The thread – When I’m 64, and other reminders that you are old, gave me the idea for this topic.
Okay Dopers, who all remembers the days of old-fashioned cloth diapers?
Holding my hand up high in the air!
Raised my kids in them (1980’s/90’s)… changed hundreds as a babysitter (1970’s)!
I remember them, briefly. We tried cloth with our son, back in the late 80s/early 90s. For about a month. But it was such a mess that we decided “screw the environment if it means we have to deal less with baby poop” and went disposable.
When running on three hours sleep for the fourth night running, I just couldn’t handle the bins and the pins and the pants. Sorry, Mother Nature, but you could float a battleship in this diaper and it’s 3am and I need to get to work in the morning.
Regards,
Shodan
We did cloth just a few years ago. (Two daughter, 6 and 4). There’s really good options now that it’s really not that big of a deal. With the eldest, we did the cloth diapers with the – they weren’t pins but rather some kind of clips – you know, like the kind you get with ACE bandages? With the younger one, we had transitioned into those washable diapers with the cloth inserts.
Don’t know what rubber pants are, though.
They keep the bedsheets/furniture/outer clothing from getting wet when the urine/mess soaks through the diaper. I don’t remember being in diapers, but when my brother was born, I remember my mom putting cloth diapers (with safety pins) and rubber pants on him.
Edit: Rubber pants.
Oh, yeah, we had some kind of diaper covers. They weren’t rubber, though, but seem to have fulfilled the same function as what you have in your link.
Being a stay-at-home mom was challenging enough for me, I can’t imagine having to work (outside the home) on top of being parent.
Waterproof panties I used were soft vinyl-plastic and had stretchy elastics around the leg holes and waistband.
My baby siblings wore cloth diapers and my mom used pull-on waterproof panties with them, and she always called them “rubber pants”.
Same when I used to babysit… moms called them “rubber pants”.
The lil’wrekker had cloth diapers with velcro closures. '98-'99
She was allergic to all disposables.
She potty trained early, thank heaven.
Yep, diapers were no fun, unfortunately, I had three out of the bunch who were late trainers. Many articles claim kids train earlier when cloth diapers are used, but such was not the case with my kids.
My youngest sisters were born in '61 and '65, so I’m well familiar with cloth diapers and plastic pants. I wanted to use them with my daughter, but I worked full time and the day care required disposables unless your doctor ordered otherwise.
However, my daughter uses products like thesewith her daughter, and they’re almost as simple as disposables to use. OK, a poopy diaper is a bit of a challenge, but it’s no worse than what I dealt with when helping with my sisters way back when.
You, too, huh! 
Same… helped my mom with the care of baby siblings who were born in 1968, 1971, and 1973, and I put in untold hours stopped over the lowered railings of their cribs changing their cloth diapers and rubber pants.
It was always cloth diapers and rubber pants when I babysat, too.
I can’t believe how much cloth diapers have changed! They’ve really grown-up.
I am aware of them because I apparently wore them as an infant/toddler in the early 1980s, but I guess I can’t say I actually remember them. Well, I remember them in the sense we still had the cloth diapers and those big diaper pins around the house – the cloth diapers got repurposed as rags and the pins just as general purpose pins. But I can’t remember anyone actually wearing them. As far as I remember my parents switched to disposable diapers when my sister was born in 1983.
Absolutely, old-fashioned leftover diapers made for the best dusting and wiping cloths!
Youngest is 27, and I’m still using leftover diapers from his baby days!
My daughters were born in 1990 and 1991 - both wore cloth diapers exclusively and I actually prefer them over the disposable ones. Back then it wasn’t an environmental concern for us, but a financial one. For less than the cost of disposables we had a diaper service that provided clean diapers every week along with a container with lid and deodorizer to collect the soiled ones. No additional work on our part - remove dirty diaper and throw it in the container, no rinsing or anything.
We used those cloth diapers for everything - burping the baby, underneath the baby when changing, even polishing the car every now and then. They always sent more diapers than we needed.
Also, I’m not sure if this was because of the cloth diapers or not, but I swear it encouraged my daughters to potty train much earlier than the kids with the disposables. One daughter was done with diapers at 18 months, the other one at 23 months. Some of my friends currently have small children that are 3 and 4 years old still wearing diapers - changing a 4 year old doesn’t sound like any fun to me! So, if the minor inconvenience of cloth diapers saved me from the mess and expense of an additional 2 years of changing diapers, I’ll take that every time.
Cloth diapers exclusively in our house, too, when my kids were little. Clean fresh diapers on-hand around the clock, no running out, no emergency trips to the store, traditional.
No diaper service in our house, just old-fashioned home-laundered diapers washed in the washing machine and hung out on the clothesline to dry, and you are so right, cloth diapers pulled double-duty when it came to spills, messes, and worked super even as bibs!
You did well in the early training department. As for mine, not so, but those old-fashioned cloth diapers made for uber-economical diapering, so I never placed a lot of emphasis on toilet training. Rubber pants were only thing I needed to buy from time-to-time, otherwise, a little laundry detergent and natural sunlight took care of the rest.
Been there – done that. NOT fun.
I could only vaguely remember how cloth diapers worked, and I couldn’t get cloth like I remembered. So…
When you had poo on the diapers, what did you do? Did you rinse? If so, where and how?
Had lots of square bits of cloth of various types. Every house with a baby needs lots of that, and actually harder to find in shops now that they aren’t used as diapers. Gift suggestion: new babies need cloth diapers, even when not worn as a diaper.
My parents tried a couple different diaper services when my brother and I were babies but we both turned out to be super allergic to whatever they washed the diapers with so they mostly used disposables after we developed oozy blisters (we had the stereotypical fragile skin associated with redheaded babies, unfortunately). Yet I’m familiar with plastic pants and even have memories of holding some as a little kid…I think our babysitter used them with a couple of toddlers she also took care of.
Old-fashioned cloth diapers really were king, weren’t they!
Once the baby/child was changed, I’d take the dirty diaper to the bathroom, and while holding onto the diaper tightly, I’d flush the toilet and dunk the diaper up and down in the swirling water to rinse the poop out, then I’d give the diaper a quick wring, and into the plastic diaper pail it would go.
For extra soiled diapers, I’d set the diaper down inside the toilet bowl to soak for a while before rinsing.
On diaper-wash day (every 2-3 days), diaper pail was carried downstairs to the basement, pail was dumped directly into the washing machine (old-fashioned top-loader), a quick spin was done to excrete any excess wetness from the diapers, then I’d select the cycle for washing diapers (hottest water available), add in a little detergent, press the selector button, and close the lid.
When wash cycle was complete, diapers were pulled from the washing machine, put into a basket, and walked out back where I’d hang them on the outdoor clothesline to dry. Rubber pants were hung on the line with the diapers.
On warm days, diapers were often dry in an hour. Dry diapers were pulled down from the line, folded, stacked, and the process started again… changing, rinsing, into the pail till laundry day.
I agree, lots of cloth wipes and/or diapers to use with baby, even if not used as diapers per se.
That happens. Thankfully my kids were good in cloth, and aside from an occasional diaper rash every now and then, which is almost guaranteed to happen regardless of what kind of diapers are used, my kids seemed comfortable in cloth.
Oh yes, good ole plastic pants, the way of the day – back in the day. I used them around the clock, 24/7.
Yuppers… I’d guarantee your babysitter dealt with plastic pants regularly. I know I did when I used to babysit. Double diapers with rubber pants was the norm.