If you’re lucky, your child will make a seamless transition from full-time diapers to full-time underwear.  That said, it’s pretty common for most kids to phase the diapers out gradually: at first they cut down during the day, then they’re “day trained,” and then–sometimes years later (according to my sources)–they stop needing diapers for naps and overnights.

We are in one of these transitional phases now.  While my daughter does not need a diaper while she’s awake, she still wears one while she sleeps.   I’ve been using cloth diapers since she was born and never want to buy another pack of disposables again, so I’m continuing with cloth diapers even now that I have much less diaper laundry to do.  This leaves me with a diaper conundrum:

If I wash my diapers just as frequently as before–that is to say, every three or four days–I’ll be wasting a lot of water and energy on partial loads.

But!

If I wait until I have a full load of diapers, I’ll be letting wet diapers fester in the diaper pail for almost three weeks.

So what is a water conservationist who does not want to smell a three-week-old diaper pail to do?  My solution was simple, though it may gross some clean freaks out a bit: I wash a small load of diapers every week.   I feel comfortable washing them this infrequently because they are always just wet diapers–no dirty diapers now that she’s day trained.  Because I have so few diapers even after a week, I hang them to dry.  I could never do this before Audrey became day trained because I couldn’t wait for several days for her diapers to dry on the rack during Oregon’s drizzly months.   Now I have so many spare diapers that I can afford to wait.

One day I will no longer need to wash any diapers, but until then, I’ll stick with my once-a-week method.  This compromise should please both my inner tree hugger and inner clean freak.