This is my last post for Cloth Diapering Unwrapped and it’s making me a little sad. It’s been several weeks since my daughter first showed interest in the potty and has been about two weeks that she has been using the potty consistently. These days she in underwear most of the day, with very few accidents, and cloth diapers are quickly becoming a memory in our house.
And I was fully unprepared.
Yes, I know there was probably a day (or five) several months ago that I was elbow-deep in poopy toilet water, swirling a dirty diaper around and wishing desperately for this day to arrive. But now that it’s here, I’m feeling nostalgic for the warm fluffy diapers coming out of the dryer and the unmistakable look of her cloth-diapered bum crawling around the family room.
In her room, right next to the new basket of pristine Minnie Mouse underwear, her cloth diapers are still neatly stuffed and put away in the changing table, just as they’ve always been. I just can’t put them away just yet. Because to me, they represent the journey we have been on over the past two years.
When I think back to all the stages we went through with cloth diapers – the research, the conversations, the arrival of my first “fluffy mail” shipment, the trial and error of the first several weeks of newborn diapering, the battle with stink, the huge stockpot boiling the inserts, the bright colors and white-white inserts flapping in the breeze in the backyard, the dunking and swirling – it gives me a great sense of pride that we’ve been able to stick with it and do something great for our child and our planet.
With our commitment to cloth diapers, I figure that our family alone has saved roughly 3,500 diapers from entering landfills and has saved ourselves almost $800 in just over twenty-one months.
And that is something to celebrate.
So while I’m sad to see my cloth diapers retired from regular use (and sad to put an end to this column!), I’m excited by our “stats”… and at the prospect of what I can use the diapers for next. Once I have the heart to remove them from the changing table, that is.
I am so grateful to the online cloth diapering community for all of the information and wisdom I’ve learned from all of you. And I wish all of you the best of luck on your cloth diapering journeys whether you’re just beginning or moving on to the next chapter like me. Thank you for reading!
Sarah is a mom of two and blogs about her adventures in motherhood, cloth diapering and everything in between. Catch her “Cloth Diapering Unwrapped” series on the FuzziBunz blog every week.
Tags: Cloth Diapering Unwrapped, cloth diapers, fuzzibunz cloth diapers
