The fabulous Rocky Mountain Mama responds to “cloth diapers are gross!”:
“Cloth Diapers Are Gross!”
by: The Rocky Mountain Mama
Hello! I am the author of Rocky Mountain Mama. I started this blog to write about my journey to becoming a mother and now I use it to write about my adventures or misadventures in mommyhood. I am a “crunchy mama” to 14-month-old Christopher James, who is the love of my life.
“Cloth diapers are gross!”
I have heard this many, many times while researching cloth diapers and now that I use cloth diapers on my son. While I was pregnant, I frequented a board on TheBump.com and found that cloth diapering is becoming popular again. I was actually shocked with how many mothers were using cloth diapers. This wasn’t the first time I heard about cloth diapers. At my old school, I worked with an awesome hippy mother who used cloth diapers on her kiddos. She had so many pros that I filed the information in my mind for later use. So once I got pregnant, I started doing research. Lots, and lots of research and I found that cloth diapers are not just a piece of fabric attached with pins. Cloth diapers are actually very high-tech! Of course, you can still find the old fashion cloth diapers, but really? Why not get with the times and use some all-in-one diapers with velcro or snaps?!
I brought up the idea of cloth diapering to my husband to which he responded, “Hmmm…” and gave me the side-eye. I explained to him the many benefits of cloth diapering and finally convinced him that it was the way to go…or at least I convinced him to give it a try. We did one of those 30-day trials and I fell in love and my amazing husband just went with the flow. 🙂 When we told our families we were trying cloth diapers, we got the wrinkled nose look from everyone. “Gross!”
Here is where I respond…
There you are…playing with your beautiful baby. She is looking up at you with an adorable smile on her face and giggling at your silly faces. Then all of a sudden she gets that look. The poop look. If you are not already a parent, trust me, you will soon get to know this look and you will know it well. So you wait it out and when you pick her up to go upstairs you feel something wet on your hand. Crap! Literally…crap. She blew out of that stupid disposable diaper again! You rush her upstairs and try to carefully remove her clothing without getting poop everywhere. And then you wipe…and wipe and wipe. Finally she is clean and you put on another diaper.
Crazy scenario right? Not really. We have done disposables I can tell you, we had more blowouts with sposies than with cloth. Anyway, but to my point…you are already changing this nasty, poopy diaper right? Yes. Well, you are already wiping up the disgusting blowout that flew up her back. What is the different between pulling off and putting on a new sposie instead of a cloth diaper?
“What do you do with the poop once she is changed?!”
Alright, yes, there is one more step in changing a poopy cloth diaper, but really, its not that big of a deal. Now that your beautiful little girl is all fresh and changed, you put her down and grab the nasty mess she left you with. You have two options:
1. Throw the wipes (we use disposable wipes) in the diaper pail to be washed with the diapers, then toss them after everything is washed, or
2. Throw the wipes in a separate trash can. (we use this option)
Once you get rid of the wipes all you do is dump the poo into the toilet. That’s it! With breastfed babies, it might take a little more work. My amazing husband installed a diaper sprayer on our toilet. You just dangle it over the toilet and spray. No poop gets on your hands. And if you are truly that paranoid, you can wear gloves. But I can tell you right now, you are much more likely to get poo on your hand when you are wiping up the mess to begin with.
Now if you want to go all the way, you can use cloth wipes and all you need to do is toss them in your diaper pail. I can tell you right now, they will not cut it once your sweet little one starts eating solids.
That was the “disgusting” part of cloth diapering. If you are just changing a wet diaper, all you do is pull it off and put on a new one…just like with a disposable. Voila!
“Doesn’t the diaper pail stink really bad?!”
No…that’s why its called a diaper pail. Some mommies use just a regular trash can with a lid and it will do just fine to contain the stink. We chose to use a diaper pail instead. You cannot smell a thing when you go in Christopher’s room. The only time you may have to hold your nose a bit is when you take the bag out of your diaper pail and walk it to the laundry room.
“What about your washing machine? Doesn’t it get nasty?!”
Nope. You rinse the diapers, then wash them in hot and rinse again. By the final rinse, all the nasties have gone down the drain. And once a month you can run a large load of hot water with some bleach to sanitize.
So, there you have it! Cloth diapers are not any more gross that regular disposables in my opinion. You are still changing the diaper. The only difference is where the poo ends up.
