Six Milestones Only Cloth Diaper Moms Understand

Every time your baby reaches a new milestone, you’re going to snap a picture. These are the moments to cherish. Write down the date of their first smile that was definitely unrelated to gas, capture that first roll over on video, and don’t forget to send pictures of baby’s first solid food off to the grandparents. If your baby is in cloth diapers, there’s a whole bunch of other milestones you’re going to quietly celebrate along the way. Perhaps you’ll honour these occasions with an early morning high five with your partner, or a silent fist pump so as not to wake the baby, but no matter how you celebrate it, just know that you will. These milestones are just a little bit different than the milestones you’ll read about in those monthly update emails about your baby’s development. If you’re lucky enough to have some cloth diapering friends, these are the milestones you’ll text each other about or discuss at length over coffee while the babies play together. But trust me when I say that your non-cloth diapering friends are going think you’re just a little off your rocker if you share the news about these milestones. 

1. Baby’s first cloth diaper. There’s nothing cuter than baby’s first fluffy bum! Whether you’re starting cloth diapers right from birth or you’re waiting until baby is big enough for one size diapers, that very first cloth diaper on the bum is a moment to celebrate! You may not be sure you’ve even got it on right, but you’ll take a photo for the memory book. You’ll probably also post it in an online cloth diapering group later that day to have some of the cloth diaper pros double check that fit.

2. Finding the perfect overnight combo. For cloth diapering moms, this is a big one! Overnight cloth diapering can seem so overwhelming. Suddenly you’re hoping a cloth diaper will last leak free the whole night through. Can it be done? Is this some mythical milestone never to be reached? Oh it can be done! With a little trial and error, you will come up with the perfect overnight cloth diaper combination. Maybe it’s a fitted with a wool cover, or maybe it’s a pocket diaper stuffed with a special combination of hemp and bamboo. No matter what it is, when your baby wakes up leak free after 12+ hours of sleep, you’re going to want to text someone to share the news.

3. Moving to the next rise setting. This is one of those bittersweet milestones. Yes, you get to unsnap that rise to make the diaper a little bigger, but that also means your sweet precious tiny bundle of joy is growing. Gosh darnit, can’t they just stay itty bitty and squishy forever? No, no they cannot. But moving to the next rise setting is a big moment. I remember texting my dear cloth diapering BFF when Petit Prince moved up a rise in his Funky Fluff Lux diapers. It was such a thrill to see how it changed the fit and the position of those hip snaps. I wish I was joking. Incidentally, when I took that crazy stash shot last week, I had almost all the diapers out because it was time to adjust the rise on most of them. A bittersweet moment for sure!

4. Plopable poop. Yup. This is absolutely, unequivocally, one of the GREATEST milestones in cloth diapering. You may only dream of this moment while you’re in the thick of the peanut butter poop phase, but when it finally happens you’ll be overjoyed. The first time you go to spray off a baby poop into the toilet only to discover that it simply rolls off the diaper without leaving any chunks behind is a BIG MOMENT. This is a pick up the phone and call your cloth diapering friends moment for sure. Do yourself a favour and don’t pack up that diaper sprayer and Spray Pal shield to sell off just yet… That first plopable poop may not be here to stay, so it’s a good idea to keep that sprayer kicking around for a little while yet.

5. Finally getting your unicorn diaper. What on earth is a unicorn diaper? Dude. A unicorn diaper is that special diaper that got away. The one you should have ordered, but didn’t, and now you wish you had but it’s sold out everywhere and it’s never ever going to be re-released again. There are a few diapers out there that are full fledged unicorn diapers. Two that spring to mind are AppleCheeks’ Samoa and BumGenius Jules (but not the FreeTime since that one’s been re-released). Maybe your unicorn diaper isn’t quite so coveted on the cloth diaper black market buy sell trade pages. Regardless of what it is, almost every cloth diapering mama has a unicorn diaper. My unicorn is/was BumGenius Jules 4.0. I remember it being available to pre-order from my local cloth diaper retailer. The Heir was just a few months away from potty training, and I knew it. My sister was expecting, but she hadn’t decided whether she’d be cloth diapering or not. I thought about ordering her a couple of them just because they were so cute, but then I didn’t want to seem like I was pushing her to cloth diaper her baby. So I passed on Jules. I know, right? I never stopped thinking about that beautiful diaper and dreamt of getting my hands on one some day. Then it happened. The perfect trade came up and I happened to have some diapers in my stash that the owner of an EUC (that’s excellent used condition) Jules 4.0 with a trifecta bum desperately wanted. The day it arrived in the mail my heart skipped a beat as I opened it and clutched it in my hands. It was finally mine!

6. When you convert a friend. Cloth diapering, in case you couldn’t tell, is kind of like a cult. There’s this old saying about cloth diapering: “How do you know someone uses cloth diapers? Don’t worry, she’ll tell you”. Discovering that someone you just met also cloth diapers her baby is like a one way ticket to best friends-ville. Suddenly you have SO MUCH IN COMMON with this other person and you obviously need to start hanging out all of the time. Even better than that is when a pregnant (or new mom) friend tells you they want to try cloth diapers. Our instinct is always to share ALL THE THINGS we know and love about cloth diapering, but we take it down a peg. We will consult with our other cloth diapering friends about how we can approach this slowly and carefully so as not to frighten the interested friend away. All we want to do is share as much information as possible, but we are very aware that this can seem very overwhelming at first. If you successfully convert a friend to the dark side, then you have reached the pinnacle of cloth diapering milestones. Pat yourself on the back, my friend, because you’ve done it!

There you have it! Six cloth diapering milestones only your fellow cloth diapering mamas will understand! Which of these milestones have you reached in your cloth diapering journey so far? What milestones would you add to this list?