s no big deal? THEN IT ISN’T. Because I am NO Martha Stewart here. My house is a wreck most of the time. My laundry piles up as much as the next person’s does. My dishes are legendary. So I have to figure that if I can cloth diaper and consider it “no big deal”, then truly, ANYONE can do it.
Let’s make it clear. Cloth diapering does NOT make me a “super woman”. It certainly does not make me “better” than anyone who uses disposables. I’m not the sort that thinks that anyone who hasn’t made the choices for her family that I’ve made for mine is somehow less than me. I’m not going to lecture a disposable user or give dirty looks to a mom who uses formula either. You put your baby in a crib in her own room from day one? I’m more likely to look on in AWE than I am to judge you.
I’m not doing anything really all that special here. Cloth diapering is becoming more and more mainstream but there is still a stigma attached to it. I just want to get the message out there that, hey, it’s no big deal to cloth diaper. It’s not harder, it doesn’t make me a better mom and it doesn’t require any special extra effort. It just is what it is. It’s a simple decision to just do it or not do it.
My goal, if anything, of this site is help some of you think, “Hey, maybe I can do it.” Because you can. I promise you can.
I’m always sad when parents feel less than worthy because they do things differently. I mean we are all in this together!!!
Ditt-O, on the time it takes and the general state of our house. I also don’t consider myself better because of my choices - it’s a back to basics thing for me, and I have real issues with groups that try and act proud/high about living in a more simple way - simple/organic/clean living shouldn’t be a trend or a fad - should only be based on very personal inner decisions - that’s the way things last anyhow!
My kids are in their teens now, but I cloth-diapered them. My daughter I HAD to as her hiney was allergic to anything else. We had a service (I would have done them myself but we lived in a apartment at the time and coin laundry…well that would have been very expensive. My service ended up being cheaper than anything once I had two in diapers.
Seriously, it was a breeze — and I used PINS for the diapers. Oh there were wraps, but my son’s legs were chubby and the velcro would always rub his thighs and make him bleed; I did use the really nice wool ones on occasion, but mostly I had breatheable nylon pants on him. The daughter could wear just about anything, and all the fun and cute patters were fun. But seriously, even with the pins it wasn’t hard at all. And once a week a nice lady came and took away the dirty diapers and left me a bag of clean new ones. tahdah! look ma, no laundry
Except for the covers, of course, and those could be washed in the sink if need be. I even came up with a makeshift cover for the times when I just had NOTHING clean. I cut two holes in the bottom of a Wal-mart back and tied the handles around. I never left that on him for long - just long enough to hurry up an wash some covers and dry them.
Cloth diapering really is simple!