As most of you know, I'm a full time stay-at-home mom (maid, cook, nanny, chauffeur, doctor and dog walker) and a part-time blogger. I know that many of you, however, probably work outside of the home, and I can honestly tell you, I have a lot of days where I wish I did too. Being a stay at home isn't all sticky tables, runny noses, laundry stains, dirty dishes and poopy diapers-- it can be fun at times fun too and my moods often switch from bliss to stress in five to ten minute increments. I do love the fact that using cloth diapers means that no matter how many poopy diapers we have in one day, I just throw my Thirsties in the wash.
Yesterday I had Cooper at the gym where I often go to do a light workout and get some writing done. The daycare is great. He's been going since he was six weeks old and he's happy to get out of the house. I call it my office and it even has WiFi. I get two hours of daycare daily with our membership and it's been my lifesaver. I always bring Cooper in his cloth diapers and I bring two extras. I change his diaper before we leave and toss the soiled one in the wet-bag and the extra back into the diaper bag.
Since I'm always there, the daycare ladies have become quite familiar with Cooper's cloth diaper booty--but not because they've ever changed him--they're not "allowed" to so if he, or any other baby poops, they go and find his or her mother or father in the gym---yes, even if you're running at 6.0 on the treadmill or right in the middle of an oh-so-relaxing "Child's pose" in a yoga class--and silently beckon with a crooked finger and an apologetic smile that says "I'm not a bit sorry that I don't have to change your child's poopy diaper for you."
The last time I was there, one of the daycare workers, an elderly lady of whom I'm quite fond, commented on how "fancy" Cooper's Thirsties were. She said that she had bought some cloth diapers for her grand-baby but that her daughter-in-law doesn't use them because the baby goes to daycare while she's at work and that they're not allowed. This got me thinking--is cloth diapering done mainly by stay-at-home moms? I have a hard time believing that there aren't lots and lots of cloth-diapering families that have both parents working outside of the home.
So tell me, if your child goes to a daycare, whether it's in someone's home or at a center, do you bring your cloth diapers and if so, is it more work for you or for the caregivers since they don't have access to all of your accessories, not to mention your diaper pail?
Working moms, tell us how you do it!
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I am so fortunate to have found a VERY cloth-friendly provider! When the little guy was breast feeding, she just tossed diapers into a wetbag throughout the day. For a while I even provided her with some detergent, and she’d wash every night! Now that he’s eating real food we just use a liner in his diapers so there’s little to no mess to deal with. We’ve used pockets exclusively, but our provider made it clear that she’d have no problem doing prefolds / covers if that’s what we wanted.
We use prefolds and Thirsties covers at home, but daycare wouldn’t take cloth, so he’s in sposies when he’s there. :(
I will say that it really depends. I use a daycare one day a week. It’s not cloth diaper friendly. But when I brought the subject up, I got to whip out a BG 4.0 with aplix and the ladies there got to oooo and ahhhh over how cool it was. One was so impressed she even went to the owner of the daycare chain and explained about ‘new’ cloth diapers, but was still told a no. One day of sposies a week is not my hill to die on. BUT if i had to use a daycare more than one or two days a week, i would prob find a home daycare in this area because they are more willing to do CDing.
We only decided to use cloth when my son was 7 months old. After trialing several different times at home, I took them to our in home daycare provider and let her check them out. After she decided that she was OK with them (afterall, they did not have safety pin & plastic pants), we went ahead and purchased more diapers. She puts the dirty diapers in a wetbag and I rinse them out at home. Unfortunately, she is relocating so now it’ll be a criteria for our new daycare provider. Hopefully it goes well!
As for a wash routine, I bought about 3-4 days worth of diapers. This allows me to wash them through the night and dry them the next day without running out.
I hate to admit it, but the past few weeks we just haven’t had time to do the whole cloth thing. They’re clean but have ammonia built up and I want to do a strip but since we live in an apartment and don’t have a washer/dryer in our apartment we just haven’t had time. I usually use my parents’ washer on the weekends but the past few weekends have been jam packed. I hate to say that we aren’t cloth diapering but with our wonky work schedules, we’ve been throwing out the money for disposables. Right now she isn’t in daycare but will more than likely be going to a daycare after she turns 1 in November. Our area doesn’t know much about cd’ing so I don’t know what they’re going to say when we start using them again.
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