Yeah, yeah, I know that for a lot of you diapers just mean “gross.” You don’t need to read this. Others of you, however, spend a good deal of your time contemplating the best way to keep your kids’ bottoms clean and dry, so I hope that this will be helpful.
We’ve been pretty happy cloth diaperers with Katherine. I hate throwing things away, and I also dislike having to run to the store for essentials every time I turn around. The initial challenge of keeping up with the laundry became manageable over time, and, though I was less-than-thrilled with the conjunction of cloth diapering and six months of travel, I thought that was just an unfortunate–and unforseen–effect of our mobile life that would end with our settling in Oxford.
But I think the honeymoon is coming to an end. In the past few months Katherine has simply outgrown her cloth diapers. No amount of additional padding, super-absorbent layering, or frequent changing seems to be sufficient to keep up with her output. Yeah, we know, potty-training, but we’re only just getting to the point where we can communicate with her about food and water, so we’re not there yet. For our second child, I’m going to see how it goes. Cloth diapers through breastfeeding: great thing. Cloth diapers when serious-solid-food cleaning/numerous daily clothing changes/teething upset stomachs become issues: not worth the effort and the water use.
Since a number of you have small children or are contemplating them, I just thought I should be honest about what we’ve found. Katherine does drink an outrageous amount of water, and she seems to teethe harder than a lot of other kids (and for months at a time), so I doubt that our situation is the norm. Here’s hoping your kid is different, if you give cloth diapering a try!
Erin
Alan Schmierer
Children are frequently potty trained at a much later age, plus there are many kids who do not have dry nights for a year or two past their daytime dryness. Disposable diapers have been ‘engineered’ to accommodate larger output. I can see how those may be of benefit now that K has moved to regular food/drink in her life.
I feel you. With Kalvary we did really well until she potty trained, but every kid is different, plus, with more kids it’s just harder to keep up with the washing. Don’t beat yourself up too much if you end up using disposables. I KNOW that they are bad for the environment, but we each have to find our own ways of living green…find ways that you can do. 🙂