My Cloth Diapers Daycare Story

Cloth diapering is wonderful in so many ways.  I use them on my baby everyday!  They are simple to use, more healthy for my baby's delicate bum, environmentally friendly, and save me a ton of money!  Below is my story about cloth diapers and my daycare center in NH when I attempted to use cloth diapers for my daughter at daycare.  I hope this story will not discourage you from using cloth for your baby, it is written with the intention that you will help support cloth diapering community.

My baby girl was born in May 2007.  I made the decision early on to use cloth diapers for her.  I also decided I wanted her to be in a formal daycare environment rather than a private in-home daycare.  The first three months of using cloth diapers while I was on maternity leave went great for both me and my baby.

Our conflict began when I enrolled her in daycare.  Keep in mind there are only two daycares within a 20 minute drive of my house, not many options.  When I asked about using cloth diapers one daycare replied that per their company policy which is based on rules given to them by the state of NH, they would only accept us into the program using cloth diapers if we laundered them with a proffessional cloth diaper service due to sanitary reasons.  I searched high and low trying to find a company that would launder the cloth diapers for me with no success.  My search included the entire state of NH, I was willing to drive an hour once a week so my baby could wear cloth, now if thats not dedication I dont know what is, but again my search efforts came up empty.  I have yet to this day been able to find one anywhere in the entire state of NH.  So I called my daycare back explaining that there are none and asked if they would make an exception considering the situation.  I even explained that I had purchased a new front loading washing machine that has a sanitary cycle heating up the water to extremely high temperatures of (x degrees), but even so they still refused to allow my cloth diapers at their daycare.  

I then decided to contact the State of NH to see if I could get a copy of their policy regarding cloth diapers and daycares in writing.  I made several calls to the people at the State that oversee daycare licensing in NH, each time being transferred to someone else.  Nobody was able to provide me with this information. 

Im not going to give up on my efforts to encourage cloth diapering at daycares in NH.  In the meantime I returned to work full time and had no choice but to enroll my daughter at the daycare anyways.  She wears disposables at daycare and continues to wear cloth when she is home and on weekends. 

If you want to share you cloth diapers daycare story please email us at info@mybabyfirst.com with "cloth diapers daycare" as your subject line.  We would love to hear & share some of your success stories regarding daycare and cloth diapers.

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