As a parent you have probably spent your entire nine months of pregnancy preparing for the arrival of your baby making sure that everything is perfect when they arrive. You’ve researched cloth diapers and decided that you are ready to make the commitment.
Now, how do you convince your partner, spouse, significant other, childcare facility, and others to make this commitment with you? After all, you don’t plan on changing ALL those diapers by yourself do you?
5 Tips for Gaining Support with Cloth Diapering
1. Determine what motivates others. While your spouse might be motivated by the cost savings your childcare provider might be motivated by ease of use. Let that motivator be your focus when explaining to them why you are choosing cloth diapers on your baby.
2. Consider a name change. Call them reusable diapers, modern cloth diapers, or call them by brand name (i.e.
Soft Bums) when introducing them to others.
3. Show them off. Having a sample diaper on hand to explain how they work can help ease most people’s fears about cloth diapers. Remember that most people still haven’t seen all the new varieties of cloth diapers that are available.
4. Remember to talk about how easy they are to use. They are just as easy as disposable diapers. Debunk the common myths like having to swish them in the toilet.
5. Ask them to consider a trial period. If you are approaching a childcare facility or caregiver about cloth diapering and you receive any hesitations have them consider a trial period. Chances are that after they see how easy they are to use they won’t object.
Whatever you do, remember to make things easy for everyone involved. If you are going to be putting your baby in day care you probably don’t want to use pre-fold’s with snappis and covers when you can use
Soft Bums all-in-two system instead. If your husband is going to be responsible for changing a majority of the diapers (
in our dreams right!) you probably don’t want to give him a diaper with 30 snaps on it when you could give him one with Velcro.
My personal story:
When I told my husband I wanted to use cloth diapers he looked at me like I had 6 eyes. He felt a little better once I bought one diaper and showed him how they worked. After a year of cloth diapering he has accepted them as well as can be expected. I have to keep reminding him how much money we've saved this year and that usually brings a smile back to his face.
When we were interviewing caregivers we had a few diapers available with us and explained how they worked. Here is a sample of the conversation with them:
“We use modern cloth diapers like this on our baby, are your familiar with them? Let me show you how similar they are to disposable diapers.”
Don’t get frustrated, stay positive and try not to get defensive. People just want their concerns to be heard before they make the commitment with you.
Want additional support? The Real Diaper Association has several pamphlets developed that you can use when introducing cloth diapers to your friends, family and caregivers.
Consider Cloth Pamphlet
Day Care Tip Sheet
This is a guest post by Calley Pate, author and owner of The Eco Chic blog. Calley is an environmental consultant by profession and eco-mommy blogger. She has been cloth diapering her daughter for just over a year.
