One would think that with running a
cloth diaper store, that my husband would be a tree hugging
cloth diapering guru. Umm not so much :)
W
hen I decided to
cloth diaper, he rolled his eyes and said he would not do any more diaper changes. My first
cloth diaper was actually the
gDiaper, and we were using flushables, so there were no money savings, but my husband has always known he married the "environmental Aussie" and was not surprised when I decided to use a
greener diapering option. I did most of the changes anyway, so I had a little stack of Nature Baby Care disposables for him to use.
Then came the
cloth diapers. Once I decided I wanted to go full on cloth, he was soooooo not going to change any diapers. So that little stack of "green" disposables sat on the shelf for the rare times that he was going to have to change a diaper.
Eventually that little stack of disposables ran out, and there came the time when Mum was out grocery shopping and Dad had to change a diaper that was all cloth. I came home to a mess. He had tried to use the flip diaper that I was testing out first, and it fell to pieces on him as he was taking it off the top of the stack to put on the baby. So that was discarded on the floor. Then the next one down was a
gDiaper, and he had thrown that one on the floor because he knew it had to be put on "backwards" and no way was he going to touch that one. Surprisingly the one he put on was the
Otter Blotter, which I thought should have been on the floor with the rest, because that one has the design to prevent baby taking it off. But I remember him admiring the design of it when I showed him the diaper when I first got it in.
So after this little episode, we worked out a system. I have a three tiered diaper storage hanging device, and the top shelf is only to contain "daddy friendly" diapers. So what makes up the daddy friendly diaper shelf?
- AIO diapers, including Monkey Doodlez, Bum Genius Organic AIO (old style with aplix), Thirsties AIO (sadly no longer being made). All of them close with aplix. I did put some snap closing diapers in there, but he told me that while he could do it, he didn't like to.
- Pre-stuffed Pocket Diapers that close with aplix.
Since I implemented this system, my husband has been willingly changing the diapers. He no longer moans at me that he wants a stack of disposable diapers for his use. He even takes the diaper pail contents to the washing machine for me every couple of nights!
So if you have a reluctant spouse or other caregiver. My suggestion is to go with easy cloth options for them, with aplix closures. There is no reason why you cant have a stash made up of different kinds of diapers. I still test out all the different diapers on my son for the store, but unless I want my husbands opinion on one, he just has his little stack of AIOs etc for his use.
And now that my son has started mothers day out a couple of days a week, we send Daddy's AIO's off to there. We have had no complaints from his teacher there, just compliments about cloth diapers in general.
Sharni -
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Julia Clark, Earth Angels Diaper Co.
