I'm feeling burned out on cloth :( (maybe TMI)
We've cloth diapered from day one- we've actually never bought a package of disposables. We had some that were gifts, but never bought them ourselves.
I posted awhile back about being so grossed out by finding poo bits in our washer (random pea or carrot bit- ewww :gag:). It's still happening and honestly Emmy is nowhere near having "ploppable" poo despite eating tons of solids- 3 FULL meals plus snacks every day. We've been dealing with icky, sticky, peanut butter poo for about 5 months now. I've tried liners- it just goes around the edge of the liner and sticks everything together like glue. Gross!
I spray all the diapers before putting them in the washer, but finding time to spray them (she still has 3ish a day some days) while she's hanging on me and playing in the toilet... it's not easy. And, our washer/dryer are not conviently located- our house is ooooold and the washer is actually in a small room off the kitchen and the dryer is in the garage, so about 15 or so feet away. It's a PITA.
I've debated just taking some time off from cloth and using sposies for awhile- get myself excited for it again, kwim? But, I'm student teaching this year and I honestly cannot fathom getting back into cd's while doing that if we quit. If we don't stop, perhaps we can muscle through it... but I'm just so not motivated right now.
I don't know what I'm looking for here- motivation? permission to quit? Idk.
Re: I'm feeling burned out on cloth :( (maybe TMI)
She doesn't have predictable poo at all
That would make it SO much easier!
I am at home right now, I start back up in 2.5 weeks though. In the fall I'll be in schools 4days/week, and then in the spring it's full on student teaching- from 7am-5pm plus grading, lesson plans, etc at night. Of course, then you get into your first year of teaching!
I'm fine with the cloth when I'm home, I'm just thinking ahead to when I won't be home and sort of dreading it. I know I'm going to have so much homework to do, I don't want to spend 15-20 minutes a day spraying diapers, switching over the laundry, folding diapers, etc. I think that time would have better uses elsewhere- actually playing with Emmy, talking to my husband, homework, cleaning, relaxing...
Using disposable diapers doesn't get you away from scraping poo. Human waste (feces) is not appropriate for landfills. The disposable diaper packaging states that it should be emptied into the toilet before the diaper is trashed so it can be properly treated by your waste/water treatment.
Can't your husband help with spraying the diapers? I do the CD laundry, DH does takes care of poop scraping/spraying.
TTC #1 Cycle 14 - IUI#1=BFN, IUI#2=BFP | TTC #2 Cycle 8=BFP!!
CAN he help? Yes. Will he help? No. Cloth has always been my thing. He is great about changing diapers, but he doesn't do CD laundry.
Ditto this. Of course no one does it but it's a good point Cindy. Poo is just part of life, I suppose the only trade off is you'd be scraping poo into a toilet and then not finding it in your washer. I'm still so perplexed by why and how you find bits in the washer though, but maybe there's some solution you haven't thought of yet. It's really a bummer that DH won't assist. Being the only person dealing with poop is well...crappy. Pun intended.
He helps out a ton with Emmy- honestly even though he works, we still probably spit child related duties pretty 50-50. He just doesn't want to deal with the diaper scraping.
I might get flamed for this, but scraping the poop out of disposables doesn't really factor into the equation because we wouldn't do that with sposies. Actually, I would do that if the poop would plop out- but I wouldn't spray/scrape them.
I'll be back to teaching in 2-5 weeks as well and our plan is this: I'll put in a load of diapers in the morning when I wake up and am getting ready. The baby and husband are both still asleep then so I can take the extra time to scrape or whatever as needed (we've still got BF poop so no scraping yet). Then I'll get the baby up, get us both out of the house etc. Then my husband will move the diapers to the dryer when he gets up (this way he's helping but not dealing directly with poop). I'll fold when I get home and the baby is napping.
Granted I'm in my 6th year of teaching so it's slightly less time consuming than it is early on, so that definitely makes it easier.
I want to wish you luck with student teaching and with teaching in general. I applaud you for doing this while raising a child. I'm sure you will come up with a solution that works for your family.
Can you at least give the CD a try while you are student teaching? Maybe don't give up before you start?
FWIW, I don't CD, but I've thought a lot about it and I'm going to a friend's house this week so she can show me everything she has (she CD her twins).
I already have a hard enough time keeping up with the laundry with working full-time and taking care of 2 kids and a DH who works long hours. I just worry/think that CD would add to it. I want to simplify my life so I can spend as much time as possible with my children-not add more laundry.
But that's my personal opinion. I think it's important to do what is best for you and your baby so you can be happy and healthy whether it's cloth or disposable.
i give you permission to use disposable diapers!! and to throw the poop away with the diaper rather than scrape it out!! either way you look at it, it will be temporary...the kiddo won't be in diapers forever.
love,
motherhood is hard enough without adding an inappropriate level of "green guilt"
I won't flame you -- I don't think anyone does that. I find it gross, and wish more people did do it, but I do understand why people don't do it. They think they are getting off the hook by using 'sposies.
But in any case I didn't mean to imply DH wasn't helping with Emmy. I meant specifically diapers. I find diapers and diaper laundry to be a job that I enjoy not always having to do -- so I really am glad that DH helps as much as he does. And if he were writing this post he'd probably say that he does more of it than I do, which is true since I work out of the home and he is a SAHD but anyway -- don't want to post jack. Just hoping that you can come to sort of place where you're happy with whatever you select. We have had good luck with Nature Babycare 'sposies when we've used them.
lol, thanks!
Actually probably one of the main motivators right now that keeps me thinking about cloth is the thought that she will potty train sooner! That's the only thing swaying me, honestly :P
I've never seen this on any of the disposable diaper packages we've bought. I see this claim a lot when CDing is discussed but I'm not sure it's really true. And for the record, we CD most of the time. We're taking a little vacation from CDing right now because the LO is on antibiotics.
Here it is referenced on Pampers' website: https://www.pampers.com/en_US/proddetail/id/900804 Under helpful hints.
I think this is the bigger problem. Really. I have been CD'ing from day one, and I am working part time as a nanny right now (since he was 7 weeks old). I also will be beginning my first year as a teacher in three weeks. I never even imagined NOT cloth diapering. I think you can do it. But if you dont want to, then dont. Thats my 2C. If you want to do sposies then do sposies. But pp are right, you really should be dumping poop into the toilet anyway.
And regarding your husband, that is unacceptable. It MAY have been okay when you werent working. I can understand this. But now that you will have what amounts to a full time job he will have to step up and help. Tell him that he can help either by doing the CD laundry, or plopping the poop. And tell him that if he chooses sposies that he will be responsible for plopping the poop in the toilet with those whenever she goes too. He needs to help. My husband watches my son ALL DAY on Saturdays and Sundays while I nanny and he also starts the CD laundry for the day (I fold when I get home). He has never questioned this because we both work. On days when I am home I take care of the CD laundry but when I work its a joint effort.
Its totally up to you, you should do what you feel is best. But dont doubt that it can be done. I CD'ed a baby since day one and in that time I have been working for seven weeks but I also started going back to school three days a week to finish up my Masters practicum when he was 2 weeks old. We CD'ed through it all.
Give me a break, I was stating a matter of fact not laying a guilt trip. I don't care if it is mainstream to be too lazy to dispose of your kid's poop properly and to be too uninformed to not know that putting feces in trash which will ultimately leach into our water table is wrong. I also understand that half of what people throw away is just as bad or worse. It doesn't change the fact that everyone changing poopy diapers should be putting the poop in the toilet.
TTC #1 Cycle 14 - IUI#1=BFN, IUI#2=BFP | TTC #2 Cycle 8=BFP!!
thank you
I'm really nervous about it... I've been home all summer full time and now I'm going to be gone full time- a big adjustment. I know it's the best thing for our family. But it's really hard to not only be essentially working a full time job, but also paying to do it! lol I can't even say, "at least we have extra money to do xyz...."
I talked with my DH about it and we'd basically come to the decision to switch to disposables. Then I said, "well, that means we actually have to go buy disposables..." He looked completely surprised, like that hadn't occurred to him, lol. Then he said he would help more and he thought we could muscle through it. So, we'll see.
I am a double major, so I actually student teach twice! I will have one assignment with prek-3rd, and one from 3rd-6th. I'm really hoping I get a good "spread"- like maybe pre-k and 4th, or 1st and 6th. I've known people with double majors that end up doing 2nd and 3rd or something like that, and I don't think I'd get as much from that as I would with a bigger age difference- if I have to do it twice, might as well get the most out of it that I can, kwim?
I'll meet my first mentor teacher at our orientation meeting that I'm setting up next week! I'm so nervous- I've been on the dean's list every semester but still feel completely unprepared to actually be in the classroom every day. My parents are BOTH teachers, you would think I would feel like I knew what I was getting into
Have you considered trying part-time ECing? Even catching one poop a day would be nice and that will help with her potty learning.
We EC/CD and every morning without fail he poops in the potty. He poops 6 more times a day, and sometimes I catch those and sometimes I don't. Maybe picking up a potty or an insert and then offering her a pottytunity at every diaper change will help.
We use 'sposie inserts (grovia are the best, hands down - the insert is double leg-gussted!) when we're out for long periods or traveling, so i'm not against sposies as a rule -7th gen are the best I've found - good for my long skinny little boy. (read: no blowouts or chemical smell)
My worry with you switching full time to 'sposies now is that she'll lose the connection of the sensation of what her body is doing and the wet/dirty feeling - and will set potty learning back.
at the very least it's worth checking out. And fwiw - my husband doesn't do much beyond diaper changes, but the first potty of the morning is his and he prefers that to the major poopy butt wiping.
diaperfreebaby.com
That's what I'm thinking, too. How about all of the nasty chemical cleaners, pesticides, paint, batteries, etc. end up where they're not supposed to. I don't see how poop compares and all the energy spent messing with it could be better spent on "green" activities that make a bigger impact.
So I give you permission to ditch the CD's! You already went far beyond what most other parents do as far as creating less trash with disposables.
Personally, we had a couple of starts with CD's and it was a waste of time and money. We were away from our house a lot and I just couldn't get it together with proper laundry timing.
We were actually talking today about getting one of the little potty rings and a stool to start getting her used to it. I don't know if I would really call it EC vs early potty training. When I was a nanny the little girl potty trained pretty early- like 16 months or something like that. She was really verbal, so she could say when she needed go to... Emmy's quite a talker and already says a lot of words, so maybe she'd pick it up fairly quickly.
have you tried the GroVia diaper soakers? they are much better than the other flat kind, these basically look like disposables, they have elastic on the edges and sticky tape on the back. you could put them into any pocket or prefold diaper and i would imagine it would catch the poop really well! they are also biodegradable.
however they are expensive, so buying a box of disposables would be cheaper. but if you can predict when the poop will be, you could just use one of these in the cloth during that time... or for that matter, when i expect DD to poop while we're out, we use disposables.
Oh honey, just switch to disposables. It's ok, really it is. You've done your part to save the earth by CDing this long time, and taking a break (whether it be temporary or permanent, lol) now is really, really ok. There is no need to kill yourself over diapers just so that a few random people on the internet will think you're great.
Having just finished student teaching myself, I would give youself a break (at least for only your ST semester.) It's SO much work. If you're feeling burnt out now, you'll be completely then. And honestly, you need to be on your "A game" every.single.day when student teaching. I wouldn't hesitate to stop CDing if you think it might take away from your work or happiness. It's just not worth it.
I'm sure student teaching is A LOT of work. Kudos to OP for taking on the challenge. That doesn't justify throwing feces in the trash. I don't care what diapers she uses, that's her choice. Most of us work 40+ hours and commute an additional number of hours and have busy, busy lives. Again, that doesn't justify laziness. I have a hard time believing that life is SO busy that any of you can't find time to spray 3 poopy diapers a day. It isn't a question of being ultra green or eco-friendly. It is against the law and it is revolting that all that feces and bacteria is not being properly treated.
I seriously can NOT believe how many of you are openly admitting to doing it, proudly doing it, knowing it is wrong. It is disgusting!
TTC #1 Cycle 14 - IUI#1=BFN, IUI#2=BFP | TTC #2 Cycle 8=BFP!!
Is it really illegal? Under what law? State, federal? What crime does it qualify as? It is not mentioned on any package of disposables I have, and it just says it's "advised" or something like that on the websites. Nowhere does it say, "under penalty of law" or anything like that.
You are not being at all helpful. You are trying to hijack Cindy's post. Settle down because no one's really listening to you anyway.
Cindy, I think a break from CD sounds like what you need. Let yourself get through the first few weeks of student teaching (been there -- good luck!) and then reevaluate. You may decide to go back to CD. Or you may not. Either way is fine.
Of all the things in this life I choose to take the time to do, scraping poop out of a spocie isn't gonna be one of them. I'm pretty OCD too.
You must be in horror on a daily basis over this travesty. Not one parent I know IRL uses CD or scrapes poop out of sposies. Not to mention most daycare centers. You think that if they have 15 kids diapers to change they are running back & forth to the toilet to scrape poop out of everyone? Give me a break.
This. And if there is a law what is the consequence? A fine, jail time, probation?
Seriously, I CD and sometimes (forgive me) I take a little break from the CD cycle (laundry, wearing, spraying, repeat). Maybe for a day, maybe for a week, but sometimes I just need a break. Sometimes I plop the poop and sometimes I don't when I use sposies too. Judge away.
OP- Good Luck with your student teaching. I agree with a PP though anytime the school year restarts there is always something I am nervous about. Maybe this is just your thing. You will do great and I am sure you and your DH will make the best decision possible when it comes to your diapering situation.
Eleanor 9.30.13
How do you make it through each day being so tightly wound? It must be hard for you.