Cloth diapering while working full-time outside of the home held some challenges for me. I found I had to make a more concentrated effort to continue to use reusable diapers than when I was home for maternity leave. Overall, the experience was a pleasure.
See for me, cloth diapering helped me feel that I was caring for my baby even when I am not physically present. It made me happy to leave him clean and organized diapers. Call me Type-A, but I got the warm fuzzies knowing I have chosen which cloth diapers would be covering his adorable little bottom. Through trial and error, I learned that these twelve things helped set up my in-home child care provider for cloth diapering success:
12 Tips To Organize Your Cloth Diapers
- Leave a note for your child care provider about how to wash the diapers. Pin it directly beside or on your washer.
- Wash the diapers yourself as soon as baby goes to bed (so the diapers are ready for the dryer)!
- Use the dryer-it’s okay.
- Dry your diapers at night on your eco-setting to reduce your electricity bill and impact.
- Use liners for your cloth diapers. It's easy and helps to ensure your child care provider properly disposes of messes, not leaving poop sitting on your diapers for hours.
- Put the liners in each diaper. Maybe that's micromanaging but it helps!
- Consider having a few eco-disposables available as an emergency option.
- Leave everything out that would be needed (e.g., cloth diaper safe creams, pail liners etc.).
- Remove anything from the changing area that you don't want on your diapers (e.g., creams, lotions etc.).
- Be sure to have plenty of diapers ready to wear.
- Keep baby's nap time diaper(s) with his or her pyjama's.
- And finally, number twelve…. laugh at yourself and let it go. Cloth diapering while working full-time meant I stripped my diapers more than I did in the entire nine months of my maternity leave.
Dirty diapers didn't always get washed on schedule due to busy work schedules. I realized that a child care provider doesn't always wash them or clean the diapers like I did do, and sometimes diapers can even go missing! We still have a MIA Charlie Banana pocket diaper!
