Hi @solarsupermama,
Been there, my own kiddo is now 28. But I remember those diaper years really really well.

We did cloth. We never used a service. We soaked them, rinsed them, then put them in the washing machine on hot-hot-hot setting. Yeah it was gross, those first steps of the process.

Later we went to plastic. After a while a couple just gets too exhausted and spread too thin and plastic is a convenient way to save a little time. That's when blurry-eyed mom and dad don't even give it a second though when they save so much time.

A lot of families in the US, even if they stay together, are doing it all alone -- with no extended family support. Such was our case. It was just the two of us.

And about all those cheap plastic toys. I hear you. That was our thinking too. A few toys, but of good quality. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out that way. Even little kids at an early age pick up on TV commercials. And they get mesmerized by that crap. Which battles do parents chose? Not that one. Like everyone else, we had so much plastic crap that you couldn't walk around at night barefoot.

Now that I think back, I'm not apologizing for any of it, even the plastic juice boxes when we could have easily filled a sippy bottle with the same juice. We did what we had to do to make it through those baby years, blurry-eyed n' all.

I hate to lay it on you like that, but that's the way it was. Now that she's all grown up, I can afford to live an environmentally conscious life. Keyword being "afford".

Joe
@joe.nobel
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