I want to share this kind of relief that I have been feeling for two weeks since my youngest daughter left the diaper.
It is a strange feeling after seven and a half years (in a row) of changing and buying diapers. I can officially say that for us the diaper stage is over.
They say that now you start to enjoy a freer motherhood, but I don't think freedom happens by stopping changing diapers, at all. However, we will not deny that it is much more comfortable for them to go to the bathroom alone.
I will seem nostalgic, but I have been reflecting on my daughters' diaper life and I am excited like any other stage of their growth: the first and inexperienced diaper changes, the midnight light changes, the untimely leaks, the diaper changes in strange places ...
I have also noticed the skill that I have acquired in this time to change diapers. I hope that when the grandchildren come, in a few years, I will recover it again.
It is not for less, whatever we do systematically for several years will entitle us as experts. In this case: diaper change.
With my first newborn daughter I was a full-fledged first-time. I had hardly changed a diaper in my life, which meant that the task took me much longer than normal. Even after finishing, I would accommodate him again because he didn't quite convince me. And I always needed to have the whole kit on hand: changing table, diaper, wipes and creampie.
This has been greatly improving over the years as more and more diapers changed, also the obsession. The last diapers of my third daughter I have changed until standing.
Diaper spending
I have not been able to avoid making a "roughly" account of the diapers that I have changed since I was a mother and how much money we have been able to spend. I thought it was fun ... until I knew the result.
Seven and a half years = 2737 days. On average, we can say that I have changed five diapers a day, taking into account that small ones are changed more often and that the diapers of the two largest ones overlapped for ten months.
That of a result of 13,685 diapers changed in seven and a half years.
Which translated into money, if a Dodot diaper (which are the ones I've used) has an average cost of 0.30 cents the result is 4,105.50 euros. More than four thousand euros in diapers!
This without counting the wipes and creams for the culete, which I no longer want to make more accounts. And I still buy panties diapers, so the account is not closed.
Leave the diaper
Leaving the diaper is a very special stage, both for children and for parents, although it is not as problematic as is usually believed. At least I have always taken it without stress, which I think is the best way to help them in the process.
I had my doubts with Sofia, who is two and a half years old, since her sisters had left the diaper somewhat older, at two years and ten months. It seems not, but four months can make a difference.
But since every child is a world and lately he had been giving some signs of leaving it (“I also want to wear panties like the girls”), we talked about it and we decided it was a good time. Yes, we have decided together because it is something that should not be forced.
Even so, if he had not succeeded, he would have had no problem putting the diapers back on.
Anyway, there are still some leaks, as is normal. But I can proudly say that the diapers stage has been overcome.
Photos | surlygirl and CarbonNYC on Flickr In Babies and more | Tips to help you leave the diaper, Diaper operation v.2: sphincter control (I) and Diaper operation v.2: sphincter control (II)
