Sunday, May 11, 2014

Day 1: My Top 5 Reasons to Take the Flats and Handwashing Challenge

 
This is the first year that I will be participating in the flats and hand washing challenge hosted by Dirty Diaper Laundry. Leading up to the challenge I have had very mixed emotion.  One on hand I am terrified that I won’t be able to keep up or finish, on the other hand I love a good challenge.  There are many reasons that I decided to participate this year but here are the 5 biggest reasons that I will be taking “the Challenge”.
Can I do it?
One of the biggest reasons that I wanted to participate this year is just to challenge myself and see if I can do it.  I love to test myself and put myself out there to try new things.  I always figure that if I can do it anyone can do it, so hopefully my success will inspire others as well.
Hand washing as a working mother
I am a mother of two young girls and I also work “part time” (30 hours a week) so a big part of my interest in taking on the challenge is seeing if a working mother can handwash diapers.  I always tell people when promoting cloth diapers that the washing isn’t very difficult so I am curious how I will feel about handwashing and keeping up with my busy schedule.
I’m spoiled!
I realize this isn’t the most flattering thing to call yourself but the reality is that when it comes to cloth diapers I am spoiled.  I love to buy new diapers and thankfully my husband enables supports my addiction so I have quite a few diapers in my normal stash.  I wash every other day but sometimes don’t even fold my diapers and put them away until a weeks’ worth have accumulated. Cost savings is not one of the reason that I cloth diaper, it’s just a side benefit, so I wanted to better understand the perspective of a lot of cloth diapers users that have a minimalist stash.
I have never used flats before
I have pretty much every diaper style out there in the past year with the exception of flats, so I was really curious just to try them.  I started about a month early so that I could also do my diaper trial on the flats I will be using (results to be posted later this week) and I am surprised how much I really like them, especially for night.
Spread awareness
I am always surprised how little awareness there is for cloth diapers when it comes to diaper shortages for low income families.  I want people to know that there are other options and that you can provider better diapers for your child for very little money.  If just one family decides to cloth diaper because of my involvement in this Challenge I will consider it a huge success!
 
I hope everyone is excited as I am to try out flats and experience hand washing this week.  I appreciate your support this week and I hope you enjoy my posts.
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2 comments:

  1. Hi Colleen,

    I'd like to connect with you about doing a possible book review and/or taking part in a give away that I'll be doing this month (June 2014)

    All the best,

    Amy

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    Replies
    1. Hi Amy, please email me at naturallycraftymom@gmail.com

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