Cloth Diaper Dropouts

I mentioned in a prior post that we often trip over boxes of diapers.

Disposable diapers.

It seems antithetical to the tiny house movement, doesn't it?

So why haven't we jumped on to the cloth diapering bandwagon like so many of our fellow small-living parents have?

Here's the honest to goodness truth:

We are cloth diaper dropouts.

Sunshine, who is now four and mostly potty trained during the day, wore cloth diapers almost exclusively until we started toilet training before Sweetheart (20 months) was born. I spent months sewing a fitted diaper stash for the little baby stage, and we stocked prefolds and covers and pocket diapers and inserts and doublers and an all-in-one and more fitteds for Sunshine as she grew. We have enough cloth diapers to go days between washings, and we invested a fair amount of money into that stash.

As we prepared for Sweetheart's birth, I pulled out the smallest diapers and got them all ready to go for our second time around. I couldn't believe how little the diapers were nor could I accept that my toddler had ever been that small. I was excited to start again with the next baby.

So what happened?

When Sunshine was little, it was easier for me to get away to do laundry because there was just one child to watch, and Chris was often around during the day to share the baby-supervising duties. (Sadly, we don't have our own washing machine.)  Often I would take Sunshine with me and just hang out at my parents' house while the diapers got clean. Shortly after Sweetheart was born, though, Chris's schedule changed, and suddenly I was alone with two little ones most of the day with no easy way to get the dirty diapers next door in a timely manner. I couldn't figure out a way to carry both the baby and the wetbag while leading a strong-willed toddler, and I was drowning in regular laundry already. Who knew that adding a second kid would make laundry exponentially more impossible?

In a desperate attempt to maintain my own sanity, I let it go. Sweetheart has been a "sposie" baby for most of her life, and I've tried not to feel guilty about it.

I occasionally put her in cloth when we're running low on disposables. Or when I feel like saving money. We have enough cloth diapers to diaper Sweetheart two times over easily, so it is a little gut-wrenching buying big boxes of disposables at the store every month.

Lately, I've been thinking more and more about those cloth diapers that are just sitting there, abandoned. My brother-in-law and his wife are just beginning to amass their own collection of cloth diapers for their impending arrival, and it's making me wistful for that fluff-bottomed baby stage again.

I figure it couldn't hurt to give it another go. Today I pulled out my favorites from their storage boxes in the bedroom and made room in the dining area for them. I hung a new hook for my favorite hanging wetbag (Amazon link), and I mapped out a plan for staying on top of the laundry. Now that my children are getting more independent, it should be easier find the time to throw the diapers in the wash. We'll see how it goes.




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