The end of cloth diapering arrived for us this weekend…and not I the way I thought it would.When we started cloth diapering when Abbie was a month old, I always assumed the end of cloth diapering with Abbie would come with the milestone of potty training. I assumed that it would be a happy occasion, where we would be celebrating as I washed the diapers one last time before packing them away for the next baby. I guess you know where I’m going with this by now – you should never assume anything with parenting.
Abbie’s Bumgenius diapers are weighted to 35 pounds, a weight I always assumed Abbie would be potty trained by. Well, she’s tall for her age and has hit about 32 pounds, which means her diapers started to leak a few weeks ago… to the point where we were going through 5 pairs of pants a day. I’m not even kidding – 5 pairs of pants in ONE day… and at one point she went through two pairs in about 5 minutes. And Abbie? Almost no interest in the potty. We’ve talked about it and she’s sat on it, and we tried one day of underwear that was disastrous. She just hasn’t been ready, for whatever reason.
It’s a funny thing about parenting that another person’s bathroom habits can affect you so much. I never thought it would, but I was so upset about this over the weekend. It felt like I failed. I expected to cloth diaper all the way to potty training. I expected Abbie to want to train. I set a goal for myself… but somehow forgot the biggest variable – Abbie being ready.
Chris is my biggest cheerleader and support and he pointed out what I wasn’t thinking of in my crazed emotional state – that even though it didn’t end as I expected it to, we had over three years of successful cloth diapering. I loved it, and I’ll be sad to pack them away once we do that final load of diaper laundry for Abbie. All I can do now is appreciate the success we had, buy some Pull-Ups and disposables, and hope daycare has the magic touch, because I surely don’t.
5 Responses
Fear not, fellow cloth mama! Everything happens for a reason and you are so great for making it this far in cloth! We have gotten lazy or stressed and done a week in disposables here and there – as long as the baby’s bottom is covered! That’s all that matters!!
You’re not alone! My son is almost the same age as Abbie and is also not potty trained. We did a hard push one weekend and it ended with my son refusing to even sit on the potty. At this point, we think it will have to be his decision since we can’t make him do it. Hang in there!
We didn’t cloth diaper with Mason, but I am so curious about it for our next baby!
Girl I understand on the potty training front. Cam was showing all the signs, but when I tried training him last August it was AWFUL! After 11 days he had more accidents than he did on day one and I gave up. He went back into diapers and was a happy camper. Once we moved into our new house Cam got a nasty sick bug and with that can some really gross stuff in the diaper. He was freaking out with it hurting, so he decided he’d poop on the potty so it didn’t hurt. He was potty trained in a day. Abbie will get it. Just on her own time. 🙂
Good luck with the transition! Potty training is definitely an area of concern for me when we have kids.