Cloth Diapers and Child Care
Posted on April 27th, 2009 – 8:58 AMBy Kay Krhin
Today we have an e-mail from our Cribsheet mailbox. Anne from Minneapolis has a question for you.
Hello,
I am wondering if you have any advice/resources for child care and cloth diapers. I am expecting my first baby in the fall and I plan (hope) to use cloth diapers. I have called around to several childcare centers and providers in my neighborhood to inquire if any of them will consider cloth diapers and so far it’s been out of the question (unless there is an allergy of some sort). I am wondering how other parents handle this situation. I am assuming that if the child is in day care they use disposables during that time and then cloth at home. Have you heard of any feedback or advice on this topic?
Thanks!
Anne
11 Responses to "Cloth Diapers and Child Care"
We cloth diaper, but we’re used in-home providers, not a center. Do you know which kind of diapers you’re planning on using (all-in-ones, pockets, prefolds and covers)? For daycare, I’d go either with all-in-ones or prestuffed pockets to make it easier (we’re a strictly pocket household). I’d take one in when you go through to do the visit and show them what exactly they look like. Explain that they work the exact same was as disposables, but instead of throwing them away the staff just needs to put it in a wet bag, which you will take home every night and bring back a new one the next day.
The first provider we used said in her handbook no cloth diapers, but that was because she didn’t want to have to do the laundry. Once she saw the kind we were using and knew that we’d be ones washing them she was perfectly fine with it. She’d also seen the diaper rash battle we were constantly fighting (we didn’t switch DD to cloth until she was 3 or 4 months old) and being in cloth really helped that. When we switched to our current provider going back to disposables wasn’t an option. We told her flat out that DD can’t be in disposables, showed her the cloth diapers and asked if she had a problem with that.
The one thing I have heard from both of them is that it’s really hard to tell if DD is wet since disposables just balloon up when wet. I do think that leads to less frequent changes.
There is a center daycare in South Minneapolis on Minnehaha Ave and 38th St that uses cloth diapers. The center is Jardin Majico. It is a bi-lingual daycare and preschool. Check out their website:
http://jardinmagico.org/aboutus.html
I worked at a daycare years ago where parents who wanted us to use cloth would just supply the dipes and we’d put them in a bag and they’d take them home at the end of the day. We didn’t even rinse them or anything. No big deal. This was a medium sized center.
My daughter now goes to a home daycare that does all cloth on all kids all day. The ones that don’t do cloth at home get sent home in a disposable diaper. They do all the laundry.
I worked at lots of centers and only one of them had a cloth diapering family, but if you use all in ones and educate the staff that they will not have to use any pins or rinse dipes, it is pretty easy.
Maybe they’ll agree to a trial run of one week?
We cloth diaper our daughter and she goes to Jardin where they provide/launder their own cloth diapers. The providers bag up the cloth diaper that she arrives with in the morning and we leave cloth diapers in her cubbie for her to wear home (they change all of the kids into their home-provided diapers at about 3:30).
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Would they refuse if you used BumGenius diapers? They’re not the typical cloth diaper, more like an all-in-one reusable diaper. If you provided a wet bag they wouldn’t have to clean them (just don’t let them toss them out, they’re pretty expensive).
Thanks for the feedback. I’m glad to hear that cloth diapers at a center is possible. I hadn’t thought too much about using the all in one diapers since they are more expensive but I can see how those would probably be easier. Thanks for the helpful suggestions!
I second Brian’s suggestion. We use BumGenius pocket diapers on our baby, who is in daycare — daycare just puts them in a wet bag and we take them home and launder. The BumGenius pocket diapers are just as easy to put on/take off as a disposable diaper (and there are other pocket diaper brands, too).
My daughter goes to Jardin Magico that another person commented on, and that place is amazing! Besides the cloth diapers (which are included in the rates), they also provide BPA free bottles, fresh organic pureed fruits and vegetables, etc. And the staff is amazing. As you can tell I’m pretty much obsessed with the place!
We live in greater MN, but found that the providers in our area have been very receptive to it. If you tell them there are no pins involved and the diapers have evolved a lot and offer to come in to teach them, you might find them more open to it. In-home daycares seem more flexible than centers, but with that said we found a center who would do it, but they had no openings. I am a big fan of cloth. If others knew how easy they were and how few leaks we get, I think more people would make the switch. I hope this works out for you.
THere is also a child care center in Bloomington–Tator Totz–that is similar to Jardin magico although they don’t have organic food yet. They provide Bum Genius AND wash them at the center. The program has Spanish, French, Yoga, Sign Language, etc. Their website is http://www.tatortotz.com
