While checking Twitter today, I happened across a snip of conversation, presumably about whether or not a one should give cloth diapers a try. The tweet read something to the effect of, “I’d buy cloth, but I’m a working mom and too busy to consider them.” Well, considering that we have on staff a number of working moms, it certainly made for interesting water cooler conversation today! All the same, we can understand the working mom’s frustration: you put in 8-9 hours at a job, pick your baby up from daycare or the sitter, and the rest of the evening spent taking care of the little one and the rest of the family. Dinner, chores, maybe homework with the older children…and by the time you look up it’s time for bed so you can wake up the next morning and do it all over again. Who wants to squeeze in “clean up dirty cloth diapers” into an already bursting schedule, when it seems so much more convenient to throw a disposable or two into the Diaper Genie and forget about it.
Yes, the green mother will argue that filling up a diaper pail with used Huggies day after day for the sake of convenience isn’t doing Mother Nature any favors, and if one can handle heavy loads of laundry during the week, how would cloth diapers contribute to an avalanche? On the reserve side of the coin, there is the concern about soiled cloth diapers lingering in a pail before they reach the washer. The experienced cloth user will know the correct procedure for prepping soiled cloth diapers before they are laundered, but we can certainly understand how that is the last thing a harried working mom wants to think about in the precious minutes she has to herself.
So, how to solve the dilemma of daily dirty diapers? For us, it was just a matter of ensuring our diaper pails were sufficiently lined and enhanced with diaper pail deodorizers to keep the changing area fresh. For the investment made, it’s worth the money to look into the special liners when you switch to cloth. The time it takes to change baby is no different than with a disposable – the only concern would be if a diaper is especially dirty, and even then it’s maybe a few minutes in the bathroom shaking the excess over the toilet or pouring a cup of water over the pad for extra rinsing. Once properly stored, they should keep until your regular wash day.
If you stay home with your baby for a while, then returned to work, did you notice any difference in your schedules with cloth diapers? As a working mom using disposables now, what would it take to make the switch? We’d like to hear about your experiences!
Kathryn Lively
Bryana is the owner of 
Becca is a part-time Spanish Teacher and part-time Stay-At-Home-Mom. She's a cloth diaper expert who enjoys spending time with her family, crafting and selling her wares in her very own
Julie is a mom to three kids including a set of identical twins. Through cloth diapering her twins she developed a passion for the industry and is an avid cloth diaper advocate. You can also find her on her blog
I am a working mom, work 45+ hours a week and 2hrs worth of commute a day. I have cloth diapered since almost birth and don’t see what the fuss is.
Diaper laundry is 2-3 times a week. Not much more time or effort than regular laundry. I usually do it while making dinner because the laundry room is near the kitchen. A quick cold rinse, a hot wash, sometimes another cycle with cold.
I get home, nurse my daughter and then start dinner and the diaper laundry. While doing that I can feed her dinner, my husband comes home and bathes her and I finish up dinner and switch the diapers to the dryer or do the final cycle. Put her to bed, eat dinner, and the next morning I deal with the diapers in the dryer. I often stuff them at the dining table while my daughter eats breakfast, or in her room while she plays on the floor.
I think that people who believe cloth diapering takes too much time and effort have never known someone who cloth diapers, or is going by what their parents remember back in the time of birdseyes and plastic pants. It’s not hard, and you save so much time by not dealing with rashes and blowouts, save so much money, and save so much of your conscience by doing what is right for the environment!
I’m lucky enough to have a caregiver who will use my cloth for my two children. We send Fuzzi Bunz for her to use. Although she was wiling, i told her that there was no need to rinse and that she could just put the diapers in wet bag as they were and I would take care of them when I got home. After we get dinner, baths, homework, and bed time settled, I then sort and rinse the diapers. if it isn’t wash day then i toss them in the pail. if it is wash day, then i wash them. This takes up may be 15 minutes of my evening. i think the time spent is well worth the benefits of cloth.
I cloth diaper as a mom working out of the home, and I do find the laundry a hassle- not in terms of total work but the time length. Wash & dry time ends up being just over 3 hours, which means I sometimes stay up later than I want on a work night to stuff the next day’s diapers. This is especially true b/c I stretch out the laundry loads so that I usually HAVE to do the laundry or not have enough for the next day.
On the flip side, I like not having to shop for diapers. And, I’m committed to cloth for its other benefits (savings, environmental).
I started cloth diapering my newborn while on leave from work, so that gave me a chance to get the hang of the washing, etc. If I was working at the time, it might have seemed overwhelming to get started. But, by the time I went back to work, I had a handle on the laundry and it was not a big deal.Sure, there are times when I wish I didn’t have to wash diapers (or cook dinner, or give the baby a bath, etc, etc)… but, I think that’s just the reality of having kids and I would still have frantic/rushed/stressed moments even if I was using disposables.
I am raising my 2 grandchildren ages 2 years & 7 months. I cloth diaper both & work outside my home 45-50 hours a week. My very best friend on the planet keeps them for me while I work & uses bumgenius pocket diapers while she has them. She rolls them up & puts them in the wetbag as-is & each night when I get home I unroll, unstuff & spray any solids in the toilet. Then I put them on the wash, cook dinner & feed the babies. I wash once in cold water, once in hot water & then do a complete cycle without laundry soap to get any left over soap out. often I don’t put them in the dryer until after I have had my shower. I do have enough diapers that I don’t HAVE to wash nightly but I have 2 in diapers so I do so as to not have too much for the washer. I can’t imagine spending money for 2 babies for disposables & paying for childcare for both of them. I would have to work another job to afford that if I didn’t use cloth.
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