Flats and Handwashing Challenge: Why Am I Doing This?

Today is the first day of the Flats and Handwashing Challenge hosted by Dirty Diaper Laundry. I'll be participating this year and blogging about it every day this week.

Once upon a time, there were no such thing as disposable diapers. Everyone used cloth diapers before the invention of disposables. This week I will be using nothing but the very same diapers your grandma and great-grandma used, all without the use of my washing machine and dryer. Why on Earth would I do that? There are several reasons.

Cloth diapering is a valid option. Regardless of how much or how little money you make, there are ways to make cloth diapering work for your family. It's just a matter of trying it out and seeing what works for you. With using flats and handwashing them, the goal is to show that you can still cloth diaper even if you don't have a washing machine, dryer, or much money. Flats are the least expensive cloth diapering option. Sometimes they are even free. Buy flat diapers, use flour sack towels, cut up t-shirts from Goodwill. Almost any absorbent material can be turned into a diaper. You just need a waterproof cover and it's all good. There are many families out there struggling to afford disposable diapers and sometimes having to make the decision between that and food. Imagine never having to buy diapers again.

How prepared are you? Power outages, natural disasters, zombie apocalypses (hey you never know!) can happen any time. What if there is a diaper shortage. And if there was, wouldn't it be nice to have one less thing to worry about? Having cloth diapers on hand and a way to hand wash them will put you way ahead of the rest. I want to show all you preppers, survivalists, and potential homesteaders that flats are the way to go! They are the least bulky, the easiest to wash, the quickest to dry, and the most diverse diaper to have around. The diverse part is particularly good if you have more than one child in diapers. The same flat diaper can be customized to fit children of varying sizes.

Those are really the main points of my decision to do this. Although I've got something to prove and I want to make this work, I will be reporting my findings along the way with honesty. As much as I love cloth diapers and want everyone to give them a try, I'm not going to sugarcoat the reality of it. You sometimes do have to touch poop. But then again, that just comes with the territory of parenthood.