I just finished filming a video on my new diaper stash today. Then I sit down to discover that this was also the topic of today’s eco-challenge revisit.

Last year, I made resolutions to use cloth diaper wipes and to try to get my younger son outfitted in a cloth diaper as often as I could with my remaining stash. I figured that potty training was pretty imminent for both boys. I also didn’t know we were going to have another baby.

The overall effect of these resolutions were pretty minimal. I ended up laundering wipes and taking bag after bag of diapers to the garbage can. There’s just no going zero waste as a parent of small children without coming to terms with this issue.

So, a year later, my oldest son is wearing underwear to pre-school and having at least one landfill diaper a day for bedtime. We’re trying to keep him in underwear, but he has frequent accidents and sometimes we just give in to his lack of attention by outfitting him with a landfill diaper. We’ve introduced a “potty watch” to remind him to go to the bathroom.

My second born tends to wear landfill diapers all day long and at night. We use cloth wipes for bum cleaning and he experiments with the potty.

Going Forward

Since we had to renew our supply in anticipation for our incoming baby, I’ve decided to outfit my second born in the new cloth diapers day and night. He might be done with diapers in 9 month’s time. Maybe. If not, I would guess that getting the older boys nighttime diapers will complete the cloth picture.

I anticipate a complete switch to cloth by the end of this month with much more underwear and pottying practice. The only exception would be a landfill diaper for my eldest at night and, if the new diaper laundry detergent can work its magic, we might be able to resurrect some of the old Bumgenius diapers for night time use.

So, I’m much happier with this zero waste resolution now. How about you? Did you dodge the diaper bullet in your zero waste journey? How do you answer the waste issue if you have kids? Let me know in the comments below!