Sunday 9 February 2014

IT WAS ALL SO EASY PART 1: Cloth In My Moms Day

Like I mentioned I was adopted.  This meant that I was born, 2 days later my Mom got a call that shed be picking up her new baby in 5 days.  Yes my Mom had 5 days to gathher all the baby gear she would need, quit her job AND pick her cloth diapers.  Thankfully she's a very practical,  organized and efficiant person. 

Today's mom is probably wondering how she did all that, I mean just getting cloth in 5 days sounds impossible (might actually be impossible but more on that later).  Well my mom simply opened up the yellow pages, picked a reliable diaper service with the best reviews (there was more then one even in our small city).  The service offered her a few choices, she picked curity prefolds.  They were a well established brand.  They had adds on tv and in magazines and everyone knew they worked...of course in the 70's consumers still expected retail purchases to work.  There was no question she would use cloth, sposies weren't all that great and her British sensibilities couldn't wrap her mind around all that garbage!  She used plastic pants over my diapers (and later my siblings diapers).  They worked.  In fact when my cousins visited my mom insisted they wear one of her cloth diapers for naps cuz she didn't trust that their sposies wouldn't leak.  My grandma (dad's side as moms family all lived in England)  did the same when my cousins visited her.  Actually mom and grandma thought it was just awful that my Aunty used sposies.  Not in today's "Im eviromentally better" way, just that they seemed inferior, you had diaper garbage waiting all week for garbage pick up and were a waste of money. 

So what were my moms fantastic prefold curitey diapers made of? 3 layers of cotton muslin.  Sounds crazy that those worked when considering today's layers and fabrics and selections but they did.  How did they work so well....she changed our diapers frequently.  How frequently?  About every feeding.  My siblings were breastfed and I was bottlefed.  Interesting side note: My mom (a British midwife, turned L&D head nurse in Canada cuz we didn't have midwives anymore) was planning n breastfeeding me (seemed the natural choice) but people over here (including CAS who arranged my adoption) thought that was ridiculous how could she possibly lactate without birthing me?) So she bottlefed me so as not to rock the Canadian boat or risk not being allowed to adopt me. 

What can you learn from this post: 1. Diapering by cloth was once a simple decision
2. If you change even a basic 3 layer cotton prefold it will work. 

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