Up until our son was born, our middle gal was a strong, healthy, and active eater. She would often eat multiple breakfasts, including most of mine and my husband’s. While our oldest girl is oftentimes skeptical of veggies, the middle one (formerly) wouldn’t think twice about gobbling up some of my eggs mixed with mushrooms, onions, greens, and asparagus.
Although never a big fan of fruit, even as a baby—which I think is totally bizarre, by the way—she could eat her share and more of many a vegetable. She was especially fond of roasted cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts.
I’m using the past tense because after our son was born, my breastmilk arrived. And with it, came the abandonment of vegetables for the middle child—as well as most other foods that aren’t toast, crackers, pretzels, Cheerios, or potatoes—and the arrival of the worst poopy diapers ever known to this house. And perhaps, ever known to mankind.
We’ve been cloth diapering for four years now. When we were expecting with our oldest, a friend referred me to this site, where we learned all we could about using cloth. We eventually decided to give it a go. It’s worked out pretty well for us so far.
It has definitely saved us big money. I’ve read that parents can expect to pay around $2,000 for disposable diapers per child. We’ve made less than a $1,000 investment in cloth diaper supplies that will see us through three kids, though we still buy and use disposables when we travel, and to have on hand here at the house for when the laundry just doesn’t quite get done in time.
And there’s the environmental factor, which is nice too. We don’t make as much trash as we would using disposables, although one could argue we waste a lot of water keeping up with the washing of these things.
So, what are the downsides to using cloth? I used to think it was just the high maintenance of keeping up with the three-cycle (cold wash/hot wash/cold rinse), every-other-day washings. And there can be a slight yuck factor, though you get used to it after awhile. Think ammonia smells and dumping and rinsing the occasional dirty diaper.
However, I now—we now—realize all else has paled in comparison to the recent poopy diapers that have come forth from our breastmilk drinking, white-food only eating toddler. THEY. ARE. THE. WORST.
We are talking huge portions of soft, mushy, and smelly shite. Huge! The kind of shite that you can’t simply plop off into the toilet and easily flush away, like her diapers of yesteryear. The kind of shite that brings on insta-diaper-rash it’s so nasty.
These new diapers need to be scraped by toilet-papered hand, multiple times to have any chance of being able to be used again, and to avoid ruining our washing machine on account of being totally loaded.
Which is why my husband said recently that he plans on just throwing away the diapers from here on out. Not even bothering to try and clean them. I guess he’d rather buy disposables during this phase or just replace the cloth with new cloth.
I suppose, now that I really consider it, those choices are far superior to the scraping and dumping and holding-my-breath-so-I-don’t-throw-up option with the giganta-turds we are now seeing at least once, if not several times a day.
If only she were into potty training, this nightmare could all just go away. At least I don’t really have to worry about her nutritional intake as I’m eating well enough for both of us. She’s bound to get lots of goodness from my milk.
I just hope we can all survive this chapter of the parenting book.
Restless Roost 