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If there was one household chore that I not only disliked, but really and truly despised, it was laundry. Oh, but I hated laundry. My procrastination was legendary, the number of loads left mildewing in the washer were embarrassing, my folding skills pathetic, my tolerance for getting dressed from towering piles of clothes on the floor ridiculously high.
So whenever someone talked about – oh, God – CLOTH DIAPERING, I probably didn’t do such a good job at hiding my horror. Clearly, I was talking to a crazy person. I once saw someone confess on their blog that not only did they not mind washing their cloth diapers, they kind of found it fun. That right there, I remember thinking, is someone who does not get out very much. When you get out of the house, you see, you no longer have to look at your laundry piles, which is pretty much the entire point.
Hey! Looky:
Laundry pile is hungry! Hungry for your precious leisure time! Feed me with your minutes and your tears! NOM NOM!
So I bought some cloth diapers, and then I bought some more, and now every other day or so I toss a load of them into our washer (cold soak! hot wash! cha cha cha!), and they later emerge from the dryer all warm and fluffy and pristine, ready to be re-assembled and folded into satisfying piles:
My OCD. Let me show you it.
And…and…I don’t know when it happened, but I found myself enjoying this task. The mindless repetitive motion of stuffing microfiber inserts into baby-butt-sized pants became relaxing. It became the thing I do during my children’s naptime, on purpose.
And then…and then…I started feeling the same way about the rest of our laundry. The piles shrank; our drawers and closets actually have clothes inside them; if you need an extra hand towel, by God, I have an extra hand towel for you.
And then…my three-year-old sat down next to me and the pile of diapers and asked to HELP.
I don’t have one of those “helpful” models of children. If I can get him to put his toys away and/or half-heartedly toss a paper towel on his spilled milk before walking through the puddle, I consider it a good day. But it turns out he’s just as entranced by the pretty colored diapers as I am, and I hand him a diaper and an insert and we stuff and fold and sort them by color together.
Yesterday he surveyed our little piles and gave them an affectionate little pat. “I love these diapers, Mommy,” he said, ever the Strangey McWeirdoPants that three-year-olds can be.
“I love them too,” I confessed, “but I think maybe you and I need to get out more, kiddo.”
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It’s great when what used to be a chore becomes almost a pleasure, isn’t it? Enjoy!
I like how the laundry says Nom Nom Nom
Oh! So cute. Are those Fuzzi Bunz? I am addicted to the ones I have. SQUISHY BUTT.
Uhm… too cute. Noah’s comment, that is.
I love laundry. It’s the only chore that I really enjoy. No cloth diapers, here, though. I get to go down into the quiet cool basement and hide from the children. What’s not to love?
My cloth diapers are a bit more basic — unbleached prefolds and white prowrap covers — but it IS satisfying to fold them, isn’t it? Weird.
I see your OCD. I also see your funny.
Oh my God - That is pretty much what happened to me!
And it’s even bled over a bit into keeping the dishes more or less washed.
(Not that we cook or eat out of more than a couple of cereal bowls, but still.)
That’s my day:
a - Keep baby alive
b - Wash diapers (and maybe some real clothes!)
c - Stick dishes in dishwasher
If I can accomplish all that in the ten hours that my partner is at work, I call it a good day.
My husband and I still very much avoid folding our cloth diapers, but we only have 12, so we usually do it every day … but we do love the colored wraps. If mine were as pretty as yours, surely I’d love it, too …
Kind of makes me want to have a baby just to have the stacks of pretty, pretty colorful diapers.
There definitely is something about stuffing and folding the cloth diapers that is very soothing to those of us who are a little (or a lot) OCD.
I really wish I had you advocating for the cloth lifestyle a couple of years ago, I think I would have tried it. Down here in South Florida, I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever personally known anyone who uses them.
I plan to be an eco-friendly mother someday, in the distant future. I would love to see a post (specifically from you!) about the actual cloth diaper process. How many do you buy? What brands are best? Where do you buy them? How *gulp* do you actually CLEAN them? These are things I need to know!
Not having children or cloth diapers, I currently scoff at your love of diaper washing and sorting.
But then again, I love feeding my OCD with new things, so call me in five years and I’ll probably be singing the same crazy tune.
Cutest pile of laundry EVAR.
I still hate laundry, but I do love the look of your colorful stacks!
Oh I love love love the colors of the towers of cloth diapers. I also remember being horrified the first time I’d heard about them….now I’m horrified when I walk into the upstairs bathroom and all I can smell is poop from the nasty 2.5-year-old (my son, not the diapers) diapers in the Diaper Dekor I don’t empty out nearly often enough. BTW, I make my husband flush the poo before he puts the diaper in the pail but do I do it myself? Hell no….I don’t got no time.
Anyhow, I am simply intrigued by cloth diapers for #2, we’ll see if I actually ever do it. 
My laundry experience improved dramatically when I got cable in the laundry room. Instead of “honey, I can’t help you, it’s the 9th inning” I can now say, “I’m slavishly doing laundry, so you handle it!”
I wish you lived closer to me. I have lots of laundry for you to do! My weak spot is folding and putting away. And my husband has three times the clothes that I do and I refuse to do them so his sit around in piles and it’s horrible. I love the pile of laundry wanting to Nom up my cross stitching time! So true!
I love cloth diapers and I love that you love washing them! I wish I could say the same.
Can I ask your wash routine? Particularly in terms of what detergent you use? I still don’t think I use the perfect thing on my BumGeniuses (BumGenIi?).
I just may have to give cloth diapers a try!
This was me too! Mildewed laundry in the washer and piles everywhere until the cloth diapers. Now, I do a cold wash, a hot wash, a second rinse and take them out of the washer about a day before laundry went into the dryer before. I haven’t color-coded my piles yet but I like the way you think! So pretty!
Yes! Yes! Yes! I still hate doing ALL other types of laundry in my house, but the diaper laundry is somehow not like all the rest… I have to do a cold rinse, hot wash, and sometimes another cold wash, though. We have an older washer and I get nasty stink problems if I don’t do my routine *just* right.
KittyMarie: check out diaperswappers for some neat tips, message boards, how to get started, etc.
So glad to hear this from you. I have two dozen lovely cloth diapers washed and ready to go in my closet for the baby who is due in four weeks. Can’t wait to use them. I’m a little nervous about cleaning them, but you’ve given me hope. I definitely have a touch of OCD about things and I’m thinking it will become yet another ‘thing about which I’m obsessed.’ My husband is going to LOVE that.
Weirdly, the exact same thing has happened to me! My stack of bumGeniuses has made me want to do laundry all the time. Unfortunately, my dryer keeps breaking.
(I too love to stack the diapers in neat color-sorted piles. So pretty!)
I love the beauty of the bumGENIUS diapers and the color sorting and neatness of it all, but am ashamed to say I am unreconstructedly lame and pay a diaper service to come take my child’s gnarliness away & bring it back clean.
Great post! Love the bright colors on those diapers.
I LOVE sorting my diapers and inserts and putting the correctly corresponding inserts into the right pockets…And then I stack them and admire them…Ahhhhhh
Laundry is so satisfying! When it’s done it’s done and you get to see your “dirty” pile shrink!
I love folding laundry. There. I said it. Out loud. Well, sort of.
I love the way washing nappies makes me feel like I am actually achieving something with my time!
Folding diapers is great, but if someone can teach me how to fold a fitted sheet I will be eternally grateful!!
Can i puhlease have all the details? Like where do you store the dirty stinky diapers before you have enough to wash? And do you put the poopoo in the toilet? And doesn’t it make you feel icki that you wash your clothes in a washer that washes poop?
My laundry room (ha! I mean the 1/10 of the garage that is devoted to machines and laundry stuff) has definitely been less cluttered since I started using cloth for my 6 month old. You were one of the people to influence me to make the switch to cloth,Amy, and one of the selling points to me was that I have to do laundry anyway. Since I am there, washing, drying, or folding, why not do the rest? Great pics of the towers of diapers!
i LOVE your piles of color coded diapers and i LOVE that you cloth diaper now. i must admit, you have helped sway my decision to use cloth with my little guy, due in a few months. it is all i can do to not wash and fold all his diapers right now. MUST. NEST.
You totally inspired me to cloth diaper. I was scared and to be honest parts of it still gross me out, but we do it! Yeay saving money and probably the E-arth, at least a little bit.
Stacey
Yea for cloth diapers! Love anything you write!
Can I just tell you that you’ve ALMOST got me on board for cloth for my next baby? ALMOST. I just have to talk my husband into it…
And I would love you forever if you’d do one of your step-by-step photo posts about the process. You know, like what you used to do with hair only with DIAPERS! INSERTS! HOORAY!
(because some part of me still doesn’t understand how this all works out…)
See? this is what cloth diapers does to a person! I actually LIKE doing diaper laundry!
But I’m ashamed to admit I still have my own clean clothes sitting in piles. Oops.
I dress from piles on the floor…and the hubby does the rest of the wash…intrigued by the cloth though…
Love this!!
What a pretty stack of clean diapers!
It’s all or nothing in this here house - I’m either freakishly consumed by the millions of piles of wash that must be completed by now (in our small, two-towels-is-a-whole-load stackable washer and dryer) or I let the piles build up till my poor child thinks its beanbag time and jumps in… ! Congrats on the pretty piles!
When my kids were still at home, I used to complain about “sock mountain”. The four of us were into sports in a big way and we always had a huge pile of clean white athletic socks to match up. My mom used to pooh-pooh me until she came over one laundry day and I dumped the “sock mountain” clothes basket (yes- there was one dedicated to only socks) in front of her and said “Give it a go, Momma.”
Needless to say, she couldn’t believe it. Often 3 pair of socks per person per day - sometimes 4 pair. That’s 3 X 4 X 7= 84. They were all white and different sizes. Fun.
My three year old likes to strip every time he comes in the house. Which means he goes through several outfits a day. Laundry and I aren’t having the same love affair you are. Although the little man does enjoy “helping” to fold the laundry. Which basically consists of taking out the items I’ve already folded and shaking them. Maybe I need to get some cloth diapers and I’ll love it too. The colors are cute.
I used cloth diapers back in the day when we had DIAPER PINS and PLASTIC PANTS. But I loved the diaper washing and folding (no prefolds for me, the big flat ones dried faster and were easier to get really clean) even when I did not have a washing machine at my house. And they were all white, so no colorful piles.
I LOVE laundry. I just remembered I have some I need to do right now, and it cheered me up.
Actually, the reason I love laundry is probably because of my (genuine) OCD. I get to sort things into piles, separated by colour! And washing temperature!
I just love the smell of warm Downy out of the dryer. Clean kid’s clothes and soft sheets. Sigh. I want to go home and do the wash.
Thank you for your great posts! I am indulging in recollections of my daughters’ infancy and how proud my husband was of his skill at the ‘newspaper fold’ of the cloth diapers and pinning them realy snug and blowout-resistant.