Surviving cloth diapers with giant pins

Jazzy1

Jazzy1

I Is A Turkey
Location
NY/Vermont Border
shopping

How many of you got "pricked" while using these?
 

I remember those pins well. When my daughter was a baby, we had a diaper service that brought 90 diapers once a week and collected the old ones which we had to rinse out. If you can believe it, the cost of their service at that time was $3.15 / week. How they made any money remains a mystery.
 

Pushed those pins thru with my right hand so my left hand guarding against sticking my son with a pin took the pain. Then there was that blue chemical to soak the diapers in before washing, stinky but I guess needed. Not all fun living on my Navy pay at the time so washing then drying on a line was how we saved money, not a happy time in winter when they froze but eventually dried.
 
I used those pins on my baby, but never managed to prick myself or him. The painful part, for me, was washing those diapers in the bath tub because I didn't have a washer. It was a backbreaking job, even for a young healthy back. I would then hang them on the line behind the house and pray the wind wouldn't come up because they were just spread over the line. I didn't have any clothes pins.
 
I remember the early disposable diapers. They were awful, but better than cloth when you were on a trip or out for the day.

Word would get out that a shipment of disposable diapers had come into the Afex (Armed Forces Exchange). Store would open at 9 and there would be a line of women pushing strollers outside the door at 6. Since everyone could only get ONE box, you'd beg your baby-less friends to come along to buy a box.
 
jujube said:
I remember the early disposable diapers. They were awful, but better than cloth when you were on a trip or out for the day.

Word would get out that a shipment of disposable diapers had come into the Afex (Armed Forces Exchange). Store would open at 9 and there would be a line of women pushing strollers outside the door at 6. Since everyone could only get ONE box, you'd beg your baby-less friends to come along to buy a box.
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it was called the NAAFI on the naval base.. but I never bought nappies from there, always bought from the supermarket... this was 49 years ago...

the worst place I ever changed her in public was on a train station bench..

Her and me were travelling from the far end of the west country, all the way up to Scotland, and the train was packed with soldiers...

On the first leg which was 5 hours long. I had to stand in the aisle.. holding my 18 month old.....not one person offered me a seat,,

When it came to changing trains at Birmingham, I had to struggle with pushchair, suitcases, and heavy baby... and climb up a huge flight of stairs.. to get over to another platform... fortunately one businessman getting off the same train helped...and carried my luggage and the pram

However when we got to the other platform I had to feed and change my baby right there on the station concourse bench..
 
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jujube said:
I remember the early disposable diapers. They were awful, but better than cloth when you were on a trip or out for the day.

Word would get out that a shipment of disposable diapers had come into the Afex (Armed Forces Exchange). Store would open at 9 and there would be a line of women pushing strollers outside the door at 6. Since everyone could only get ONE box, you'd beg your baby-less friends to come along to buy a box.
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My kids were born in the mid-80s and disposable diapers were pretty reliable by then. There were occasional blow-outs but nothing like friends using clothing diapers coped with. Until kids got well into the toddler stage, their poop is frequently the consistency of peanut butter. (With two GKs still in diapers, I know whereof I speak.)

I watched my mom and GM (who lived with us) deal with cloth diapers when my younger sister was born. What a mess, followed by the delightful chore of dunking poopy diapers in the toilet and scraping out what didn't slide out, washing them, hanging them to dry and boiling them, and dealing with "rubber pants." Not sure if the boiling was to disinfect or an attempt to get the stains out, or both. (What's cooking on the kitchen stove? Why it's diaper stew. Ga-ross.)

Damning the expense, I took a hard pass on cloth diapers when my kids came along.
 
hollydolly said:
it was called the NAAFI on the naval base.. but I never bought nappies from there, always bought from the supermarket... this was 49 years ago...

the worst place I ever changed her in public was on a train station bench..

Her and me were travelling from the far end of the west country, all the way up to Scoland, and the train was packed with soldiers...

On the first leg which was 5 hours long. I had to stand in the aisle.. holding my 18 month old.....not one person offered me a seat,,

When it came to changing trains at Birmingham, I had to struggle with pushchair, suitcases, and heavy baby... and climb up a huge flight of stairs.. to get over to another platform... fortunately one businessman getting off the same train helped...and carried my lugge and the pram

However when we got to the other platform I had to feed and change my baby right there on the station concourse bench..
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That part is the most shocking. No kidding.
 
StarSong said:
My kids were born in the mid-80s and disposable diapers were pretty reliable by then. There were occasional blow-outs but nothing like friends using clothing diapers coped with. Until kids got well into the toddler stage, their poop is frequently the consistency of peanut butter. (With two GKs still in diapers, I know whereof I speak.)

I watched my mom and GM (who lived with us) deal with cloth diapers when my younger sister was born. What a mess, followed by the delightful chore of dunking poopy diapers in the toilet and scraping out what didn't slide out, washing them, hanging them to dry and boiling them, and dealing with "rubber pants." Not sure if the boiling was to disinfect or an attempt to get the stains out, or both. (What's cooking on the kitchen stove? Why it's diaper stew. Ga-ross.)

Damning the expense, I took a hard pass on cloth diapers when my kids came along.
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I did the same watched as my baby sisters' nappies had to be soaked and washed and boiled in the boiler.. and all that carry on.. and the smell of the nappies soaking in the solution I can still remember to this day... Then trying to dry them when it almost inevitable rained or snowed.. ( she was born in December).. with no dryer.. and them having all over the house to dry... nope not for me.... lol
 
hollydolly said:
I did the same watched as my baby sisters' nappies had to be soaked and washed and boiled in the boiler.. and all that carry on.. and the smell of the nappies soaking in the solution I can still remember to this day... Then trying to dry them when it almost inevitable rained or snowed.. ( she was born in December).. with no dryer.. and them having all over the house to dry... nope not for me.... lol
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Remember when she-who-shall-not-be-named frequently waxed poetic about changing and washing cloth diapers? So bizarre.
 
My daughter was born in 1970 when we were living in Turkey. I had plenty of cloth diapers, rubber pants and, luckily, a washer and dryer. But those disposables really came in handy when we travelled or were going to be gone all day.

Unfortunately, the disposables (or at least the ones available in the AFEX) were essentially a flat piece of plastic with a pretty thin pad of absorbable material. There was very little shaping around the legs so a lot of *stuff* leaked out. It was still better than nothing.

My worst experience with disposables was when I first took her back to the states for a month-long visit to my family when she was four months old. Everything was fine until we landed at Kennedy and, as I had to gather up enough stuff to break the back of a camel, I was the last one off the plane. There was a huge line in immigration and customs and I was shuffling along, loaded down and pushing things along with my feet.

All of a sudden, she erupted from both ends. That disposable diaper and the spit-up cloth on my shoulder were sadly inadequate for the Vesuvial overflow. People stepped away like I had the plague (news flash: the plague would have smelled better).

Out of nowhere, two "suits" appeared with a cart, loaded everything up and escorted me through a door, depositing me in the terminal at a ladies' room. I bypassed immigration, customs, everything. Later I wondered if it was going to cause me problems when we went back to Turkey because our passports didn't show us entering the U.S. It didn't.... God bless whoever they were.

After that, I learned to "doctor" the disposables. Rip the innards out of one or two disposables and stuff it into another to put on her. That got me through a lot more traveling. We used the cloth diapers at home, of course.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
I'm sure I did at least once. I have some now. I ordered the kind that "lock" so that when I travel I can pin (whatever) in my pocket and not have to worry about losing it. They also come in handy when I've popped the waistband button and haven't taken time to sew it back on. :LOL:
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I've actually stuffed socks, etc. down in the arms of my coat and closed off the cuffs with safety pins when I've not been able to get everything in my carry-on. No matter how biiiig your coat is, they never check it out.
 
I’m sure I must have at some point, but it’s nothing compared to running a sewing machine needle through your finger!

Who remembers running the diaper pin through your hair to make it slide into the fabric easier? I still do that with my quilting pins.
 

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