Why I’m Doing the Flats & Hand-washing Challenge

I am participating in the Flats and Handwashing Challenge, hosted by Cloth Diaper Revival. As a cloth diaper blogger, I want to encourage cloth diapering to moms far and wide. I want to show my readers how affordable and doable cloth diapering can be, and the flats challenge encourages this. I want the financially secure families to cloth diaper, but I want the paycheck-to-paycheck families to cloth diaper too. And most of all, I want to show the single moms how they can diaper their babies affordably. Because I used to be one.

For my Past

When my oldest son was born in 2004, I had no idea cloth diapers were an option. I never even considered them. I assumed that humanity had evolved baby diapering, and unless I lived in a third world country I was only going to find disposables. I was naive and, as it turns out, completely wrong. We have evolved diapering, but we have also evolved Cloth Diapering. If I had looked hard enough, I would have found a cost effective and simple solution to my tight diaper budget. I was a single mom, living paycheck to paycheck, drowning in debt, and still buying disposable diapers. Every month, for two whole years.

I want to do this Flats Challenge for my past-self; for the single mom buried inside me and for all her memories of scraping together pennies just to buy my baby diapers.

Now I’m married, have the added stability of my husband’s income, and here I am cloth diapering. It frustrates me that I didn’t do this sooner! The irony being that I could probably afford disposable diapers now. Or at least it wouldn’t break me like it did before (we are by no means swimming in cash). I want to do this Flats and Hand-washing Challenge for my past-self; for the single mom buried inside me and for all her memories of scraping together pennies just to buy my baby diapers.

For My Future

I also want to do the flats challenge for my future self. For my planet, and for the environmental future of my children and grandchildren. There are many green advantages to cloth diapering- keeping disposables out of the landfill, limiting raw material use and reducing our carbon footprint. But washing still uses plenty of water. I’d like to try the Handwashing Challenge to see the difference it can make in my water consumption. I intend to measure the amount of water I use throughout the week and compare it to the water usage of my current Wash Routine.

I’ve made many efforts to make my family more Eco-Conscious since I started Cloth Diapering. It’s been a lovely side effect of “Going Full Fluff”. The hand-washing challenge helps draw attention to a potentially greener way of diapering, and that’s exciting! I’m not making promises to convert to hand-washing full time after the challenge, but it’s nice to know I’ll have the skills and experience to wash my diapers by hand if we were to go camping or face an emergency of some kind.

#flatschallenge #bringingflatsback