Stuff Your Judgement

I love cloth nappies. This view, after all the nappies are washed and put away, brings joy to my heart. Seriously.

That's my thing though, I don't care if other people do or don't use them. It is up to each parent what works for them. The reason I feel a need to post about this is because I often get two strange reactions when I mention that I use cloth.

1. Defensive
People start explaining to me why they don't use cloth. It makes me think that they feel judged. I get why they do too, because as a parent, you question everything you do and you are offered opinions disguised as advice from absolutely everyone. There is this video doing the rounds on social media at the moment, of this woman trying to get her twin toddlers to bed and they are making it awfully difficult for her. It has gone viral but along with a lot of laughs, this video has also caused the woman to get a lot of criticism for her parenting style. Seriously - the woman has twins for a start. I have enough trouble with one 4 month old baby, but twin two year olds - oh my. I haven't read the criticism as I know it will make my blood boil, but having watched the video, I think the woman deserves a gold star for being light hearted and seeing the funny side of it. Why are people so quick to judge? I am sure I have been guilty of this in the past too but I now try really hard to not judge if people do things differently to how I do.

So I like cloth. I like that it saves me money and it doesn't go into land fill. It works pretty well for me. Disposables work well for others. That's great. I can tell you now I would be a lot less keen on cloth if I lived in a cold climate or had twins or was a single parent or had a bub who didn't sleep or any number of other reasons that would make cloth difficult to manage.

2. Told 'that won't last'
This makes me so cranky. Maybe it won't last. Maybe I will go back to work and struggle with the washing. Why assume it won't though? Why be so horrible about it. I had a woman today, who has a 17 year old daughter, tell me that it won't work out and she knows as she is experienced. She told me all the reasons it didn't work for her 17 years ago. I explained that things are a bit different in cloth nappy land now, that it isn't all terry flats and pilchers with safety pins, but she just kept going on with all the reasons why it wouldn't work. "She will start sleeping through the night and wet through her nappy", "she will play outside in just her nappy and ruin it", yada yada yada. I'd just like to say that there was a time when cloth was the only option. You couldn't give up on it. So it is actually a possibility that I will manage to keep V in cloth until she is toilet trained. I know it isn't a certainty but I will be giving it a red hot go.