Make a Change. Ditch the . . .

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Make a change. Ditch the. . . Drumroll, please.

Disposable diapers.  

I am a full-time working mom who uses cloth diapers. A little crazy, but I love it. This is my personal outlook at this crazy thing we call motherhood. For me, that just happens to include cloth diapers.

Cloth diaper intro

Here are six milestones only a cloth diaper parent will truly understand:

  1. Fitting into all-in-ones. You will know the day. For those with bigger babies, it will come too quickly—you will only get a few uses out of your newborn size diapers, and you’ll have your pick of patterns right away. For mothers with smaller babies (like mine) it won’t come fast enough. The newborn-size diapers are cute, but you didn’t buy a ton of them—so almost every day is laundry day. And then baby hits the 10 or 12 pound mark… and those all-in-ones snap on like a dream! Options! Patterns! Excitement!
  1. Finding THE nighttime diaper. Your baby slept through the night. It happened, you didn’t make it up and this is real life. But the sheets are wet. One of the crazy-awesome things about cloth diapers is that you do less non-diaper laundry because there are less blowouts. So you research, and you try different diapers and different combinations of inserts on different nights (because now, OF COURSE, your kid is sleeping through the night every night—no sleep regression in this scenario). And then the clouds part, and one of those combinations work, and you drive 30 miles out of your way (or pay a boatload for shipping) to get one more nighttime diaper. Because it worked, and you are NOT tempting fate.
  1. Your first convert. I won’t lie to you, I pack my favorites whenever we’re off to a place I think a questioner may be lurking. People always sneak a peek at the diaper and when they inevitably ask what they are all about, I do a quick rundown with a gorgeous diaper in hand.  The day you actually convert someone is a ridiculously proud day.

Cloth diapers 2

  1. No more hook and loop or aplix. You know,  Velcro®. Your kid discovered how it worked—so unless you want to put pants on him or her every minute, then you just have to go with snaps. Maybe it’s just my child who truly enjoys taking off her aplix diapers (maybe something about the noise, and then the freedom of nakedness?), but I’m fairly certain I’m not the only parent out there with this issue. At least I hope not.
  1. Adult-esque poop. I’m going to get real for a second here, because this is way more exciting to me then it probably should be. Now that my kiddo is mostly on solids, we’ve naturally got more solid poop to deal with. Why is this an exciting milestone, you ask? Because you just roll it off the diaper, into the toilet. No diaper sprayer needed. MIND BLOWN. Of course this isn’t the case every single time—but for those instances that it happens, I feel like I saved hours. Again, not completely realistic of me—but whatever. I need these pick-me-ups wherever I can get them!
  1. Retiring the diapers. I haven’t even reached this milestone and I get butterflies in my belly thinking about it. On one hand… baby being potty trained? Awesome. On the other hand, I have a strange, primal attachment to these diapers and packing them up or getting rid of them just scares me a bit. What will go in the two biggest drawers of her dresser? So, I’ll just need to carry extra undies in my purse and in the car? Is that what happens?  I’m not claiming to be rational. But it’s huge, and I can’t even get my mind around it. Good thing it isn’t here yet.

Want to be a part of something fun and awesome? 

The Great Cloth Diaper Change (https://greatclothdiaperchange.com/) is coming up on April 18. This is a Guinness World Record opportunity that takes place in communities all over the world. On the same day, simultaneously, thousands of cloth diaper bums are changed. The initiative is to increase awareness of cloth diapers—they are still around and they’ve come a long way. And they are so cute.

Scottsdale’s local event will be hosted by Zoolikins (go here to sign up: https://www.zoolikins.com). They will be collecting items for family shelters as well as giving away prizes and swag bags. If you cloth diaper already, it’s a great event that lets you meet other like-minded parents (as well as possibly score some freebies). If you are considering cloth diapers, or just want to see what all the fuss is about it is the perfect way to dive in!

I hope to see you all there!