A few weeks ago I was at my breaking point. Both baby girls were screaming from pain because of yet another diaper rash. We have literally tried every cream and ointment, including anti yeast ones and very expensive prescriptions. The rashes would go away for maybe a day and then as soon as they had a dirty diaper again, flaming red, even weeping skin would show up again. It was heartbreaking.I’d almost committed to cloth diapers a few times now.
The first time, I researched it and immediately threw out the idea because of cost and time and the “gross factor,” but by the second time I looked into it again, I had a much more open mind. It sounded intriguing but with 4-month-old newborns at home, I just couldn’t commit to it. I was still very new to being a stay-at-home mom and adding laundry piles was low priority on my list.
This is the third time. And I’m committed. It helps that my best friend recently switched to cloth, too. It also helps that I’m about 3 months in to exclusively using mama cloth myself. So with all the stars aligning, I decided to eat my words and revisit my hot topic from a year ago. This is what I have to say to all those excuses to not use cloth diapers.
Cloth Diapers
- Is my husband on board? Well, sort of. He’s curious. He trusts me. And he knows a pretty good handful of dads that cloth diaper, so I think his anxiety about the whole thing has calmed quite a bit. If your husband is your biggest obstacle, don’t just make an executive decision. Talk to him. Teach him about the style you most like. Show him how easy it will be. Break it down for him and answer his questions. Let him talk.
- What about the laundry? I still hate it BUT having something to do helps make me feel worthwhile. It may sound silly but *just* being a mom doesn’t do that for me. I hate that it doesn’t fulfill all of my needs, but taking care of my family by cooking, cleaning, making extra side money and being a good wife helps fill the gaps. So I guess I don’t hate laundry as much as I thought.
- Where’d the money come from? We used our tax refund (and some of my extra side money) to make the purchase. In addition to this, I learned a lot about getting cloth diapers CHEAP. I joined a cloth diaper swap on Facebook to purchase diapers other moms didn’t want. I joined a few co-ops to get better buying power from numbers. And I got lucky that a recommended brand happened to be running a huge sale.
- My youngest had an issue where she needed several medicines put on a section of skin under her diaper. Luckily, we’ve managed to resolve this issue. If you are facing something of this nature, be patient. Use disposable temporarily if you need to or use a liner in your diapers.
- Lastly, convenience goes a long way. It would be silly of me to say that cloth is more convenient than disposable. We plan to still use disposable at night and on vacations. If we know we will be out for a full day, we may use disposable for that, too. We are still working out the details on that part. What I’ve learned though is that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. The cloth diaper police will not come out to harass you if you fall back on disposables for one reason or another.
So far, I am still in the very beginning of this new journey so I very well might be spitting my words back up if I absolutely hate cloth diapering, but based on what I hear from pretty much everybody that does it, it’s highly addictive and amazing. If you are interested in following more of my cloth diapering wows and woes, check out my posts here and here.
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Category: BabiesTags: change of heart
