My husband made me do it!

Reader Contributed Article


My husband convinced me to use cloth diapers.

When I got pregnant, my husband suggested we use cloth diapers.  I was thinking prefolds, pins, and plastic pants.  So I objected.  Apparently he was thinking of the same system, but he was all for it.  He figured if it was good enough for his mom, I could do it, too.  “It’s easy,” he said. “When you have a dirty diaper you just hold it in the toilet and flush.”  Now I know he was talking about the dunk and swish method.  But there was no way I was going to do that.

My husband persisted, though, and brought it up several times.  Each time I told him I was just not going to deal with it, and that holding a diaper in the toilet and flushing was too gross.  Finally, one day I gave in and told him I’d look into it.  I changed my status to “Sarah is considering cloth diapers.”  What a reaction I got!  Most people just got grossed out but I got a couple of helpful starter hints.  I followed the links I got and searched for the brands they mentioned, and a whole new world opened up to me.

Very slowly, I learned about modern cloth diapers.  It took me awhile to figure everything out, but I just kept going.  I learned what a pocket diaper was, what an all-in-one was, what prefolds were (although it took me awhile to figure out why they were called prefolds if you still had to fold them) and so on.  Eventually I got the hang of it.  I read up on washing routines, detergent, and I looked into dozens of brands and stores.  I’m pretty sure all my nesting energy as a pregnant woman went into cloth diapers.

My husband has been great the whole way.  He’s great about trying all the different brands I come across, though I do try to save the easiest closures for him.  I know getting the husband on board is often the hardest part of cloth diapering and I realize how lucky I am!  He describes cloth diapering as “virtuous” and he was happy to learn about the modern advancements - flushable liners, diaper sprayers, and no more dunking and swishing. Unless, I guess, you really want to.

Sarah's Bio:
I am from Salt Lake City, Utah and graduated from Brigham Young University with a double major in Linguistics and German.  Now a stay at home mom to Nathan, born July 2010.  I'm learning how to cloth diaper on a budget while my husband is in law school.  I enjoy clogging, I dabble in sewing, and of course, I love cloth diapering! 

Sarah is also a blogger, you can visit her at her Blog Left Handed.