I volunteer in the nursery at my church occasionally during the Sunday services. Most of the parents of babies rotate responsibilities in the nursery and work alongside a wonderful nursery director and an amazing high school girl.

It’s a job I actually really enjoy. Yes, I host and attend a lot of playdates with other babies during the week and have two of my own, but it’s fun to see how the babies interact away from their mamas, to watch their personalities shine and I’ll admit, a little fun to play with toys my daughter doesn’t like.

Recently, I was in the nursery on an ordinary Sunday. A friend and fellow cloth diapering mom (who also happens to be our associate pastor), rushed in with her three-month-old daughter in an infant carrier. She set down the carrier and said “she just ate, so she should be fine. She is very chill, likes to watch the other kids. She might sleep a little. And I don’t think she should need to poop. But if she does, she’s in a cloth diaper and clean diapers are in here (gesturing to her diaper bag and wetbag stuffed inside).” And then she left.

And you can guess what happened approximately five minutes later, right? Yep. Big, loud, squirty, breastfed poop.

The nursery director looked at me with a sort of panic in her eyes that I’d never seen from her and said “Uh-oh, she’s in cloth diapers.”

At that moment, I felt like all of the struggles with cloth diapers were worth it. I nonchalantly said “We do cloth. I’ll take care of it!”

Relief swept over the room and I proceeded to change one of the largest, runniest breastmilk poops I have ever seen.

Even though it had been a while since I’d changed a prefold or maneuvered a Snappi, I wasn’t afraid of it like the other caregivers. I rocked that prefold. And I rescued that nursery (in my mind anyway!). It didn’t hurt that the baby really was (and is) the most chilled out baby and she barely squirmed while I searched to the bottom of the diaper bag for a fresh cover.

I’ve thought about this moment a few times since it happened. I’m happy I was there to save embarrassment or possible harm to the sweet baby.

And note to self: Always carry a back-up all-in-one or pocket diaper in my diaper bag for these situations!

What have you learned about cloth diapering in short term childcare situations?

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 Tuesday.

Oh, cloth diapers, how do I love thee?  Let me count the ways!

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I’d like to share with you 20 reasons why I’m loving our decision to cloth diaper:

1. I love … how good I feel on trash day when only a small amount of true trash – not diapers – goes out to the curb.
2. I love … the little rounded half-moon shape of my girl’s tushie in a cloth diaper.
3. I love … choosing a different color at each diaper change.
4. I love … the instant connection I feel with other cloth diapering mamas.
5. I love … the fact that we are saving money every time we wash diapers (college fund, perhaps?).
6. I love … that I don’t have to worry about running out of diapers at 6 a.m.  Or ever.
7. I love … knowing that no chemicals are touching her tender haunches.
8. I love … talking about cloth diapers!!
9. I love … shopping online for new diapers – usually just looking!
10. I love … cloth diaper blogs.
11. I love … the sense of accomplishment I feel when I think about my commitment to cloth diapering.
12. I love … that cloth diapering was my “gateway to green,” encouraging me to live an all-around greener life.
13. I love … when my husband raves to others about our choice to cloth diaper.
14. I love … that our solid-color cloth diapers are clean and sophisticated while still being babyish – without any cartoon figures in sight.
15. I love … when my three-year-old helps me with his sister’s diapers.
16. I love … pulling warm, fluffy diapers and inserts from the dryer (in the winter).
17. I love … looking out the window and seeing diapers sunning in the backyard like colorful flags dancing in the breeze (in the summer).
18. I love… the fact that I was cloth diapered as a baby and I’m carrying that earth-friendly tradition on with my own family.
19. I love…that cloth diapers are customizable when it comes to absorbency (if she’s just polished off a large cupful of water, I can add extra padding to absorb it all!).

How do you love your cloth diapers?  Let us know by leaving a comment on Facebook!

I was a different person before I started cloth diapering.  Now, I know I have added a child since then, changed jobs (read: decided to stay at home with my kids – the most important job I’ve ever had) and become less of a newbie in my town… that’s definitely enough to feel different, but it’s not exactly what I’m talking about.

Cloth diapering has taught me things about myself that I may not have otherwise realized or been able to hone.  Specifically:

I’m Committed: I’ve battled stink and rashes for such a long time now and I feel like I could have easily given up cloth diapering many months ago.  In fact, the old me might have.  But I have been determined to make this work and try to find a solution (my patience is starting to wear thin, but I’m sticking with it!).

I’m Green!: A lot of people talk about cloth diapers as a gateway to living a more earth-friendly life. It’s definitely been that way for me.  Before my daughter was born and I started cloth, I wouldn’t have considered the life we were living particularly green.  Now, we are not only not throwing away a mountain of disposable diapers,  but we are composting, using cloth napkins and rags and recycling a heck of a lot more than we used to.

I’m Really into Laundry: I have never known so much about my washing machine and dryer, detergents, laundry additives or my water composition.  Seriously, reading my machine manual?  Who am I?  I’ll tell you who, I’m a person who has very clean underwear and never ruins a top anymore.  Learning about my machine and washing techniques for my diapers, I’ve been able to make my entire laundry routine run smoother and get much better results.

I’m an Advocate: There aren’t too many things I am as passionate and vocal about as I am about cloth diapers.  It feels good to actively promote and support a movement like cloth diapering.  I like to talk about it. A lot.

I’m a Teacher: I have to admit, this is not necessarily a new personality trait.  I’ve always liked to mentor, to teach, to advise others, but helping other new moms make the jump into cloth diapering is so much fun…. and it’s rewarding on so many levels too.

I’m a Sniffer: Maybe it’s because I spend so much time with my nose in diapers making sure there isn’t a trace of scent left in them when they come out of the wash, but now (or maybe I always did and didn’t realize it?) I smell ev-er-y-thing.  The yogurt verging on its expiration date, my son’s jeans (can they be worn again before washing?), wow that garlic I chopped last night is really staying with me, hunting down a rogue diaper left too long in the diaper bag – you get the idea.

As you can see, cloth diapering has made me a better person and revealed some personality traits I didn’t even know I had.  What about you? What has cloth diapering taught you about yourself?

Well, it’s the last day of vacation.  My husband goes back to work tomorrow and the kids and I get back to our normal routine.  Ahh, the holidays are so much fun – this year with a 3 ½- and a 1-year-old was especially so – and they go way too fast.  But as I sit here, slightly depressed about another year of holiday fun gone, I am a little excited about getting back to regular food, regular bedtimes and wake times and regular daily rhythms.

To be honest, I used a few too many disposable diapers and let the cloth diaper laundry slide quite a bit over the past month.  I’m adding a couple cloth diaper-related New Year’s resolutions to my other goals for the year (for the record, I don’t necessarily believe in strict New Year’s resolutions, but it’s a great time of year to take stock and reflect a little on what’s going right and what could stand a little improvement. I love Simple Mom’s list of 20 questions for reflecting on 2011).

My cloth diapering goals for the year are:

• Test out different detergents:  I continue to struggle with stink and ammonia issues (is that line in every post I write?), so I am resolving to try some different laundry solutions in a very deliberate way.  I don’t want to jump from detergent to detergent without giving each a good college try, but I need to figure out something.

• Use cloth wipes again: I’ve gotten lazy with my cloth wipes and have been using disposable wipes almost exclusively.  These sticky, paste-y toddler poos I’m dealing with make disposable wipes more appealing, but they are a pain to figure out how to actually dispose of the poo-covered nasties.

• Resize one size diapers to fit:  This is a silly one, but I’ve been adjusting little by little on the fly lately as my girl seems to be a different size all the time. Consequently, many of her one size diapers are sized differently so I’m never sure how to adjust the snaps.  I think it’s time to get her in a good mood and then fit her exactly and adjust all of the diapers to the same setting.

• Invest in minky inserts:  I really like the new minky inserts that come with the new FuzziBunz One Size Elite cloth diapers. Like really, really like them.  Once I pay some of the Christmas bills, I’d like to replace a few of our really old, nasty inserts with new minky ones (I’m thinking it may help with the stink).

• Line dry more often: I love to sun my diapers outside in the summer.  But when the weather gets cold, I’m not so good about line drying diapers inside.  I’ll do it once in a while, but I’d like to figure out a better system to line dry them more often.  It’s better for the diapers and uses less energy.  Now I just have to get organized and leave myself enough time to get them dry before I need to use them!

• Stuff and put away straight from the dryer: I love a changing table full of stuffed, ready-to-go diapers.  Stuffing a diaper with one hand while holding down a squirming, flipping baby is not fun. At all.  Yet, I continue to put the laundry basket of clean, but unstuffed diapers next to the changing table instead of stuffing straight out of the dryer.  Habits are hard to break, but I’m going to work on it.

So that’s it.  Nothing drastic, nothing wild.  Just getting back to basics with my diapering.  It’s like anything else, things start to slip a little after a while.  But now is the time to start correcting some of these bad habits, so here’s to a fluffy 2012.  Happy New Year!

What are your cloth diapering resolutions?  Anything you’re going to do differently in the New Year?

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 Tuesday.