When you make the decision to cloth diaper, many of us will do a quick internet search to find out more. You’re quickly bombarded with dozens of different sources, blog posts, parenting magazines, and retailers shoving information at you in the hopes of helping you succeed. This information overload is constantly a problem for new parents and cloth curious families. Bloggers, influencers, and podcasters like me we try to find a clear path in the chaos, but it’s easy to get lost.
6 years ago, when I started cloth diapering, I started with a stash of prefold diapers, size 1 covers, and a few microfibre all in one’s from the popular brand (at the time). The first few months I stumbled through wash routines and leaks trying to figure out how to cloth diaper and how to transition into motherhood. It was a messy time.
Today, I’m a Cloth Diaper author, podcaster and consultant. During these past six years since having my babies and cloth diapering, I’m still finding new ways to help guide parents through the information and feel supported and empowered in their decisions.
Here’s a few things I wish I knew in my first year of cloth diapering.
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You don’t need an approved wash routine to succeed.
They can be a great place to start, a set of guidelines to help you break through the unknown of laundry, but don’t be afraid to trust in your instincts and make the changes you need.
Cloth diaper laundry is just another load of laundry. Think about how you would wash your dirtiest garden clothes, and tackle in a similar way. If everything goes wrong, which it takes a lot to go wrong, we can fix it. We can get you back to square one. Just reach out for support. There are many incredible people in the cloth diaper community ready to mentor and support new parents 1:1. This includes the women behind your local baby boutique, the family running a class at your midwife’s office, and the new mom with an Instagram handle.
Get yourself a basic routine recommendation and then feel confident knowing that it’s okay to make changes to the routine to get a better wash experience. Add more or less detergent, swap out routines, use a different water temperature. Approved and recommended routines work as a guideline to help you find what works.
The best cloth diaper does not exist.
Much of parenting is finding the best stroller, the best car seat, and the best nursery. We get caught up in looking for the bests and comparing reviews online. Every cloth diaper that exists, exists because it has a fan group or because some parent had so much passion that they invested in manufacturing it and bringing it to market.
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If you’re standing in a cloth diaper boutique (yes, they exist) and you’re wondering if Petite Crown or Bebeboo is better, know that they are both diapers created by passionate women who want you to succeed.
Buy the diaper that is the prettiest. And just start there. Start with the pretty diapers.
Cloth Diaper Experts are just people with cloth diaper experience.
Before you go looking for a cloth diaper expert who can find the answer or make all the recommendations, know that they are just people like me and you. There’s no official training. It’s just a community of parents passing information down as they learn and discover new things.
In my first year of cloth diapering, I spent so much time looking for the right blogger or expert to follow and learn from in hopes of finding the answer to my wash problem. I was looking in the wrong spot. I didn’t need an expert; I needed the confidence to problem solve on my own.
It’s not all or nothing; use disposable diapers.
We don’t say this enough to new parents, but you can embrace hybrid models of diapering and parenting.
If you use cloth diapers only on the weekend, and send disposable to daycare, you could save over 2000 diapers from the landfill, and a few hundred dollars.
Many families find a mix of disposable diapering and cloth diapering is the best for their lifestyle. It helps accommodate travel, other caregivers, mental health, and the time restraints they have.
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A cloth diaper parent is anyone who is interested and passionate about cloth diapers. You can use one cloth diaper a week, or month, and I still want you at the table to chat about how we can make cloth diapering more accessible for families around the world.
Leave toxic cloth diaper communities and create the space you need.
Sometimes the spaces on the internet are not the best for your mental health. Leave those places.
As a new mom I got caught up in the buy all the diapers mentality and culture of 2015-2016; a few thousand dollars in diapers and an obscene stash of cloth diapers, I was still depressed. I needed to leave the spaces of collections, fluff mail, and always new to find a space of encouragement and empowerment.
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I would end up creating my own spaces and communities. I encourage you to do the same because as new parent we don’t need a Facebook group of 20,000 people, we need a small group of families who can be there to cheer us when we need it. Don’t be afraid to build a new Facebook Group, to start your own Instagram account, and leave the energy that doesn’t suit you.
Repeat after me:
- You don’t need an approved routine to wash diapers
- The best cloth diaper does not exist.
- Cloth diaper experts are just people with experience & authority — hint that could also be you
- It’s not all or nothing, you can find a hybrid approach and start slow or go full time.
- Leave the toxic communities that make you feel pressured to be someone you aren’t.
You can do this.
So often we try to get ourselves in the perfect most best case scenario before we make a purchase or start – but the only thing you’ll regret is not starting sooner. Buy the pretty diapers, toss them in the laundry, and do the thing you want to do. You can do this, you can cloth diaper.
I invite you to follow along, and visit www.clothdiaperpodcast.com/ to download my FREE handbook to cloth diapering.
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