Monday, August 3, 2009

Cloth Diapers and Daycare

The Real Diaper Association (RDA) recently conducted a survey on the use of cloth diapers in the daycare setting. There were many parents that participated in the survey and the results varied greatly.

Many of you have heard of or experienced the difficulty in finding a daycare that would take a child in cloth. I have a local customer who's daycare does not allow cloth and another local customer that has found one that will use cloth. The daycare facility (that accepts cloth) only has a few requirements. One of the requirements are that they can only bring pocket diapers, already prepped with an insert and a pail liner that closes (she has a drawstring pail liner). Easy peasy for both parties involved.

I really don't understand the reservations that many daycare providers have concerning cloth....if they only knew what a blessing it is for the parents and the child-using cloth diapers are important to many families. I hope that through the education of daycare providers and advocates like the RDA, we will see more acceptance of cloth diapering families in daycare's and people in general!

Here is the link to the RDA's survey results.

I posted a survey of my own on the sidebar and would love to hear your experiences and comments as well.

6 comments:

mommybird said...

I'm a parent that uses cloth for my kids, but I also have a daycare facility in my home. I would gladly take any baby in cloth, in fact I would prefer it because I don't want the extra trash each week. I would prefer them to just take the dirty diapers home with them :)

Amber said...

My daycare happily took cloth. It's a major national chain and when they found they had a precedent at another facility it was no problem. I just had to bring in my own locking diaper pail. They were open to any style diaper. I picked prefolds and covers based on pricing and how many I had. After a learning curve (remember, make sure the diaper is entirely within the cover!) they're doing a pretty good job.

The only difficulty I have is when I forget to bring enough diapers. So I have an emergency stash of 'sposies there just in case.

I've tried to get them to do the cloth wipes, and that just hasn't been a battle worth fighting. :-)

Sarah Seidel said...

At first our daycare was really reluctant I think because they thought they would have to rinse them out. Once we explained that we would do all of that at home and they would just need to remember to put the used diaper in a bag instead of the trash then they were fine with it (I did have one dumpster diving day). The woman who was in the infant room when we had started was older and had used cloth for her kids "back in the day."

We did have a glitch when our DS moved up to the 2 year old room. They requested that we move to AOIs since they don't have a changing table in that room. So we bought some used AIOs off DiaperSwappers and it has been going great (the daycare even gave us a discounted rate for 2 months to help off set the cost!). Our DS does use a sposie during nap at daycare since the AIOs always seem to leak when he naps there, BUT the daycare did offer to just use their stock of extras for that, so we don't have to supply them.

We have been very pleased with their willingness to work with us!

Anonymous said...

My daycare refused to use cloth diapers, did not give a reason, jusy said they would not. They also refused to give my daughter organic milk at one year old, and that was the final straw. My daughter now attends a home care in which organic food and cloth diapers are considered a blessing, not an inconveiniance.

Melissa said...

The daycare I use is a university day care, nationally accredited, so it has to follow strict guidelines especially with normal disposible diapers, I was the first to ask to use cloth. I showed them how easy it was and told them they would not have to do anything special, just put it in the bag and I'd take it home every day. They said they will get a seperate can for me (they need to use a step trash can, it's the rules, they can't touch the can), and I provide the liner bag each day, they also have to put my cloth diaper bag in a plastic bag just in case it leaks (they have to it sucks but they do).

I prestuff pocket diapers and premake wipes and put them in a normal wipe container.

One thing I also did was got a prescription for cloth diapers from my pediatrition, she just put on a prescription pad "May use cloth diapers" reason: sensitive skin, and they keep it on file just in case there were concerned parents or such about hygeine, so there's a tip!

The Morris Family said...

I leave my baby in a Montessori school that REQUIRES cloth diapers. They use a service, so I don't even have to supply or wash them! Desert Shaddows Montessori is in Mesa, AZ (hope you don't mind the name dropping!)ww.dsmontessori.com