If you know me, you know I'm pretty die-hard about cloth diapering. It's pretty much the best thing ever. I've extolled the merits of it so many times that I've almost gotten tired of hearing them (almost). I know one of the main reasons a lot of people don't even consider using cloth is because they think it's disgusting. Well, as I was cleaning my 5- and 3-year-old boys' bathroom this morning, I was thinking about how much LESS gross it was when they were in diapers (CLOTH diapers!). And then I started thinking about all the things I've done as a parent--and that all parents will do at one point or another--that are grosser than cloth diapering. I managed to come up with ten, just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are many more.
1. Potty training--the bane of my existence and the grossest thing I've ever done. So much poop and pee. EVERYWHERE. ALL THE TIME. And don't even get me started on emptying and cleaning the little potties. EW. I don't know about your kids, but it takes mine FOREVER to potty train. It is definitely grosser than cloth diapering, and guess what. Every parent has to do it!
2. Cleaning a little boy's bathroom--I don't know how it is with little girls, but I can tell you. Little boys are gross. Their bathroom is pretty much just a pee-coated room with polka-dots of poop. I am thankful every day that we have two bathrooms so they can have their own, and I don't have to share with them.
3. Diaper blow-outs--I used disposables with my oldest son until he was one, and I dealt with plenty of diaper blow-outs. You know, the ones where you have to strip them down naked and clean poop out of their armpits? Definitely grosser than cloth because you RARELY (if ever) have to deal with blow-outs in cloth diapers.
4. The sippy cup of milk you forgot about in the car--We've all done this. I have a strict no milk in the car rule, but it gets broken. And then a few weeks later, we start noticing a funky smell in the car. Then it starts smelling like something died. Finally we dig and dig and find that lovely, dripping sippy cup (because you can't find one that doesn't drip) with the solid glob of milk in it. We wash our diapers, but that sucker gets thrown in the trash.
5. Cleaning up puke--This was the part of parenting I dreaded the most. I've done it so many times now, but it's still nasty.
6. Being puked on--Does this need any explanation?
7. Emptying a diaper genie--The good thing about cloth diapers is when my babies poop, the poop gets immediately dumped into the toilet and flushed away and the empty diaper goes into the water-proof, smell-proof wetbag. With disposable diapers, the poop goes into a sealed container and just sits there. Until you empty the container. That's a lovely smell, isn't it?
8. Cleaning poop out of the bathtub--All three of my babies have done it so I'm willing to bet pretty much every other baby has too. I would rather clean a little boys' bathroom than clean poop out of a bathtub.
9. Cleaning out the backseat of your car--I'm pretty sure when you have kids, you could clean your backseat out every other day (which we don't) and still find gross, molding, smooshed food under their carseats. There's the old lollipops stuck like superglue to the seat, the rock-hard, fuzzy chicken nuggets, and that sippy cup of milk, of course.
10. Taking kids into a public bathroom--Public bathrooms gross me out. I really hate taking my inquisitive 3-year-old who likes to lick everything into them. I can't tell you how many times I've been washing my hands or his hands and looked down to see him happily licking the sink.
Basically my point is: if you're a parent, you deal in the disgusting. There's no avoiding. Diapers are gross, but cloth diapers are no grosser than other stuff you have to deal with. If the grossness is the only thing standing in your way, maybe you should consider giving cloth a chance.
