Yes, we use disposable diapers. I wanted to use cloth diapers when my first son was born, I really did. The information I found seemed to show that the environmental costs of disposables were roughly the same as those involved in a diaper service (trucks for delivery, heat, water and chemicals for washing). So it seemed that the only reasonable way to use disposables was to wash them myself and dry them on the clothesline whenever possible.
There were several drawbacks here. All of them centered on the ick factor. For one thing, I wasn’t all that keen on getting the poop off of the baby. It really seemed to be asking too much to then scrape it off the diaper. And then soak the still-poopy diaper in a bucket of water. But the dealbreaker was that with a front-loading washer, I couldn’t later dump the whole disgusting bucket into the wash. No, I would be required to pull one dripping, gunky diaper after another out of the crapola bucket and put them individually into the washer, and then wipe the drips off of the floor.
Since parenting a newborn baby stretched my adult functionality to its breaking point both times, it’s probably for the best that I didn’t try to add a time-consuming and repulsive chore to my roster. Still, I continue to have guilt about this failure.
Those of you who are better people and who cloth diapered can take heart. I continue to be punished daily for my environmental transgressions: Disposables are so efficient at absorbing and wicking moisture nowadays that boys who wear disposables take forever to potty train. I won’t reveal any details that would later embarrass my kids, but let’s just say that I have worried that we might have to permanently shelve that old joke about no kids going to college in pull-ups.
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