Diapering-related (and business) simplification, etc!

[3inclothdiapers]

I figured I might be able to get some good advice on this board about getting organized and simplified, even though it is mainly about cloth-diapering and my cloth diapers/soap business.

Here's my dilemna- I cloth-diaper 2 of my children, and have a terrible time making up my mind which "system" is best. I buy a bunch of something, then only a couple of months later decide I want something else. I think a lot of it is the desire to have something new, and also to receive packages! I end up with a bunch of hodge-podge, which drives me crazy. I'm sure I've wasted a lot of money too, though fortunately the resale value of diapers is high enough that I've still come out WAY ahead of using disposables.

In addition to the hodge-podge, I find that I am WASTING SO MUCH TIME just browsing the internet, looking at diapers I can't afford to buy. I am at the trading post and ebay a lot too. There's always a deal on something, and I find myself buying because I convince myself I won't find a good deal like that again. Then I go find something I already own to sell to make up for it (and usually don't end up being able to totally make up for it).

Partly because of my guilt over the over-spending, and partly because of an ongoing fantasy to own my own web-based business, I started a website, got registered with my county and state, bought a snap press, etc. I already make soap and other stuff (the supplies for which I also spent way too much time and money on...) so the site mainly has soap/lotion/lip balm on it right now, with a few diapers. No one has bought anything yet, so the excitement over having my own business has worn off. And I'm finding myself preferring to play on the internet rather than sew.

Because of the business and because of my addiction to cute fabric in general, I have a HUGE pile of fabric just waiting to be made into diapers and clothes and other stuff. And yet I don't take the time to actually do it.

Here's the issues I need to figure out:
Do I try to simplify the diapering stash, even though I've tried that before, and ended up caving and buying a bunch of new stuff a few months later?
Do I continue paying for a website that isn't generating any income?
On the same note, do I stress over trying to sew perfect diapers for a website where no one is shopping?

Should I:
Sew up all the diaper fabric I've got left, and if no one comes to my site, take the dipes to ebay?
Forget about the snapping stuff and go ahead and sell the snap press after I'm done making the diapers? (Fortunately snap presses have great resale value).
Stop spending so much time online and spend that time with my children???

I can't help but thinking, if I were using disposable diapers, there would be one option. I wouldn't be spending so much time WASTING time thinking about the perfect inserts for the pocket diapers I ordered. Or trying to figure out what covers I should try. Or whatever. I literally think about all this stuff constantly!!! I don't want to switch to disposables. I can't afford that, plus I love cloth.

anyone out there in even a slightly similar situation?????

Well, even if not, thanks for letting me ramble..... I'm so VERY annoyed at myself and all the time I waste. When I first started cloth diapering I used flats, pins, and pull-on covers. They weren't cutting it absorbency-wise, so I had to do something, but I really should not have spent so much time and money figuring out something different!

[Ruthla]

I can sort of relate- I've got the fabrics, snap press, and website, but nobody's in diapers anymore. : I was actually dissapointed that ds doesn't wet the bed!!

Honestly, I would have been better off just sewing some diapers for ds and leaving it at that. Of course, having a diaper business gives me an excuse to think about cloth diapers even though ds is using the potty!

Can I admit that part of me is saying "Sell the fabrics to MEEEEEE" even though I'm totally broke right now and my kids need clothes and I already have more fabric than I can use right now!!

How about simplifying your diaper stash, and rather than selling what you aren't currently using, put it in a box in the basement/attic/storage room? Then, a few months from now, you can unpack the box and have a box of "new" diapers!

[srain]

I think you need to decide if you want to make a true go at the business. I get the impression that you don't really want to do the marketing and potentially years of customer-base-building to make it a real income stream- and there's nothing wrong with changing your mind! If you want to keep the business, you'll probably need to run it differently. If you don't want to keep the business, that helps make your decisions about what to do with the business-related stuff.

[mykdsmomy]

Ohhhh that's a tough one. I found myself spending waaaayyyyy too much time on the diapering board and other sites so I'm taking a break right now and am using sposies :
I have two in diapers too and I was getting overwhelmed....I was spending more time washing diapers and surfing the net then spending time with them......I can buy sposies cheap with coupons or at Costco and it's worth it to me.....HOWEVER......this is only a break for me and I know i'll go back to cloth when I'm ready.....also when I do go back, I'll use a VERY BASIC system....prefolds or flats and maybe nylon pants.....it seemed to work well for ds's. HTH.....and good luck......

[3inclothdiapers]

Here's what I'm going to do:
Simplify the diaper stash by going to all prefitteds (I'll keep a couple of pockets for the diaper bag though). It's a good compromise between prefolds and more expensive options.
Simplify my life by canning the whole business idea (other than selling soap to family/friends if they ask, but not through a website).
Earn back some of that money to pay for the prefitteds by selling the snap press, the knitting stuff I've decided not to use, fabric, and diapers that we aren't going to use.
STOP playing on the internet so much!!!! Once I get this stuff sold I'm going to stop logging on so much.

Thanks for your responses.