Three years, seven months and six days.
One thousand three hundred and sixteen days.
That’s how many days I spent consecutively cloth diapering my two kids. From the day my oldest was born until he was potty trained, he was exclusively cloth diapered. My youngest has been in cloth for the past 14 months.
Every two or three days for the past three plus years has consisted of me washing, drying, stuffing and folding nearly two dozen cloth diapers.
I finally threw up the white flag and took a break.
Between a nasty rash that has defied all medications (both natural and prescriptions) and preparing to move into a new house, I had to take a break. The baby’s butt and my sanity depended on it.
Now let me give you a little back story. I am a pretty damn dedicated cloth diaper mom. I was one of those moms that got crazy excited when my favorite cloth diaper brand released a new print. I stalked the Buy/Sell/Trade pages and brand pages for the best deals to build up my cloth diaper stash with my oldest child.
Because I loved one particular brand so much, I actually realized they were based in my hometown and boldly sent them an email asking for a job. Two months later, I was working my dream job in a warehouse full of fluffy, colorful cloth diapers. I was giving input on new prints, talking to customers and just generally living every cloth diaper mama’s dream.
Fast forward another two and a half years, and I still love my cloth diapers, but it has lost a lot of the luster and shine it had when I was a new mom of one. While I did initially start cloth diapering for the cost savings and eco-friendly aspect of it, I kept cloth diapering because of the community of moms and the cute prints.
After working on the inside track of the cloth diaper industry, I realized that it was not all fun and games. A lot of the pretty pictures became hassles and headaches. The people who I thought were my friends before I worked in the industry quickly turned into Sanctimommies and I ended up playing peacekeeper far too often.
And to top it all off, as a mom to two active kids…I’m just freaking tired. Now of course, I know there are parents out there with 5 kids who cloth diaper, homeschool, run businesses and cook like Martha Stewart. I’m just NOT that mom. I send all my respect to that Mom. I’m lucky to make it to bedtime without losing my $&^@.
So, when the perfect storm arrived at my house I jumped at the chance for a break from our cloth.
I quickly sanitized all of my 50+ cloth diapers and packed them away in a cardboard moving box with ZERO guilt.
I went to Target to buy a small pack of disposables and then went to Amazon to stock up on enough diapers to last us for the next few weeks.
Will we go back to our cloth diapers once we get settled into our new house? Probably. I really enjoy not spending $50-75 a month on diapers. But, I’m also currently enjoying the respite from the continuous laundry in our house.
Will I feel guilty either way?
No. I’m beyond that guilt. I don’t have the time or energy anymore. I just want my kid to be rash free and I need to be as stress free as possible.
So, are you a cloth diaper parent or are you strictly a disposable diaper kinda Mom?
