Changed My Mind About Cloth Diapers...

[PolkaTots]

This is my 4th week of caring for a 2 month old. This is also the first cloth diapered child I have ever enrolled. I decided to give it a try, but it just isn't working. She has the fabric cover that snaps, with cloth inserts (that don't hold poo), and a wet bag I have to put them in. I have 6 full timers, 2 part timers, and 2 school agers (4 of which are in diapers), and having a newborn is proving quite a bit more work than in the past (she isn't on a schedule yet, and is breastfed and still not having an easy time with bottles. With 5-6 bottles a day, at close to 30 minutes per feeding, it's become a task to manage my time.) Although the diapers don't take up that much more time, I just don't want to mess with them anymore. Especially since the mom didn't provide enough the other day, and I asked for disposables for back up, and she didn't see the need. How do I approach her that I have decided not to allow cloth diapers anymore?

[canadiancare]

Poor you but also that poor mum who only got 2 months of leave. I couldn't have managed to part with my little ones at that age. Heck I am still home 21 years later

[EntropyControlSpecialist]

Maybe you might feel differently if she provided you with all-in-ones or pre-stuffed pockets. They're JUST like disposables and would require no extra work on your part. I would tell Mom you also need 3-4 extra diapers there each day and/or disposables. If she refused, I would refuse care for that day.

[Heidi]

Just tell her what you told us...

She can either understand, or she can find new care. I don't even think you need to threaten that or imply it.

"she didn't see the need" got my goat! YOU saw the need, and you NEED enough diapers to do your job.

Drink a big glass of milk to harden your backbone and look her in the eye! You can do it!

[cheerfuldom]

also, what feeding schedule is this child on that she needs 5 to 6 bottles a day and is taking 30 minutes each feed? thats potentially 3 hours a day just feeding one child! i would address that before I would even care about the extra minute it takes to change a cloth diaper. if this baby is really struggling with bottles, i would insist mom stay home for a few days and get it worked out before taking this child back.

to be honest, with as many kids as you have, it doesnt sound like a newborn is a good fit at all.

[PolkaTots]

also, what feeding schedule is this child on that she needs 5 to 6 bottles a day and is taking 30 minutes each feed? thats potentially 3 hours a day just feeding one child! i would address that before I would even care about the extra minute it takes to change a cloth diaper. if this baby is really struggling with bottles, i would insist mom stay home for a few days and get it worked out before taking this child back.

to be honest, with as many kids as you have, it doesnt sound like a newborn is a good fit at all.

She is demand fed at home...eats about 1-3 oz per feeding...every 30mins-3 hours

I am actually under my registration capacity and do have an assistant. This isn't the first newborn I have enrolled, and I only accept 1 under 1 at a time. I've never had a newborn so time consuming. The mother is working with me on the feeding thing and trying to offer more bottles at home...at least she says she is.

[Holiday Park]

If she is put on a every 2-3 hour schedule (ignoring schedule during growth spurts of course) and slowly increasing the time between feedings I assure you that baby will be MUCH happier because she wil be actually hugey and not just snacking all day long.
I am currently very disgusted with cloth diapers on DKB of my own right now. Its sooooo gross . I was all for it be ause my own som wears them. But I forgot that my son uses his potty most f the time AND I also use disposables half the time. MY son poops n his potty and his poops just don't stink at all. I really think its diet and the fact he doesn't drink cow milk where this dkb drinks cow milk and poops up to 3x a day and sometimes Im literally gagging trying not to throw up from the smell. Having to carry each diaper to tje toilet to dump the contents sounds simple. But it's not ! I have to walk through three areas of my house (stepping over 2baby gates) to dump poop out of those diapers.

I got to see frst hand why they really are more time consuming.

[MarinaVanessa]

Maybe you might feel differently if she provided you with all-in-ones or pre-stuffed pockets. They're JUST like disposables and would require no extra work on your part. I would tell Mom you also need 3-4 extra diapers there each day and/or disposables. If she refused, I would refuse care for that day.

I was going to suggest this as well. The all-in-ones (also called pocket diapers) are just like disposable diapers and work the same way. They look and are shaped pretty much the same except they are a little bulkier but you have velcro tabs just like the disposable dipes have.

If you are willing to try and they are giving you flat diapers suggest pocket diapers instead and require that they provide at least 8 per day and have them already be "assembled" as in have the parent provide them to you already stuffed maybe even with disposable liners for the poopy stuff. And no matter what require at least 12-24 disposable diapers to have as backup.

If not then just say ...
"Hey DCM, I've really kept an open mind about the cloth diapers but I really don't feel comfortable with it. It just isn't working out for me so well. It's a little more time consuming than I thought and there have been times that I didn't have enough of them to last a full day and didn't have any disposable diapers as back up so it's really just been a headache for me. I've decided to not continue to work with cloth diapers anymore. I'm sure you can understand" and go from there.

[KnoxMom]

It seems this would have been addressed during your probationary period; the best thing to do is establish clear communication with the mother that without adequate supplies you cannot give quality care. One idea I picked up on one of the forums is to have a $1 diaper charge. Keep your own backup supply and any time you have to dip into it, have it added as a fee to the next week's tuition. :-D

[cheerfuldom]

yeah keep working on that feeding schedule. 1 oz. every 30 minutes is just ridiculous. i understand the nature of "on demand" but its also important to remember that 1. this is group care and that does not work well with group care and 2. it is not always in the best interest of a child to do what they are wanting to do. i realize baby is very young but by 3 months, I would have a routine in place with feeding every 3 hours. if mom feeds right before baby is dropped off, you would be down to 3 feeds a day for a full time child (assuming 8 to 10 hours a day in care). that much more manageable.

[MotherNature]

I was going to suggest this as well. The all-in-ones (also called pocket diapers) are just like disposable diapers and work the same way. .

AIOs & Pockets are different styles. Pockets have inserts that slide into them, allowing you to customize absorption & materials, whereas AIOs are exactly that.. all one piece. They are the most user-friendly. Breastfed babies don't need diapers sprayed off, as the poop dissolves like yogurt. The mom may want to consider a liner if there's formula poop, as it's stickier I hear. I cloth diaper full time & use mostly pockets w/ hemp or bamboo inserts.I have a diaper sprayer, but if you're not a CDer already, you probably don't want to mess with it. I'd just fold it up into the wet bag; the mom won't mind I'd imagine.

Personally, I don't know how you guys deal with disposables all the time. They smell like chemicals & make the trash smellier. I can't really smell much in my diaper pail. (That wasn't meant to sound snotty.. I just notice the difference between my son & my dck.)

Also, what Marina said about just saying it's not working out sounds perfect. A LOT of places don't even allow CDs, so most CDusers are used to hearing no about it at daycare.

[kitykids3]

To me it sounds more like the feedings are giving you more trouble (more time consuming) than the cloth diapers. Perhaps address the CD's like pp said, insisting they are assembled and that you have plenty of backups, and then also address the feedings. I get that the baby is only 2 months old, but 5-6 bottles per day is too many, just at your house. Bright side is that in another couple of months the baby will be on a routine and you can plan better.

[nannyde]

The baby is not nipple trained. She is spending more calories trying to eat then what she is eating. At two months she should be eating two ounces every two hours. That's from the stop of one bottle to the start of the next. It shouldn't take more than five minutes to eat one ounce and five minutes to eat the other ounce with a burp in between. That's a minimum. Three ounces every 2.5 hrs is more like it for that age.

The mom needs to remove the child from care and get her nipple trained. You are providing one to one care that should be done by the parents.

Tell them to take a week off and get the baby day care ready by nipple training. Have them come to you and SHOW you the baby eating a FULL three ounce bottle by the nipple before they can return. Don't take their words..... have them SHOW you.

Cloth diapering is a lot more work than disposables. More changes, longer time to do the change and more leaks. Figure out the time it is taking you to
manage the cloth compared to paper diapers and charge the parents for that one to one time. I figure three dollars per day for cloth. The money the parents save on cloth diapers is exactly the money you will loose in staff time and labor. So if it costs them two/three a day for paper diapers it will cost you two to three dollars a day in your one to one time. Figure that into your rates.

Breast milk is MARKEDLY more time consuming than formula. The staff time for formula for me is about a minute a day in preparation and a minute per month to get the formula in the house. So at the end of the month it takes me about twenty minutes of my time to manage formula. (this is not including the feed time just the management of formula compared to breast milk..... feeding time for nipple trained babies is the same whether formula or breast)

I spend twenty minutes a day managing ONE DAY of breast milk. Between receiving the milk, convection heating, temp control, parent conferencing regarding use and supply, and returning containers it's about three bucks a day of staff time.

CHARGE for the service. I base my rates on breast milk management and cloth diapering. If a child is formula fed I deduct three dollars a day. If a child is paper diapered I deduct another three a day.

So if I charge 170 a week then the fee would be 140 a week if the parents supply formula and paper diapers. I don't care either way..... I just want to be paid for the work.

Cloth diapering is EASY work. Managing breast milk is EASY work. The issue with it is the TIME it takes to do the easy work. It's time and time is money. Every business charges for time.

Nipple training is HARD work. It's so hard I won't do it. I don't want to be the one to do that. It's too hard and the baby who is expending so much energy to eat is usually very fussy and unhappy. No amount of money will pay me to host that.

[EntropyControlSpecialist]

I was going to suggest this as well. The all-in-ones (also called pocket diapers) are just like disposable diapers and work the same way. They look and are shaped pretty much the same except they are a little bulkier but you have velcro tabs just like the disposable dipes have.

If you are willing to try and they are giving you flat diapers suggest pocket diapers instead and require that they provide at least 8 per day and have them already be "assembled" as in have the parent provide them to you already stuffed maybe even with disposable liners for the poopy stuff. And no matter what require at least 12-24 disposable diapers to have as backup.

If not then just say ...
"Hey DCM, I've really kept an open mind about the cloth diapers but I really don't feel comfortable with it. It just isn't working out for me so well. It's a little more time consuming than I thought and there have been times that I didn't have enough of them to last a full day and didn't have any disposable diapers as back up so it's really just been a headache for me. I've decided to not continue to work with cloth diapers anymore. I'm sure you can understand" and go from there.

All-in-ones are actually completely different from pocket diapers. All-in-ones are EXACTLY like a disposable diaper and require nothing extra as far as assembly goes. Pockets require stuffing the insert into it (microfiber, prefold, that company's insert, etc.). Pockets are a pain in the butt if she is the one having to assemble it.
An example is a Bumgenius Freetime. No stuffing required! http://www.peapods.com/browse.cfm/bu...er/4,1851.html
An example of a pocket is their Bumgenius one-size pocket. You have to stuff it. http://www.peapods.com/browse.cfm/bu...rs/4,1206.html

I use trifolded prefolds in covers for the kids who opt into my cloth diapering program here. They're cheap and easy for me to wash. But, they are more time consuming than an AIO.

[EntropyControlSpecialist]

It seems this would have been addressed during your probationary period; the best thing to do is establish clear communication with the mother that without adequate supplies you cannot give quality care. One idea I picked up on one of the forums is to have a $1 diaper charge. Keep your own backup supply and any time you have to dip into it, have it added as a fee to the next week's tuition. :-D

I charge $20.00 if you didn't bring enough disposable diapers (if you didn't opt in to my cloth diapering program) for the inconvenience of it. I HAVE charged two parents this. They haven't forgotten since!