This was on my mind the other day and I thought I'd share.
Years ago, when my oldest was 3 and my DD#2 was only 3 months old, we spent the summer in Syria. My husband delegated a friend to find a temporary rental apartment for us to stay in. Well, that friend goofed. He rented us an apartment with no washing machine. We didn't have the money to go out and buy one just to use for 3 months, so thus began my 3 months of hand-washing ALL of our laundry including the cloth diapers.
I could have easily gone to disposables I guess, but the smell of disposables just kills me. I am very sensitive to perfumes.
Not only did I have to hand-wash the laundry and the diapers, I had to do so in a 3-hour window that came only every 4 days (and occasionlly not at all... occasionally they "forgot" and didn't turn on the city water). The apartment was in an outer suburb of Damascus where water was in short supply so during the 4 days we had to use water out of a tank on the roof (filled when the municipal water was turned on) but it wasn't enough to wash with so all washing had to be done when the municipal water was on.
So I had to figure out how to keep the two little ones happy while I washed cloth diapers in a bucket in the bathtub, washed laundry in a filled bathtub later, and washed baby clothes in a pot in the kitchen sink.
I can honestly say it was really hard, but it was one of the best experiences of my life. I experimented and eventually developed a best method that used the least amount of water, took the least amount of time, and got the diapers as clean as possible. Of course I got to dry them in direct sunlight.
I think about this experience every time I wash diapers. I just dump the things into the washing machine, pour in some soap and return to the laundry room a few times to push a button and turn it on for an extra rinse. I am so grateful for that.
Can you imagine how people washed their cloth diapers all the time in the old days?! My MIL used to boil them in a big pot over a flame! In fact the first time we went to Syria when my oldest was a baby she did this for us when we were there for only a month. She had a thing that looked like a giant coffee can and boiled it over a little camp stove over a propane tank in her apartment.
Anyway, I was curious if anyone else has ever had this experience and can possibly relate or at the very least I figured if you are struggling with the need to wash your cloth dipes, this story might help you feel a little better about it.
Years ago, when my oldest was 3 and my DD#2 was only 3 months old, we spent the summer in Syria. My husband delegated a friend to find a temporary rental apartment for us to stay in. Well, that friend goofed. He rented us an apartment with no washing machine. We didn't have the money to go out and buy one just to use for 3 months, so thus began my 3 months of hand-washing ALL of our laundry including the cloth diapers.
I could have easily gone to disposables I guess, but the smell of disposables just kills me. I am very sensitive to perfumes.
Not only did I have to hand-wash the laundry and the diapers, I had to do so in a 3-hour window that came only every 4 days (and occasionlly not at all... occasionally they "forgot" and didn't turn on the city water). The apartment was in an outer suburb of Damascus where water was in short supply so during the 4 days we had to use water out of a tank on the roof (filled when the municipal water was turned on) but it wasn't enough to wash with so all washing had to be done when the municipal water was on.
So I had to figure out how to keep the two little ones happy while I washed cloth diapers in a bucket in the bathtub, washed laundry in a filled bathtub later, and washed baby clothes in a pot in the kitchen sink.
I can honestly say it was really hard, but it was one of the best experiences of my life. I experimented and eventually developed a best method that used the least amount of water, took the least amount of time, and got the diapers as clean as possible. Of course I got to dry them in direct sunlight.
I think about this experience every time I wash diapers. I just dump the things into the washing machine, pour in some soap and return to the laundry room a few times to push a button and turn it on for an extra rinse. I am so grateful for that.
Can you imagine how people washed their cloth diapers all the time in the old days?! My MIL used to boil them in a big pot over a flame! In fact the first time we went to Syria when my oldest was a baby she did this for us when we were there for only a month. She had a thing that looked like a giant coffee can and boiled it over a little camp stove over a propane tank in her apartment.
Anyway, I was curious if anyone else has ever had this experience and can possibly relate or at the very least I figured if you are struggling with the need to wash your cloth dipes, this story might help you feel a little better about it.
