I get it, the thought of using cloth diapers is scary. You want to do what’s right for the environment, but they’re just so icky.
You know what’s ickier? Your baby’s poop hanging out in some landfill for the next 500 years.
Also, they’re not that icky. It’s fine, I promise. I’m the most squeamish person I know and I’ve been doing this for 18 months without any issues.
Don’t believe that I’m super squeamish? Here, allow me to illustrate:
I cry when my feet get muddy.
I cannot make biscotti because my hands get icky and gooey and I cry.
I had a full blown panic attack when the OB broke my waters. I wasn’t nervous about birth; the fluid got all over my feet and I thought I would die from being icky and wet.
I will throw out an old lunch container before daring to open it up and see the science project lurking within. I don’t care how much I spent on the container.
I keep my nails very short because if anything gets under them I have to practice deep breathing exercises until I can scrub them thoroughly.
I had to change my husband’s bandages after his knee surgery. A friend had to literally break into our apartment because I passed out upon removing the bandages and my husband couldn’t get to the door (the crutches were in the hall, he was in the bathroom, it was just a bad night overall).
Do you believe me now? If Princess I-Can’t-Because-It’s-Icky can deal with cloth diapers, so can you.
Alright, let’s get down to business.
Love it? Pin it for later!
Misconception 1: They’re expensive.
Well, they certainly can be. You can drop $50 per diaper for the really nice WAHM diapers, but you can also buy a brand new full set (2 day wash cycle) that will get you through from birth to 18 months for about $150-$250. At 18 months old my son has used well over 5,000 diapers. There’s no way we could get 5,000 disposables for under $250.
Misconception 2: They’re hard to clean.
False. It’s two rounds in the washer and one in the dryer. Once baby starts solid foods, you’ll need to spray the poop off into the toilet with a diaper sprayer before you pop them in the wash. Fluff Love University has everything you need to know about exactly how to wash diapers in your specific machine. If you can follow the recipe on a box of cake mix, you can clean your diapers without ruining them.
Misconception 3: They smell bad.
False. Well, sometimes. If you’re not following the basic directions for washing them, yes, they will smell bad. However, if you wash them properly (which again, let me emphasize, is as easy as making cake from a box), then your baby’s bum will smell like laundry instead of that weird chemical diaper smell that comes with disposables.
Misconception 4: They’re hard to use.
False. You literally just put them on your baby like you would a disposable. There is a slight learning curve, and you will have a few leaks here and there until you get the hang of it, but guess what? That’s also true of disposables. In the couple weeks that we used sposies while waiting for our son’s umbilical cord to fall off he had as many leaks as he has in over a year of cloth diapers.
Misconception 5: They’re too complicated for dads to use.
False. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard a mom say “I want to use cloth, but my husband will mess it up” as if he’s some kind of neanderthal who is still mystified by fire. Here’s the deal: dad’s aren’t dumb. They aren’t bumbling idiots who need to be sheltered from the work of taking care of children. If the dad-to-be can figure out a disposable diaper, he can figure out a cloth diaper.
Misconception 6: Daycares only use disposable diapers.
False. There are actually laws in many states that require daycares to accommodate families that use cloth diapers. You just drop off a sealable wet bag with the prepared diapers in the morning and take the wet bag home with you in the evening. This does mean that you’ll need one or two more wet bags than you would if you were only doing cloth at home.
Misconception 7: They’re too challenging to use when you’re out and about running errands.
What? No. They’re fine. They do take up more room in the diaper bag, and you do have to carry the dirty diapers home with you to wash. However, you put the soiled diaper in a sealed wet bag in your diaper bag, so it’s not like you’re walking around smelling like a diaper pail. I will say, however, that if your baby is going through a particularly squirmy, anti-diaper change phase, it may be easier to just bring a couple disposables. It’s very hard to get a good fit on a squirmy baby, and the last thing you want is for your little one to leak through their diaper in the car seat on the way home.
Love it? Pin it for later!
Choosing to use disposable diapers is a perfectly valid choice. Ultimately, you need to do what works best for your family, and cloth diapering may not be for you. However, if any of these misconceptions are holding you back, it’s time to let them go. “I don’t want to use cloth diapers because I just don’t want to,” is a perfectly fine reason.
