The Diaper Debacle Never Ends — RIP Cloth Diaper Services

This is the kind of post that makes me want to add a hashtag: #greenmomproblems.

Because this is about the kind of drama that only a green baby mama must contend with – my cloth diaper service has ceased operation.

Seems trivial, no? But, alas, it is far more complicated than that.

For anyone who has read my book or follows my blog, you know that I started out using disposable diapers for my son. But after about 18 months of diapering, I was finally swayed to the cloth side and never looked back. I was wrong about muss and fuss, as the lovely diaper service made it all so simple! I was finally a proper green mother with cloth credentials, and even updated my book to reflect my new experience.

Now at almost 2-and-a-half I figure my son must be getting close to potty training so I can just ease into a handful of pull-ups and padded undies and pass with flying colors. Or not…

My diaper service is officially going out of business.

I could switch to another service, but there are no other services in my area that launder pocket diapers — of which we are now the proud owners of dozens. It seems way too ridiculous to start over with pre-fold diapers and a whole new service when my son is getting closer to 3. Especially when it took such a struggle to get his preschool on board with the cloth pocket diapers — we certainly can’t spring pre-folds on them now.

Of course, we could just wash them ourselves. And after trying that out I am over the gross-out factor and see that it really can be done quite efficiently. But I just can’t bring myself to add more loads of laundry and all that pocketing and un-pocketing to my crazy schedule.

So it looks like we’ll have to get back on the disposable bandwagon for now – chlorine-free and safer-made of course. But it’s really quite disappointing, especially when I have given the whole process so much fanfare. It’s silly, but I feel a bit defeated – even more so as my formerly potty-interested toddler has been absolutely anti-potty for the past few weeks.

For now I will pack up my fancy cloth diapers in vibrant colors that my son so loved picking out. Perhaps by the time we have another baby there will be a new pocket diaper service in town. If not, we’ll just go with a prefold service and ease back in from scratch.

In the meantime, I must stop feeling guilty about not wanting to add to my laundry haul and try to cope with these #greenmomproblems!

Paige Wolf is a Philadelphia mom and author of Spit That Out! The Overly Informed Parent’s Guide to Raising Children in the Age of Environmental Guilt. This post is adapted from her blog, Spit That Out!