Changed My Mind About Cloth Diapers...

[TheGoodLife]

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.

Love this! My DCM that is leaving after next week (a college friend, her 1st baby) doesn't seem to care about the time it takes to deal with 1-2 blowouts DAILY plus taking her frozen bagged milk, which she would always send still frozen for me to deal with even after I asked her to defrost it earlier. After a couple months I finally told her I had to have her bring the milk already in bottles so I didn't have her breastmilk spilling all over my kitchen as I tried to pour the half frozen slush into a bottle. DCP really don't seem to understand a lot about the business, but I guess I never did when I was taking my kids, either!
I hope you try the "taking a week off to nipple train" idea- sounds reasonable and it puts the responsibility back on the parents. Good luck!!!

[EchoMom]

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.

I totally understand why you say this, and that's perfectly fine for you to choose to do. Personally, I don't really like this because it seems to highly highly discourage feeding breastmilk. If I felt so strongly that breastmilk was such a drain of time, I just wouldn't enroll a child on breastmilk if it bothered me that much.

I really respect the parents that keep up with pumping and managing their supply to send to daycare so their baby can have the benefits of breastmilk as long as possible. My DS is 18 months and I still nurse him daily. I have one DCB that is a year and mom still sends breastmilk for him. I think that's awesome and if they can make the commitment to keep it up that long, I will support it by serving it.

For me though, it is the exact same amount of time for formula and breastmilk. ALL bottles (no matter which is in them) are prepared at home and sent daily. If it's a milk bottle it goes in fridge, if it's formula, pantry. Time to serve? Add water to formula, both kids get warmed and temp checked.

The only downside is I do like that formula fed babies go longer between meals. But it doesn't bother me, to me it's super important and I want to support it. JMO

[EchoMom]

plus taking her frozen bagged milk, which she would always send still frozen for me to deal with even after I asked her to defrost it earlier. After a couple months I finally told her I had to have her bring the milk already in bottles so I didn't have her breastmilk spilling all over my kitchen as I tried to pour the half frozen slush into a bottle.

Oh heck no! Now THIS I couldn't handle. The milk is ALWAYS sent to me thawed and in the bottle ready to go. I just warm and serve. I do hate when I stick a clean finger in the bottle to check temp, or on my wrist, I always think, "This is some woman's bodily fluids! Ew!" But then I get over it.

Now, when the baby spits up all over my shirt, THAT is gross thinking about what exactly is on me! Ew!

[LK5kids]

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

Awwwwww! That made me smile::

[My3cents]

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.

I love your postings, I learn so much from you- Even if it doesn't work for me or my program.

I do serve Breast Milk if the parents want me to do that, but the baby has to be able to take formula and a bottle nipple too. I don't see it as that much work. I do have to pre-plan, but I know that ahead of time and just do it. BM benefits are worth the work. I don't see it as much more work then formula maybe even easier.

All the calculating of this and that would have my head stirring trying to keep up with it all. I like to keep it simple as much as possible.

[My3cents]

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?

Just tell her upfront. Cloth diapering is not working out for me and I will need you to bring disposable diapers for daycare. If she refuses then tell her it is not working out. Infants are in high demand- Your program may not be for her and better to let it go now then to build up resentments and have to deal with all of this at a later time- You don't have to get into it anymore then to repeat to her that it is not working for you and your program.

[nannyde]

I totally understand why you say this, and that's perfectly fine for you to choose to do. Personally, I don't really like this because it seems to highly highly discourage feeding breastmilk. If I felt so strongly that breastmilk was such a drain of time, I just wouldn't enroll a child on breastmilk if it bothered me that much.

I really respect the parents that keep up with pumping and managing their supply to send to daycare so their baby can have the benefits of breastmilk as long as possible. My DS is 18 months and I still nurse him daily. I have one DCB that is a year and mom still sends breastmilk for him. I think that's awesome and if they can make the commitment to keep it up that long, I will support it by serving it.

For me though, it is the exact same amount of time for formula and breastmilk. ALL bottles (no matter which is in them) are prepared at home and sent daily. If it's a milk bottle it goes in fridge, if it's formula, pantry. Time to serve? Add water to formula, both kids get warmed and temp checked.

The only downside is I do like that formula fed babies go longer between meals. But it doesn't bother me, to me it's super important and I want to support it. JMO

Oh it doesn't bother me. I like to make more money. I'm willing to work more and do more for more.

I don't see how it could discourage breast feeding. My rates are based on breast fed (I only get one in five kids on formula) so the breast feeding parent wouldn't be offered the lower rate. It's not something that would cause distress because it doesn't have anything to do with them. If anything they should understand that any time you are doing healthy food... best food that it takes more time to prep and serve. It just goes with the healthy food deal whether it's breast milk or any other healthy food. It costs more and it always will. They should be thrilled to pay for the service because it is so healthy for their child. They know that the pumping storing and bringing to day care is more work than if they supplied two cans of formula a month. It's not that big of a leap for them to get that it's equally as time consuming on our end to manage it as it is on theirs. They should expect the cost of that time be on them completely.

How do you warm breast milk? I don't warm formula bottles. I put warm water in the bottle. I don't have to test the temperature. I just run the water until it's the right temp and put into bottle. It takes about fifteen seconds from start to stop. I can't come up with a system to heat and CHECK breast milk that takes fifteen seconds TOTAL.

I don't allow bottles back and forth on formula. Just give me a can and three bottles and I make it here. Sending anything back and forth is a pain to me. I don't like the passing of bottles.

[countrymom]

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

thats what I think all the time too. I've been home 13 yrs now.

[bunnyslippers]

I personally wouldn't do cloth diapers at my house, ever. I appreciate why people use them...I just find it gross and not my job.

I also hate caring for babies who are on breast milk. I am not opposed to breast feeding, and think it is wonderful. That being said, I hate feeding a baby someone else's breast milk, having it spit up on me or spilled on me. It just grosses me out. I also find breast fed babies incredibly difficult to get on a schedule. In my experience, breast fed babies have always been the hardest to care for.

[Country Kids]

Has cloth diapering changed that much? I did it on 3 of my four full time and then about 50/50 on my fourth and it seemed no harder then disposable. I even did the washing myself as there were no diaper services available.

All I would do is diaper them up and do plastic pants over that. I had fewer blowouts then with with disposables. We had nothing fancy either, just the diaper.

My dd was breast fed and bottle fed as my breast milk never filled her up. I would nurse for 40 min (yes 20 min per side) then she would take a 2 oz. bottle on top of that. It would take about 1 hour 15 min to feed her, change, burp and put back to bed. Then she was ready within 1.5 hours to do it again. At about 3 months doctor said strictly formula feed as she's not gaining and you are running yourself into the ground. Put her on formula, she chubbed up and was a very, very happy baby and I finally was able to sleep a little and my husband was able to help by feeding her!

[MNMum]

I love having mom's send in breastmilk. I am making more money this way, as I don't have to buy formula and I am on the food program, so I get reimbursed for these feedings. Because I have breastfed 3 and pumped (I worked PT), and I am a Lactation Consultant (so I know what is in that breastmilk and not in the formula!) I do everything I can to make it easier on the pumping mother. I let mothers send me their milk in whichever way is easiest. Both moms right now opt to send it frozen in baggies, I do the thawing and bottle prep. There is nothing better healthwise than to encourage women to breastfeed. And support it in whichever way is possible.

As far as the eww factor with breastmilk, sure it is coming from a human body. It is coming from a woman's breast, which is meant to provide a food. Cow's milk comes from a cow's breast, that grosses me out more...

[bunnyslippers]

I love having mom's send in breastmilk. I am making more money this way, as I don't have to buy formula and I am on the food program, so I get reimbursed for these feedings. Because I have breastfed 3 and pumped (I worked PT), and I am a Lactation Consultant (so I know what is in that breastmilk and not in the formula!) I do everything I can to make it easier on the pumping mother. I let mothers send me their milk in whichever way is easiest. Both moms right now opt to send it frozen in baggies, I do the thawing and bottle prep. There is nothing better healthwise than to encourage women to breastfeed. And support it in whichever way is possible.

As far as the eww factor with breastmilk, sure it is coming from a human body. It is coming from a woman's breast, which is meant to provide a food. Cow's milk comes from a cow's breast, that grosses me out more...

Fair enough! It is just something I have never been comfortable with. I didn't breast feed due to medical issues, and so I guess the idea of it is hard for me to grasp. My first breast-milk baby was my nephew, and his mother was a huge PITA on every level. I guess that must have made me a bit jaded in the breast milk department. Well, that and the dad who every morning would hand me bottles and call them "booby milk." Ick. ::

[EntropyControlSpecialist]

I love having mom's send in breastmilk. I am making more money this way, as I don't have to buy formula and I am on the food program, so I get reimbursed for these feedings. Because I have breastfed 3 and pumped (I worked PT), and I am a Lactation Consultant (so I know what is in that breastmilk and not in the formula!) I do everything I can to make it easier on the pumping mother. I let mothers send me their milk in whichever way is easiest. Both moms right now opt to send it frozen in baggies, I do the thawing and bottle prep. There is nothing better healthwise than to encourage women to breastfeed. And support it in whichever way is possible.

As far as the eww factor with breastmilk, sure it is coming from a human body. It is coming from a woman's breast, which is meant to provide a food. Cow's milk comes from a cow's breast, that grosses me out more...

I completely agree. Good for you for supporting what is healthiest for these children! happyface Those mothers are blessed.

[MarinaVanessa]

Oh yeah, sorry ladies. All in ones and pocket diapers are not the same. Have only used the pocket diapers on my own DS and have tried pocket diapers and the all in ones (I didn't know that's what they were called) and I didn't see the difference. I don't put them together at DC anyway so the DCPs do the work. If they want me to cloth diaper then they must come pre-assembled. If not then I won't use them.

If you do it that way then the amount of time that it takes to change a cloth diaper vs a disposable diaper should be that different, at least I don't think so. But I do agree with Nan that you need to change them more frequently at least as they get older.

As far as the smell goes although it may be true that the poo and smell isn't that bad for breast fed babies when the child starts to eat solids the smell and poo will get stronger and yuckier. Since I require a wet bag instead of putting them in a diaper pail (otherwise I would need a diaper pail per family because they can get contaminated with other children's poo or pee otherwise) the smell does have a tendency to be stronger than when I put the disposable diapers in the diaper pail.

Another thing I don't like about clients using cloth diapers is that not everyone washes the cloth diapers properly. They either use the wrong soap or they don't sun-dry them and the diapers get stains (which is not so bad) or they tend to start smelling strongly even when "clean". I've had some smell so strong that I could smell them even when they were stored away in the child's cubby until the mom changed the soap and started to hang her diapers in the sun to dry (she had been drying them in the dryer ).

[cheerfuldom]

I totally understand why you say this, and that's perfectly fine for you to choose to do. Personally, I don't really like this because it seems to highly highly discourage feeding breastmilk. If I felt so strongly that breastmilk was such a drain of time, I just wouldn't enroll a child on breastmilk if it bothered me that much.

I really respect the parents that keep up with pumping and managing their supply to send to daycare so their baby can have the benefits of breastmilk as long as possible. My DS is 18 months and I still nurse him daily. I have one DCB that is a year and mom still sends breastmilk for him. I think that's awesome and if they can make the commitment to keep it up that long, I will support it by serving it.

For me though, it is the exact same amount of time for formula and breastmilk. ALL bottles (no matter which is in them) are prepared at home and sent daily. If it's a milk bottle it goes in fridge, if it's formula, pantry. Time to serve? Add water to formula, both kids get warmed and temp checked.

The only downside is I do like that formula fed babies go longer between meals. But it doesn't bother me, to me it's super important and I want to support it. JMO

I like that you shared your thoughts on this. I happily support breastfeeding moms as well and dont find that breastmilk is a huge time waster over formula. After a couple months old, my breastfed babies are on the same eating schedule as the formula feed babies. Frozen breastmilk does take longer to thaw but its not a deal breaker for me. As long as moms provide enough clean bottles and milk in whatever form for the day, I dont care what they bring. If baby is happy, taking a bottle well, on a predictable schedule, its all the same for me.