Diaper Doody

Diaper Doody

Ah the good old days, when men were men and diapers had to be cleaned.  That’s right young people, diapers have not always been disposable.  Ewww!

Actually, it was not so bad.  For my first three children we paid for a diaper service.  Lots cheaper than disposables are today.  Each week the service picked up the dirty diapers and dropped off clean ones. 

Changing and storing the dirty diapers was not as bad as some might think.  Poopy diapers were simply dunked in the toilet then rung out and left in a diaper pail which was designed to conceal odors…pretty well…I think.

The worst part of the cloth diapers was the diaper pins.  Large safety pins that were only “safe” once attached and closed.  Squirmy babies and sharp metal being forced through thick cloth was not an easy task.  In an effort to not stab your baby, a thumb or palm often fell victim.  It took a few weeks to get the hang of it. 

Then you had to slip one of those plastic covers over the diaper to prevent leaking.  It did prevent leaking, but also eliminated “baby butt breathing” which led to nasty rashes. 

Naked baby airing-out the rash was effective, but it did result in accidents. You had to be on your toes and limit the airing-out to short intervals.

We did have disposables around baby number three, but they were expensive and we had the cloth thing down pat so we kept the service.  We did use some disposables for traveling.  The cloth things were no fun in a car.  We may have left a few dirty diapers along the Rt 13 roadside.

For this “green” aware generation, I’m not sure how disposable today’s diapers really are.  I suspect the landfills do not consider them that disposable.

Anyway, diaper duty (doody…see what I did there Val?) is something I do not miss.  I will say this for the old cloth diapers, they were strong as heck and well made.  I still have one from my forty-frumpting-year old daughter that I use to wipe down my guitar. 

There is no better wiping cloth then those old diapers.