Breaking The Stigma: Disability or Not I Can Cloth Diaper

I was a chicken.  I will admit that now.  I was terrified of using a cloth diaper on my son for a variety of reasons.  Of course a year and a half later I really, really am starting to regret not cloth diapering my son.  There are so many things that I have learned about disposable diapers as well as cloth diapers in this last year that I didn’t know before I was a parent.

When you are a soon-to-be parent there is an overwhelming amount of knowledge that you feel you need to learn about and unfortunately there isn’t enough time to learn it all.  That is why I want to share this with you all.  This is especially for those soon-to-be parents who just can’t decide what the best option is and ultimately go with the easier of the two options like I did.

Why I ran away from cloth diapers before giving them a chance.

The biggest reason I ran away from cloth diapers was because… dun, dun, dun… I was afraid of the mess.  I know, know.  That is so typical isn’t it?  I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to handle the mess that comes with cloth diapering and I felt like I didn’t have the time to learn how to care for cloth diapers before my son was born. (I also didn’t think I would be able to teach hubby how to care for them either; I was nervous enough about him washing the baby’s clothes as it was.)

Should I have been afraid of the mess?

I can’t really say, but I do know that the first two months would have been really hard for me because I was healing from surgery and could barely do the stairs to make it to our laundry room.  So, realistically it would have been a real mess.  As a parent though I have come to realize that even without cloth diapers I don’t escape the mess so there was no reason to be scared of it.

The fear that brought me to tears was completely different from being afraid of the mess and that was the fear that my disability would make it impossible to cloth diaper.  In hindsight I realize that the fear was real, but that it was heightened by the fact that I was hormonal and everything felt way more extreme to me.

Should I have let my disability get in the way?

I shouldn’t have let my disability win; instead I wish I had gone to a cloth diapering class and could have gotten hands on experience with some of the cloth diapers on the market today.  There is a wide variety of styles out there that I could have used/tried, but I was too scared of them.  I chose to chicken out and go the easy route with disposable diapers.

When you have struggled with clasps, snaps, and some velcro your whole life you really start to doubt your abilities to care for your children and I will admit that I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to use cloth diapers without help from someone else.

Instead I am now saying I can cloth diaper!

My current determination to not let my disability win is why I am trying out a variety of cloth diapers.  I want to prove that someone with weak hands who often can’t even button a pair of jeans can use cloth diapers on their children.  This is why 1.5 years into being a mom I am deciding to put my foot down and start this new blogging series about cloth diapering with a physical disability.

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Ashley

Owner at Persevering Momma

Ashley is a 30-something woman that recently made some huge changes in her life. She grew up as a Chicagoan and moved to Indiana where she now resides with an amazing man their two cats. She is a new momma and loving every moment with her little man. She also enjoys spending time learning new things, reading, playing video games, spending time outside, and hiking when she is up to it, fishing, and in general loving life.

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