Look at Me, I’m Diaper Free!
From MSNBC, I learned that there are parents out there who are potty training their children without diapers, sometimes from birth.
Hold on, I need to get some aspirin, because the mere thought of doing something like that gives me a headache.
These parents believe that the benefits to being diaperless are numerous, among them the fact that they do not impact the earth with disposable diapers, who admittedly have a less than desirable half-life. I can totally get behind that. But I want to shake them and say, “Have you never heard of cloth diapers?” This is crunchy, but with a capital K. They claim to be inspired by other countries and continents, such as Africa, where it is wrongly assumed that diaperless babies are the norm.
I don’t know, maybe I was just a lazy mom, because some days between the lack of sleep and my son’s colic, it was all I could do to go through the zombie-like motions, much less watch my child like a hawk to see if he was going #1 or heaven forbid, #2 without a diaper. I practiced attachment parenting, but this is taking it to an entirely new, and frankly crazy, level.
I was reading the article, attempting to keep my snorts of disbelief to myself, when I reached this last section:
Isis Arnesen, 33, of Boston, has a 14-week-old daughter, Lucia, who is diaper-free. She said it can be awkward to explain the process to people, such as when she helped Lucia relieve herself in a sink at a public restroom.
“Sometimes I don’t know what’s gonna happen and it doesn’t work, and sometimes I feel a little embarrassed,” Arnesen said. “It makes her happy though, right? She smiles, she’s happy.”
Did that say what I thought it said? Ms. Arnesen held her infant over a public sink? Were the toilets in the restroom non-functional? When is it ever ok for anybody to relieve themselves in a public sink? Unless homegirl travels around with anti-bacterial wipes and scrubs down every sink her daughter uses as a toilet, I am not ok with that.
My friends, this is example #45 on “how not to win people over to your cause.”
And of course her daughter is happy, she’s only 14 weeks old! I highly doubt that if Ms. Arnesen were to switch to diapers, her daughter would all of a sudden become a morose, sullen child who refused to play peek-a-boo.
Methinks these people just might have a little too much time on their hands.
That gives me a headache too! No thanks!
I read about this as well, and I think the sink thing threw me into a short coma. WAY too self-centered, WAY too gross. Somehow, I think anyone who raises their child to believe that it is OK for them to relieve themselves in a public sink, where people wash their hands and perhaps BRUSH THEIR TEETH, just because it ‘makes them happy’, is going to raise a child with a HUGE sense of entitlement. UGH.
I suspect they interviewed the wrong person, though, and not all parents who are trying this method are THAT insensitive and clueless. I hope.
I’m never washing my face in a sink again.
The sink thing is just gross!
I have heard about this before but ever even considered it for a second. The mess would be just too much for me. If you are washing gross clothing from accidents all the time then how it that more environmentally friendly than cloth diapers? It isn’t at all. There are a lot of nutty people out there.
Ewwww…the sink thing is really, really gross and just plain unsanitary! I have read about this before, and there is no way it would ever be for me. To each his own, until you start letting your kid go in the sink! Again, EWW!
I’m super lazy, too, but I do this with my son, kind of, and it’s not gross the way I do it. I have him in diapers all the time, and I DON’T take him to the sink which is gross and rude (hello diaper-free people–it is rude to let your child pee in public!!!), but, everyday at certain times, when I am changing his diaper anyway, i hold him over the toilet and if he has to go, he goes. He’s nine months now and I rarely have to change a poopy diaper, b/c almost all of his poopy goes in the toilet.
I’ve heard of this before. Maybe the writer’s intent was to turn people off of the movement, by having including that quote about letting her daughter potty in a sink. Sick.
Oh no. I wish I hadn’t read that. I too had heard about it but I’m sorry I would never try it. It’s just too much trouble. Will you ever have a second to even use the bathroom yourself, cook or take a shower knowing you’d have to keep a closer eye than you normally would on the baby? I mean could you imagine? No thanks. They could their Elimination Communication all to themselves
I agree with 100% with your assertions re: the unsanitary nature and pure, blitheful inconsideration exemplified by allowing one’s sprog to piss in a place where people wash their hands.
Two things, though: Africa is not a country, and not everyone who lives on the continent is poor.
I am not a mom. But I think I would rather contribute a few zillion more diapers to a landfill than deal with that.
Sonia- I’ll pass you the aspirin.
J- Yes, I wonder if the journalist was being a wee (ha) bit biased in printing that particular excerpt.
Rain- It certainly turns you off to sinks, doesn’t it?
AM- I had thought about that as well. I don’t see how it is any more friendly than cloth.
Steph- Exactly, do your thang, but not in the sink!
Elizabuffy- I could see doing that. Although I have a bad back, and it probably wouldn’t have worked for me.
AM- You read my mind!
Atasha- Exactly.
Republicrat- Duly noted and changed on the country issue, my apologies. As for everyone being poor, no. But, it is considered a Third World continent, so I will stick by that one.
Margaret- Are you sure? You might change your mind when you have a bairn of your own!
AAAAARRRGGGHHH! This is absolute BS – That is, Baby S, not Bull S. I can’t believe the utter ignorance of people who say things like – Africans don’t use diapers on their babies – what, do you think we walk around in a perpetual state of baby pee and poo-covered bliss? You may hear a lot of CNN-and BBC-fueled untruths about the reality of life in Africa (I’ll take this opportunity again to reiterate the fact that Africa is actually made up of over 46 individual, extremely different and distinct countries, not one big lump of continent), but the one thing I haven’t heard so far is that our babies make us stink because we don’t diaper them.
In many African countries, where parents can’t afford the ‘commercial’ diapers (more commonly termed as nappies,actually), cloth diapers are most commonly used. Everything from terry-cloth to plain cotton or our traditional fabrics, dedicated for that use and that use only, is used. Granted , there are a few war-torn countries where diapering babies will fall to the bottom of life’s necessities, but I bet you mothers in Western countries would rearrange their priorities if their county was at war too.
Bottom line – African mothers swaddle their babies bottoms one way or another, all things being equal!!
Sunflowery- Thank you for your firsthand information. Indeed, most of us rely on what we hear on the news for our information about Africa, myself included.
I certainly do not think you “walk around in a perpetual state of baby-pee and poo-covered bliss.”
However, it would be my assumption (and that of the diaper-free movement) that access to diapers/nappies and the associated products would be limited.
Thank you for correcting that assumption.
And apparently, most everyone is now agreed that non-diapered babies are NOT the norm. This is an excellent thing.
Thanks Glinda! And since I have now stepped down from my soapbox, I appreciate your posting a response! Without putting too fine a point on it however, African women are very, very proud and in most countries, an un-covered baby (unless in mid-change or you have a tyke whose speed in getting away from me would rival any Formula 1 drivers’, like my sister’s baby!) would most definitely be looked at askance by other mothers…you might be offered the head-wrap off another woman’s head just to swaddle your baby up in!
Sunflowery- I apologize for any offense I may have given. I was attempting, albeit awkwardly and factually incorrectly, to say that if any one in Africa does not diaper their babies, it is not necessarily a CHOICE, it would be out of necessity.
I also went ahead and changed the entry as well. I would hate to have left it and had something incorrect.
Thank you, Glinda… Manolo’s internet team is clearly as gracious as he is…