Even as a mommy of 3, there are many aspects of parenting that are foreign to me, that I have no experience with. Cloth diapering is one of those areas. But recently we joined the cloth diapering clan.
I explored the option and thought about making the switch when Doodle was a newborn but got overhwhelmed by it all, felt like I wasted too much time (I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it past the breastmilk poo phase) and gave up on the idea. So, why after 5 ½ years of disposable diapering would I suddenly change to cloth, you ask?
Truthfully, I didn’t switch the baby. Trutfully, I ended up with a 3 ½ year old who started wetting her bed. Truthfully, I got fed up with doing laundry every day. Truthfully, I got frustrated with rushing to make her bed before nap time every day. Truthfully, I decided to put her back in diapers at night. And truthfully, I decided after we ran out of diapers for her that I didn’t want to buy any more.
So I decided to go cloth. I figured that since it’s only at night, even if she goes every night, that’s 7 diapers a week that need to be washed versus 7 sheets and mattress pads. I went to the local baby store, and panicked. There were only a few choices and I really didn’t like any of them! I sought the advice of a good friend who has been cloth diapering since the beginning and finally (after lots of questions and googling) found my way.
I chose to go with covers instead of all-in-ones or pocket diapers. I figure since I’m only dealing with a pee issue, being able to reuse covers for a few nights (wiping them down when wet and letting air dry) and only having to change out the liners was ideal. I bought 3 covers and 5 liners (for now) figuring that would be laundry twice a week which is less than I do regularly.
But then a funny thing happened, hubby told her she couldn’t pee in her new diapers and she didn’t! For days, she woke up dry. We’ve been cloth diapering Sugarplum at night for 2 weeks now and she’s only peed in it once! But when she went back into disposables for a few nights (when I panicked about laundry detergents), she peed every night.
So for now, we’re doing the cloth thing. I figure it will save us money over the time she uses them and then we can reuse them when Doodle potty trains and we need the night coverage or a little extra daytime reassurance.
That’s a great idea! I was about to sell mine–since I was all gung ho about cloth diapering PRIOR to our adorable poo machine actually getting here and then decided to stick with disposables–but maybe I will save them for when she gets older to use at night time.
It definitely wasn’t something I even considered before the mass amounts of laundry started, but I think it’s a good fit for us starting out with cloth diapering and who knows, maybe someday I’ll make the full time switch (maybe?)
We cloth-diapered my daughter for 2 years (until she was toilet-trained) and my son for 2 years (until my washing machine broke recently – we couldn’t afford to get a new one, so we got a used one, and I’m afraid to break this one). I miss how cute cloth diapers are – disposables just aren’t the same. And I hate all the chemicals on his skin, so I’m hoping we can get him toilet-trained soon. As for washing the diapers – that part I don’t really miss ;-)
Good luck getting your daughter to sleep through the night without a diaper – sounds like the cloth diapers are working, though!
Thanks, Carrie! I wish I had looked into and tried cloth sooner as I’m all about saving money and doing what I can for the environment it just seems like so much work starting out on top of all the other mommy responsibilities!