I know I’m not the only parent out there to say this, “I’m tired of cleaning up baby poop!” With two under two and I feel like all I do is feed kids and clean up their crap – literally!! Oh, do I wish I had an easy trick to free parents of the bondage of dirty diapers, but I don’t. This is one battle where the baby wins in the baby hostage wars. (Here are some ways to win other baby hostage battles.) I mean what are you really going to do to win this one? Tell the kids, “Don’t you dare poop!” Believe me, I’ve tried. I swear it only makes them go more.
Since the baby ultimately will win this battle, I had to find some ways to make it less painful. At the end of the day it came down to the diaper – the cloth diaper to be specific.
Cloth Diapering Can Save Time
When it comes to deciding how you want to diaper your little one you can choose disposables or cloth. Cloth is the preferred choice for me and my husband, but for different reasons. He does it for the environment and ease of transitioning away from diapers to real undies (Learn more about the benefits of cloth diapering.)
I do it for the convenience. Since we cloth diaper, we use a local service to collect dirty diapers and drop off clean ones. Thank you GOD for the creation of the diaper service. And thank you to my fabulous in-laws for gifting a plan to us. Having a diaper service has saved my life. It helps to free up time versus using disposables and here’s how:
Time Is On Your Side
You don’t have to worry about that run to Target to pickup diapers. With the diaper service, you know you have a wonderful delivery person coming to you with fresh diapers. For me, this is the best part of baby care because it’s one less thing to worry about. All I need to do is set a reminder to leave the dirty diapers out for the service and I’m good. (Note, keep a pack of backup disposables because you never know.)
It Gets You In The Mindset To Save
Because we don’t run to the store every week to get diapers, we also don’t run to get wipes. My husband thought it seemed silly to have diapers delivered but run out to the store to go get wipes. So we found an easy way to solve that problem and enjoy that little bit of free time (and money). We make our own wipes.
I know that sounds kinda weird and at first, it creeped me out. My husband who has a great green/natural outlook had to do a little convincing. He helped me understand that making our own wipes meant cutting down on unnecessary chemicals touching our little ones’ bums.
We know what’s going in the mixture versus what chemicals major brands may or may not list on the package. Sure you can find the expensive 90% all water wipes at Target, but then why not save your pennies and do the same thing at home? Here’s a video for the recipe we use. One thing we changed was using Bounty Napkins versus the recommended Bounty Paper Towels. It’s a lot easier to prepare the wipes this way because you don’t have to cut the paper towel roll in half. It’s a bit more expensive per wipe but remember, we’re trying to win the baby hostage wars – time is the priority.
Cloth Community Support
Your service will probably act as a great resource for you and connect you with other cloth diapering parents. This could allow you to kill to birds with one stone in terms of your time. You get to get out and socialize with other like-minded folks (versus being on baby lock down) and have a new group for possible play dates for your little one.
Managing Your Long Game
So with all of that being said, I think there is still potential to win the baby hostage wars when it comes to diapers – that is when considering your long game. Cloth diapering can help immensely with potty training. Based on feedback I’ve gotten from local resources and online, cloth diapering can lead to potty trained little ones sooner than disposable diapers alone. WellnessMama.com provides a great list of benefits to cloth diapering if you want to know more.
In addition to online sources, I highly recommend checking out your community baby boutique for help on this subject. If you’re in the Philly area, check out The Nesting House and Cloth. Both stores sell everything you need to cloth diaper on your own. If you prefer the service as I do, they can help to set you up with the local Philly service – Philly Diaper Service. I highly recommend all Philly cloth diapering moms have these businesses in their arsenal. Last month on April 23, they all co-hosted The Great Cloth Diaper Change in Philadelphia. It was awesome to be a part of this great day. The mega change was so adorable. At 11:00 am local time, the upstairs room of Smith Memorial Playhouse was packed with other parents and cloth diapered babies.
At the end of the change, everyone held their little ones in the air showing off their cutie pies in their fashionable diaper covers. It was definitely the cutest moment in the city that day!
I will definitely attend next year. Aside from being a part of a worldwide mega diaper change, it was a really fun event overall. I had a chance to chat with other parents, watch Westley play with other kids and check out various science demonstrations by The Franklin Institute and learn more about natural ways to bring up kids. Oh, I even got an awesome goodie bag.
So let me know if you end up trying out a diaper service or delving into the world of cloth diapering. Let me know if you have any questions and I hope this helps you get some free time in the baby hostage wars!
